Snippet From Code Yellow For My VR Gang

So a reader from Arizona, Suze J-S asked for more chapters of Code Yellow. That couldn’t happen. But I had this scene, some of which is now surplus to requirements. I thought it might help feed the VR (Voracious Reader) Gang.

If you like it, thank Suze.
If you don’t blame me.

If you haven’t finished Seeing Red, do NOT read this yet.

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The Story so Far…

Niki and Rollo escaped to Edinburgh for a few days’ peace. That hasn’t worked out the way they hoped and ‘developments’ inspired Dola to ask to them to help to track down if there are truly Viking spies in the tiny village of Gretna Green.

We join the story during coffee (obviously) in Edinburgh in early-March.
Present are Niki, Rollo, Tilly and Kari Halvor. She was Princess Entitled from Ties that Bond, who claimed sanctuary rather than go through with the marriage her father had arranged for her. She sought the Recorder’s permission to move in with the man she believed she did have a bond with, Ben, a Manchester lad, who runs the gym in the four-star hotel in Gretna Green.

QUICK WARNING – some small parts of this scene at the beginning and end i.e. some of the Kari and Ben bits are still in Code Yellow in a slightly altered form. I don’t believe there are any significant spoilers that any reader with half an ounce of common sense wouldn’t have predicted, but as always, YMMV.

You know yourself best. Avoid this if you don’t want any clues at all about anything that’s coming.

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Monday 8th March—Yggdrasil House, Edinburgh. Mid-morning.

I’d slept late. My brain must have needed it to process all the information Dola had given me in the depths of the night. She’d already been researching the warlords before I asked her to. 

Of course she had. I really didn’t pay her enough. And I still had no idea what kind of present I could get for a house to say thank you for being so totally amazing.

Voices from the kitchen told me Rollo’s guests hadn’t left yet. Just. Freaking. Great.

I only hoped Kari was in a less bitchy mood today.

After my restorative shower – well, it helped me to pry my eyes open. That counts as restorative—right? I threw on some jeans and a boyfriend style shirt that was warm and comfortable but slightly more stylish than my usual sweatshirts. If I had to deal with Princess Entitled Karina before coffee, I’d take all the help I could get. 

As I opened the door to let Tilly into the kitchen, I heard a shocked gasp and rushed in, almost tripping over my dog, who’d stopped dead in the doorway. Tilly avoided drama whenever she could. She turned on her fluffy, white tail and headed back to bed. I wished I could follow her.

Kari was pale, Ben had his arm around her, and Rollo simply nodded at her as he rose to give me a hug.

He poured me a coffee. “Kari has just found the Gateway agreement.” 

The large monitor on the wall was showing a split screen mode. A link now said ‘In our recent survey 100% of you didn’t know the simple rules your ancestors agreed to follow to stay alive. But YOU are still bound by them. So catch the hell up.’

That was a little more intense than I’d intended Dola to be, but I couldn’t complain because it wasn’t even clickbait. Just a simple truth. The article it linked to was showing on the other side of the screen and it laid out the unvarnished facts that all the realms had obligations to the Gateway. However, not all the realms were honouring their side of those agreements. Hello Viking, we’re looking at you.

Huh, I’d wondered how the agreement would strike the Viking citizens when they learned of it. It had hit hard, judging from Kari’s expression.

She greeted me with, “Recorder, you can’t be here on holiday now. You have to do something.”

“Good morning Kari, how did you sleep?”

“Very well. You need to do something.”

“Well, I didn’t. I’d thank you for asking, except, oh wait, you didn’t, did you?”

I accepted a mug of coffee from Rollo and sipped the hot liquid cautiously. It wasn’t the perfect temperature at which Dola always delivered my first cup. 

“You need to help people, my mother, my sister. They could die. And you’re on holiday!”

I met Kari’s furious expression with flat eyes. I’d been a nice woman once upon a time, but it was attitudes like Kari’s that, in my mind at least, had tarnished that niceness and caused half these problems. Screw stuff up and then either blame someone else or simply make it their job to fix it for you. Was that the situation throughout Viking? Was the whole damn nation a nightmare reboot of my ex-boss, Janet. She hadn’t liked me taking holidays either.

