He gave her a long look, as if to say it was about time she gave concern to her father.

"He is fine," he said, addressing everyone in the room. "Methinks he will awaken soon." In an undertone,

Tyra thought he added, "if he hasn't already."

"That is wonderful news," Tyra said. "It will gladden my heart to leave the Norse lands knowing my father will recover." "Can you not wait another day?" Adam's question was asked with little inflection in his voice. To Tyra, that meant he did not care one way or another.

She shook her head. " 'Tis time for the ritual." Everyone stepped back to give her room. She stood at her father's side and began once again. "I, Tyra, daughter of Thorvald Ivarsson, do hereby renounce-" "Nay!" a booming voice p.r.o.nounced. It was the king. With a snarl of disgust, he sat bolt upright in his bed. "Have you all gone barmy?" he snarled, and tried to disentangle himself from the furs that had covered him. "Must I do everything myself... even coming back from the dead?" He leaned wearily against the pillowed headboard.

"Father!" Tyra and all her sisters exclaimed and converged on his bed to give him hugs and kisses.

"Leave off! Leave off!" he protested. "You will smother me."

"Step back," Adam ordered. "Let me examine the king."

As he leaned over the old man, she heard her father ask, "And who be you? Ye have the look of a

b.l.o.o.d.y Saxon about you?"

"I am Adam the Healer. And, yea, a Saxon. The very one your daughter Tyra kidnapped to come save you."

"That you did. That you did," the king acknowledged. "And my thanks you have in abundance."

"Father, now that you are on the road to recovery... do not take this personally... you have been a

good father... most times, least ways... but I want to renounce our blood ties, and-"

He muttered something like, "when snow falls in Valhalla!"

Tyra sighed. "You owe me this favor in return for bringing the physician."

Her father raised his hand in a halting fashion. "Not now Tyra. You will not bedevil me with this

nonsense the moment I escape the raven's fate."

"It is not fair, I tell you. You cannot keep putting me off. You cannot put my sisters off." It was unlike Tyra to argue with her father, especially in these circ.u.mstances. But she needed to act, and soon.

"I will handle it, daughter. Trust me, dearling. Just this once. One more day will make no difference, will

it? I promise this situation will be resolved, and soon." Her father's voice was weakening, and she recognized that she was not helping matters by forcing an answer now.

"One more day. That is all," she agreed.

Her father nodded, though he muttered under his breath, "Obstinate, unbiddable girl!

"I would ask you all to take leave of me so that I may rest," he said then. But first he turned again to Adam. "Ask any boon of me and it is yours."

Adam thought for a long moment, then said, "Transport home. I ask for one longship to take me home... now... afore winter..."

The king nodded. "It is done. And a fair request it is, too."

Tyra's heart sank. Unreasonably. Whether she left first for Byzantium, or he left first for Britain, the result would be the same. Separation... and soon.

"... and I insist that the captain of that longship-" there was a long pause-"be your daughter Tyra."

A stunned silence filled the room before Tyra gasped and said, "Nay! You cannot ask that, you...

you..."

"Loathsome lout?" Alinor offered with a grin.

"Yea, you loathsome lout!" Tyra said to Adam, who remained grim-faced, waiting for the king's answer.

"Good strategy," Tykir congratulated Adam, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Methinks this calls for a saga," Bolthor announced. "How about, 'How the Lady Warrior Got Caught in Her Own Snare'?"

"I give you this word of caution, my lady warrior," Rashid said. "She who rides the tiger should be careful how she dismounts."

"That is the most nonsensical proverb you have spouted thus far," Tyra told Rashid.

"It means that you have been tempting me as if I were a castle cat, when in fact I am a tiger," Adam explained to her. He added a tigerish growl and a wink to make his point.

The growl and the wink touched Tyra in the most sensual way... well, actually, in the most sensual place.

"You are clearly some sort of disgusting male creature," Tyra informed Adam, clicking her tongue with disgust.

"Faults are thick where love is thin," Rashid opined.

"Shut your teeth, Rashid," Adam said cheerily.

"I still want to know what finger-pleasuring is," Breanne said.

"Me, too. Me, too," chimed in Ingrith and Drifa.

"Enough!" the king roared.

When there was silence in the room, he addressed Adam. "Your request is granted. She who kidnapped you shall return you to your home."

Tyra put her face in her hands and moaned. As she heard everyone leaving the bedchamber and calling out their good wishes to her father, she wondered how her life had reached such a chaotic state, and how it could get any worse.

She soon found out.

When she opened her eyes, she realized that her father had fallen back asleep... a relaxed slumber, by the sound of his even breathing... and she saw that Adam remained in the bedchamber.

Meeting her eyes directly, he said simply, "Tonight."

