The Eighth Lost Tale of Mercia: Canute the Viking by Jayden Woods Page B

were
rare. All the other young warriors hung on his every word. Canute
scoffed.
    The sound drew some furious glances. The
young man, Fromund, who had been the one to lie with a woman in
Jom, dared to speak. “What’s wrong, Canute?” he said. “Not lain
with a woman yet?”
    “Lain? No.” He threw his meat-stripped bone
into the center of the table. “Any woman I have, I will take . And that should go for the rest of you, as well. If
you want sighing maidens as your bedfellows, you have chosen the
wrong profession.”
    A few of the boys laughed nervously. More of
them stared at him with incredulous looks on their faces. Fromund,
meanwhile, outright frowned. “I guess that means you haven’t,” he
said. “You obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.” Some of
the other boys snickered.
    “Like hell!” snarled Canute. His voice was
harsher than he intended, and everyone flinched as he dropped his
fist on the table with a loud thump. His blood roared in his ears.
Even he didn’t know why he was so upset. Why was everything today
going so wrong? He stared in a panic at the faces around him,
feeling as if they were all disgusted. Why should they be? “I, uh …
I kissed a girl once, in Jom, after she winked at me. It was … nice
enough.” In truth, as he recalled, it had been quite awkward.
    The stares on him did not relent; they only
blinked a few times, to return even fiercer than before.
    “You’re all a bunch of dimwitted idiots,” he
growled, and stood up. Even though he had a few bones on his plate
left to clean up, he walked away. He’d lost his appetite.
    On his way out of the hall, he glimpsed Tosti
a few tables away. Even more unexpectedly, Tosti looked up and
stared back at him. Canute felt a physical jolt go through him as
their gazes locked. Then he shivered and hurried out even faster
than before.
    Outside, he leaned against the walls of the
hall, listening to the muffled echoes of the laughter and
camaraderie through the wood. His fingers pulled angrily at his own
tunic, the red fabric soft and tight-woven, heavily embroidered
with golden thread and far more beautiful than the tunics of any
other Jomsvikings. But for some reason, he wished that he could rip
it off. His teeth ground against each other as he reflected upon
how the other young men had treated him today, and how their
behavior grew worse and worse the longer Thorkell the Tall was away
in Engla-lond.
    His heart ached as he thought of Thorkell,
for he missed his foster-father terribly. What would Thorkell have
to say about today’s events? Would he be pleased by the way Canute
had handled Tosti’s insult? Or would he have disapproved of
Canute’s wild “temper?” He reprimanded Canute often for his temper,
saying that no leader should be prone to rash decisions.
    Perhaps Thorkell would comfort him, at least,
with the reminder that kings were not meant to mingle with all the
other boys like one of their friends. It was his place to stand
apart, to remind them all of their place, and thus his own.
    “Hey.”
    He jolted and turned to face the intruder.
Under the bright glare of a yellow moon stood Tosti, his gray eyes
unreadable in the dark light. He swayed slightly, his body ever
moving, his long braids swishing back and forth across his lithe
shoulders.
    “Hello,” said Canute. He forced a thick
swallow down his throat. Why did he feel nervous? He had nothing to
apologize for, and yet he fought the urge to say I’m sorry ,
nonetheless. “Good spar today,” he managed at last. It was a
lie.
    “You think so?” A strange laugh came out of
Tosti’s throat, chiming and carefree. “Don’t think I’ve ever been
hit in the head that hard before. Totally blacked out for a few
seconds.”
    Once again, Canute bit back an apology.
“You’re lucky you experienced it when you did, then. It might
happen to you a lot in battle, when your life is on the line.”
    “Hah.” The sound from Tosti’s throat was not
quite so