They all had the same attitude … it’s not my fault we harboured sexual predators and drug pushers. We were all too busy doing … something else to notice. It wasn’t up to us to protect our sisters, their friends, or any innocents who visited us.

Well, I couldn’t fix it by blaming them. That was just taking a leaf out of their own book and doubling it, wasn’t it? However tempting it felt right now.

I drew myself straight, found my librarian’s voice, and gave her the Recorder’s second sternest look. 

“Kari, re-evaluate your tone, please. I was trying to be nice Niki last night. But if you intend to berate me without even having the courtesy to wait until I’ve had my first cup of coffee, I can find the Recorder for you right now. I was working until 6 am.”

I drank my coffee. Kari looked as though she was about to say something, but Ben put a hand on her thigh as I continued. “I am doing something. Now it’s your turn. What the hell are you doing except blaming other people for the mess you were a part of making for what—thirty years? You took no responsibility for fixing anything in Viking when you fled it claimed sanctuary, did you? So how is your ex-realm now my problem?” 

She gave me a filthy look. “What could you possibly have been doing until six a.m.? How was that time well-spent?”

Wow, she was a pain. I beginning to understand exactly how, as Princess Entitled, she’d come up with the ridiculous email she’d sent to my gran. “Our bond has been approved by the gods.” Now she was no longer frightened for her own safety—she thought someone else should fix the mess she’d run away from? 

I reached over to Rollo’s laptop and pressed play on Carys’s video. “Approving heart-breaking videos of crimes that all of Viking, including you, appear to have allowed to happen literally under their damn noses for your entire lifetime, Princess. Do tell—isn’t that you in the wedding photo we’re about to see?”

The video played.

About five minutes into it, when the wedding photo showing the incredibly young Carys as a bridesmaid appeared on the screen. Ben said, “Can you pause it, Rollo?”

He turned to Kari, “That is you and this is what you told me about?”

She nodded. 

Ben breathed deeply as his face creased into angry lines. “You never mentioned it was a child abuse ring.”

Whoops. Manchester men had a short fuse on some things.

I stepped in swiftly. “Speaking purely technically, Ben, I’ve not seen a single petition where the women were under sixteen. That’s the age of consent in most of the realms. I think Galicia might be twenty-one, but you get my drift? The problem is the lack of consent rather than their age. I mean, yes, it’s all a horrible damn problem. I’m just trying to clarify the parameters of it for you.”

Ben looked thoughtful. “I was at school,” he named the school he gone to and it was a pretty rough one, “with girls who might have been sixteen but were emotionally going on twenty-five. But that one,” he pointed at Carys, “is still a child herself. Imagine how much of a child she’d have been a few years ago.”

I nodded sadly. And as we watched, the counter below the caption ‘Petitions filed against Troels’ moved from 173 to 174. Ben asked, “Is that for real?”

He looked relieved when I shook my head and then fury crossed his face again when I explained we were already closing in on two hundred cases.

Before I could say anything I’d regret, I put my empty coffee mug down and called from the doorway, “We’re just going to take Tilly out, we’ll be right back. Make absolutely sure you watch the whole thing at least once, Kari.”

Seizing Rollo’s hand, I headed for the lift, ignoring all the things Kari thought were my responsibility as we left.

Then, following a weird twinge from my Gift, I tapped my earbud, “Dola, when that video finishes, can you play Kari the Galician one, the one you scored as a nine? I bet she knows her as well.”

I checked my watch, picked Tilly up and to Rollo said, “Clear your mind please, we need to walk her at home.”

We landed next to my car, out of sight in the driveway of Gateway Cottage in Gretna Green where, as usual, it was damp and drizzling. I tapped my earbud. “Dola, I’m staying out of the way of the Gateway as you requested, but I’m going to try what we talked about last night. Can you open the gate for me?”

The gate opened and before we walked through it I said, “Can you be eye-candy Rollo to make sure they all recognise you? That should guarantee they send some emails.”

With a slight shake from Rollo, I had a Thor look-alike walking at my side. Tilly growled softly at him. “I know, poppet, but he’s only doing it because I asked him to. Back off, hey?”

She grumbled a little and then marched off down the lane.

Rollo asked, “What did you talk to Dola about last night?”