Tyra required no further explanation. Adam had healed her father. Now she must fulfill the pact she'd made with him.

One night. His bed furs. Naked.

She answered him with the same simplicity, "Tonight."

But what she thought was,May the G.o.ds help me. Tonight.

"Come with me," Adam told Alrek.

"Me?" Alrek almost swallowed his teeth on hearing Adam address him directly. He'd been moping about the courtyard, shuffling his boots in the dirt. He'd heard about Adam's imminent departure for Britain, and it was finally sinking in that he and his siblings would not be going with him.

Now that he had finished treating patients for the day and had checked on Dagma and then the king, Adam had strapped on a belted sheath to hold his sword. Then he'd gone searching for Alrek.

Adam took Alrek by the upper arm and led him out of the main courtyard toward the blacksmith building. "I have something to show you."

Usually, that kind of statement would have brought forth elation in the youthling, so desperate was he for attention, but he just nodded forlornly now.

They stepped into the exceedingly hot building where Bjorn was working on a sword over a blazing fire. A young thrall kept the flames high by working a bellows from the side.

The sword Bjorn was working on was not a large one, but it was finely worked. Using the damascening method, he twisted together iron and steel rods of different textures and shades and then forged them into a single blade. Intermixed with the twisting and pounding was frequent heating and quenching to harden the metal. The result was a beautiful flame pattern ingrained in the surface of the blade.

When he was done, Bjorn handed the sword to Adam and muttered under his breath, "I still think ye are demented. He will kill himself... that he will."

Walking out of the smidiy, Adam handed the sword to Alrek and said, "This is for you."

"Me?" Alrek's eyes went huge with wonderment. Alrek took the short sword by the hilt and almost tripped forward, not being prepared for its weight.

Adam winced at Alrek's first near-accident with the weapon. He could just hear people telling him, "I told you so. I told you so."

"Why?"

"It's a gift."

"No one ever gave me nuthin', 'ceptin' the king, and that was a job."

"Well, I am giving you something, but there is a price attached."

Alrek was staring at his new sword adoringly. "Whatever you say."

"You know that I am going away soon, and I am not...cannot take you with me."

The boy immediately stiffened at that reminder. "I do not see why-"

Adam put up a halting hand. "You should be able to live as a boy, but G.o.d... the G.o.ds... have dealt you a different fate. That means you must continue to be the head of your family. Being the head of the family also means protecting those under your shield. That is why I'm giving you the sword. That is why I will practice with you as much as possible till it is time for me to leave. Having your very own weapon means being responsible, Alrek. Youmust learn to be more careful. A sword can be your friend or your foe. Make it your friend. Do you understand?"

Alrek nodded, but Adam wasn't sure how much the youthling understood. Well, he would once Adam was done instructing him. Some people believed that they were helping children by keeping all dangerous objects out of their path, but he was of the opinion that people-even little people-must learn to deal with the dangers that surrounded them.

'Twas as Rashid always said, "Do not stand in a place of danger and pray for miracles." Well, Alrek kept looking to him for a miracle. Adam chose instead to provide Alrek with his own means to a miracle. But, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, he hoped the boy didn't kill himself first.

By the time dusk rolled over the Norse mountains, Adam and Alrek were both feeling proud of the youthling's accomplishments. He was not yet a skilled swordsman, but he had made progress. And the two of them had only a dozen or so nicks on their arms to show for the effort. Alrek promised to practice with him early the next morning and again in the late afternoon. Adam would speak to Rafn about tutoring the boy after he left.

It was the best he could do.

As they trudged back toward the keep and the sweat house where they planned to heat up their aching muscles, Alrek turned to him and said, "A man's sword should have a name, should it not?"

"Absolutely."

"I know what mine will be."

"Now, Alrek, remember what I said about so many of your problems being the result of acting before thinking. Stop, think, act. That is to be your motto."

"I do not need to think about this. The name of my sword shall be..."

Adam just knew he was not going to like this.

"... Miracle-Maker."

From a distance, Tyra had been watching Adam and Alrek practicing swordplay at the far end of the exercise field. For three hours, Adam had worked patiently with the accident-p.r.o.ne youthling. He would have cuts up one arm and down the other to show for his efforts.

At first, when she'd heard that the healer had commissioned a small sword to be made for the boy, she'd been furious. Storming out of the smithy, she'd stomped over to the exercise fields and had been about to chastise the healer for interfering in the affairs of Stoneheim. Arming and training a Viking boy was her business, not his.

But Rafn had put a hand on her arm to hold her back. "Adam is doing the right thing. We cannot continue to overprotect Alrek. The boy must learn himself."

"Even if he hurts himself?"

Rafn had nodded. "Even if he hurts himself."