“Just what we discussed. She wants to see who’s reporting in and who they report to.”

On the way, we ran through the classic what, when, why, how, where and who of my planned misinformation. Rollo was grinning at me by the time we paused by a rustling hedge. In a credibly serious tone, he said, “I don’t think my uncle would do any of the things they’re accusing him of. Surely I would know?”

We moved on quickly before his laugh broke out of him.

About six yards from the bench which held the three old boys, that I’d mentally dubbed ‘the three wise monkeys and their greyhound’,’ I paused to rummage in my handbag and observed. “The video testimony of these women is compelling. I think when people see them on the news portal, they will believe them. But I must admit there is that one woman I don’t know whether I believe her because if what she said is true, then Troels’ eldest son isn’t his heir at all. Her son would be. Because he’s older than whateverhisname is.”

“Valdemik. Yes, he would be demoted from heir to third or fourth in line to Troels’ fortune if these women are telling the truth.” Rollo supplied.

As he said Valdemik, all three grizzled heads swivelled towards us, then just as quickly went back to looking at the ground while obviously still listening.

“Do you fancy a bridie?” I enquired.

Enough time had passed since the day I’d eaten those bridies and then vomited them all over Mabon. And I needed an excuse to go to the local shop.

Rollo shook his head. “No, thanks. An apple maybe. Will this take much longer? I have an appointment with Chris, the lawyer, at two.”

I sent, “It won’t take any time at all. We’ll be back ten minutes after we left. I’ll just give Kari long enough to watch some videos and hopefully re-think her attitude.”

He gave me a blinding smile. “I keep forgetting. Sorry.”

Now he was relaxed and as we walked around the quiet corner past a garden vibrant with enough winter pansies to rival Mrs Glendining’s, he asked, “What do you need me to do?”

When I told him, he started laughing.

Once we were in the local shop, and Tilly was doing her very best happy dance on her back legs, circus dog-style for the shop owner who spoilt her rotten with meat trimmings, I said, “Good morning Betty. May I have one of your wonderful bridies, please? Do you know Rollo?”

Betty promptly dropped a curtsy. “Prince Hrólfr, I’m honoured. What can I get ye?”

Rollo bent over her hand, air kissed it and murmured, “You’re a long way from home, Betty. Lovely to see a friendly face.”

I’d thought so.

When I was doing Breanna’s arbitration and seeing Vikings everywhere, I turned. I’d popped in here with Tilly to pick up some bread and milk for the house and noticed that Betty felt like a Viking, too. At the time, I’d put it down to having Vikings on the brain. But I’d checked her several times since. I didn’t think she was a spy because my Gift liked the woman. But she definitely had plenty of Viking blood, so let’s see who she might tell. Rollo’s yellow regnal power would allow him, just as Breanna’s ruling power had, to tell his own citizens by birth and to test their loyalty, even if they no longer lived in Viking.

Betty went to get Tilly some of her rightfully expected meat trimmings. In a clear, and hopefully, a carrying voice I commented. “I don’t care who Halvor thinks he is. The power thinks he’s a liability and a drug pusher and it’s had enough of him and as for that sidekick of his, he’s no better—Oh thank you Betty, that’s very kind. What do I owe you?”

The niceties disposed of, as we headed to the door Rollo added to me, “I know of at least three others who need decapitating. But I don’t think the whole dozen are bad. It’s just impossible to tell who’s lying and who’s innocent. That’s where your power might come in.” 

I glanced behind me as the door closed and saw Betty’s phone was already in her hand.

“Did I manage Prince Charming then?” Rollo enquired.

“Well, I thought the hand-kissing was a nice touch, but where was the glass slipper?”

He glanced at my feet. “Boots are much sexier.”

Once we reached the quiet lane, which wasn’t overlooked, I transported the three of us back to Rollo’s kitchen.

Ben whirled around, fist raised, and then his mouth dropped open. “Shit girl, give a man some warning. How d’you do that?”

“It’s a Recorder thing, sorry didn’t mean to startle you.”

But I had. I was being a bitch—it must be contagious. I wanted Kari to stop whining and blaming whoever was handy, and remember that if she wanted her family safe, she might have to take some action, too. And that the Recorder had powers, damn it. Perhaps she should remember that before I was tempted to use them on her.

I got Tilly some fresh water after her walk. As I bent to put the bowl on the floor, Rollo sent me a rude thought, echoing the one I’d had about him the previous weekend. And I heard Ben hiss softly, “Tell her.”

I turned around, but Kari was staring determinedly out of the window with a tear-streaked face.

Ben glanced at Rollo as if to say, help me, man.

To me Ben said, “Kari and I were just talking about whether you could do,” He waved his hand at the large TV screen, “some kind of documentary.”

“A documentary?” I settled at the table. Ben joined me.

“Yeah, you know, like a Dummies Guide to this situation and the agreement. It’s pretty complicated, and even in the modern translation, the language is really old-school. Could you make a video? Like a party political broadcast for eight-year-olds on what it all means? Keep it simple and all that? I was trying to tell Kari what a party political was when you guys landed in here like something from Star Trek.”

A party political broadcast. That was an incredibly clever idea. I eyed Ben with new respect. I mean, I liked the man very much already, but I hadn’t realised he had a brain under that amiable smile.

To Kari, Ben explained, “As I was saying, it’s what the various political parties do in the UK before an election.” 

Rollo interjected, “Did you ever watch the American Presidential debates on TV?” She nodded. “Like that, but a lot shorter. The Brits only get ten minutes.”

I gave Kari, who still looked miserable, a quick glance. When I turned my Gift on her, she was wallowing in guilt. 

I’d been right, she had known Isabella the upper-crust Galician teenager whose family had forced her into house arrest rather than a grape-picking camp until she gave birth and then they’d given the baby to their priest to put up for adoption over her protests because she was only seventeen and had no rights in their backward realm as an unmarried mother. Her video had destroyed me when I’d finally watched it just before I crawled back into bed again. It might explain why I’d got up in such a foul mood even before Kari started on me.

Now Kari said to Rollo, “But I don’t think it would work. Who would watch it?”

Rollo and Kari switched to speaking Norse, which gave me hope he might be talking some sense into her. Ben leaned into me. “Kari says if we could safely go to Viking, I’d need your permission. To go there, I mean.”

I nodded. He would.

“She said my mum might not be able to visit us there. But we could visit her here?”

I tuned into my Gift, which had been trying to tell me something about this man for a few minutes now. And I heard the song in my mind. Oh, not another earworm!

As George Benson’s The Greatest Love of All sung by a gospel choir played loudly in my head, I asked, “Does your mum go to the same church as Olive Clarke?” Aysha’s mother had been a founding member of the choir.

He looked confused, but nodded.

“Is she in the choir too?”

He nodded.

 “I think I may have seen her at one of the concerts. If we can get Viking sorted out so it’s safe for Kari to go back and therefore you too, then your mum’ll be able to visit you as long as she has a meeting with me with first.”

He gave me a blindingly white, enormous smile that finally reached his eyes. “Seriously?”

He glanced at Rollo and Kari, whose conversation now sounded heated. It was hard to be sure. Norse always sounded as though the speaker was angry to me, but Rollo felt calm.

“Hmm uh, so best put your mind to any more bright ideas you’ve got to help me get them straightened out. And Benson …”

His head spun back around to focus on me so fast it amazed me he didn’t get whiplash—but that’s MMA fighters for you. His mouth dropped open. “How did you? You couldn’t guess? How? …”

“Benson?”

He nodded.

“Take Kari home and calm her down. Or direct her anger where it can do some good. Encourage her to call Inge if you can. I’ve really got a lot to do today and so has Rollo.”

He tilted his head like a cat. “But how did you know? Everyone thinks the Ben is for Benjamin. Why didn’t you?”

I debated telling him the truth, but I remembered Dola encouraging me to embrace the myth of a Recorder’s eccentricity and stop trying to conform to people’s expectations. In the end I just pointed at myself and said, “Recorder, yeah? We’re weird that way. Anyway, it could have been worse. Your mum could have called you Whitney.”

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I hope that brightened your November? The weather is filthy in Gretna Green. It’s been teeming with rain for days.

If it did – you guys should give Suze a high five for asking so amusingly that it inspired me to find and fix this.

If it didn’t, and it was just frustrating, I’ll make a note not to include any more of these deleted snippets again.