She finished for him, hesitantly, "Eat me… that is what you said. I still don't understand."
"You will, Esme. You will."
With that, he flipped the hem of her gown up to her waist, exposing her nakedness, and in one fluid move spread her legs and knelt between her thighs.
"Toste! Nay! Oh, this is scandalous, even for you. Eek, what are you doing?" He pushed her feet up so that her heels touched her buttocks, then shoved her knees wide apart. She was fully exposed to his scrutiny there, and scrutinize he did. "This is not what I agreed to. A foretaste, that was all. This is definitely not a foretaste." She spewed forth some words then that would definitely earn her a fortnight on her knees in penance.
Toste just chuckled.
She tried to sit up and push him away, but he held her down firmly with one hand pressed against her belly. The other hand was already examining her woman-fleece.
Then he touched her.
And she was wet.
Could anything in the world be more humiliating than this?
Could anything in the world be more bliss-inspiring?
She had not known she had such a spot there, but Toste had known. That was clear by the way he played that particular piece of flesh. Just when she was becoming accustomed to that play-torture, he inserted a finger inside her. Just one. But her eyes went wide and met his in question.
"Am I hurting you?" he asked.
She shook her head slowly from side to side. In truth, she could not speak. Her inner muscles spoke for her, though, by clenching and unclenching around his finger, which was moving in and out of her. Then he stopped. The brute stopped.
Esme could swear that every fine hair on her body was as stiff as a bristle. Her breasts ached for more of his suckling. And her nether parts had become one long continuous throb. If she were not in this condition, she never would have allowed what he did next. Leastways, that was what she told herself.
Still on his knees, he reached under her and lifted her by the buttocks so that her hips were raised off the ground. Then he showed her—God's bones and Mary's breath, he showed her—just what he'd meant by foretaste and what he'd meant when he'd misspoken her name. With his tongue and his teeth and his lips, he teased her woman folds till they were engorged and she was one keening wail, for what she did not know. Every part of her body, but especially her breasts and woman-place, reached and reached and reached for something beyond reach.
Then it came. Crashing over her, under her, through her. Such sheer, glorious pleasure as her body had never known. She must have swooned for several seconds—and Esme never swooned—because when she regained her senses, she lay spread-eagled and exposed before the still fully clothed Toste. The only thing that saved her from total and utter shame was the fact that he was clearly aroused and fighting his own lustsome urges.
"You were beautiful, Esme," he said huskily.
"Thank you." What else could she say at a time like this? "Now are you done?"
He laughed. "Yea, I am. For now."
"So, you will stay and help me regain Evergreen."
"Nay, Esme, I will not. I must needs leave on the morrow, but I will do all in my power to help you when I return."
She jerked into a sitting position and tugged at her gown so that her breasts and lower region were at least partially covered. "You never intended to stay, did you?"
"Now, Esme, you are being unreasonable." He sat up and watched helplessly as she adjusted herself more fully. Once, he reached out a hand to pick some straw from her hair and she slapped him away.
"Unreasonable?" she shrieked. "I'll tell you what is unreasonable. You thinking that I would allow you to do all those… things to me without the possibility of your staying. You tricked me."
"You enjoyed those things" he said accusingly.
"Yea, I did," she admitted, standing clumsily and brushing off her gown as best she could. "But it will never happen again. Never."
"Yea, it will. When I return, we will finish what we started here tonight," he argued. Then: "Where are you going?"
"Off to find Eadyth and Alinor and tell them to start their parade of prospective bridegrooms," Esme said without turning. She would not want him to see the tears brimming in her eyes.
"I will be back," he threw out to her backside.
Hah! I've got news for you, Viking. You are not leaving. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not for a good long while. Not if I can help it. "You will pay for this, Toste. You will pay."
Esme went off, not to find the ladies of Ravenshire, but to put her own plan into motion. Two could play at this game. Toste Ivarsson was soon going to find that he'd met his match.
The lull before the you-know-what…
By the time Toste reentered the keep, Esme was out of sight and almost everybody had gone to bed, except Eirik, Tykir and Bolthor, who still sat before the low fire in the solar. They took one look at Toste, then a quick second look and burst out laughing.
"Look, look, look! Ha ha ha!" Abdul squawked.
"Someone ought to make parrot porridge out of that dumb bird," Toste said.
"You're not the first person to suggest that," Eirik commented.
Bolthor immediately began spewing forth one of his poems, "This Is the Tale of Toste the Torn."
"Toste was a man torn
As ever was a Viking born.
Did he want her?
Did he not?
Should he swive her,
Should he not?
In the end, the maid would take
Things into her own hands,
So Toste would no longer be torn."
"You have straw on your crotch," Eirik pointed out.
"And your lips are red and puffy. Did someone punch you?" Tykir asked with false innocence.
"Methinks I detect a lump in his braies. So he might still be a bit tormented… and torn," Bolthor concluded.
They were all grinning at him as they sipped their horns of mead. Vikings—and half Vikings, for that matter, as Eirik was—ever did enjoy teasing each other, and Toste did not mind all that much.
Still, he soon changed the subject. "I must needs leave on the morrow at first light with Sister Margaret."
"I will go with you," Bolthor offered, not for the first time.
"Nay. This I will do myself." He'd already explained the details of his plan to the men. "I will be back as soon as possible—by Christmas, I hope. No need for any of you to get up so early in the morn."
"Dressed as a nun?" Tykir asked, a gleam in his merry eyes.
"Yea, dressed as a nun… at first. Till after I deliver Sister Margaret to the minster."
"And you will leave Lady Esme here with us?" Eirik inquired.
Toste nodded.
He thought he heard Eirik mutter, "Lackwit!" but he probably said something like, "Holy shit!" 'Twas a favorite expression of Eirik's he'd learned long ago from his barmy half-sister Rain, a healer, who claimed to come from the future.
"By thunder, Toste, do you know how much your brother would have enjoyed this masquerade of yours?" Tykir said.
"I do," he said and fought back tears.
Eirik handed him a horn of mead and said, "To Vagn!" They all raised their horns then and said, "To Vagn!"
It was a fitting good-bye, Toste thought.
I can't believe I'm doing this…
Esme worked furiously to complete her plan.
It was the most daring thing she'd ever tried. But desperation prompted daring. That was what she told herself.
Having a few coins she'd garnered over the years, she managed to bribe a retired cook from Ravenshire to help her. Bertha, a slovenly, greedy-eyed crone of more than sixty years, still lived on the estate in her own thatched hut and helped out in the kitchens on occasion.
"Did you prepare the empty woodcutter's hut, as I instructed?"
"Yea, I did, mistress, and I got ye a fire goin', too. It's colder'n hell on a Sunday outside, it is." She scratched her armpits as she spoke, then broke wind
loudly.
Esme restrained herself from wincing or clouting the foul woman. She needed her, having had no time to find a better accomplice.
"And you promise not to tell anyone about this?"
"Are ye barmy, mistress? I'd be kicked out of Ravenshire on me arse if anyone found out."
"All right. Now go to Toste and give him my message."
After Bertha left, Esme picked up a bundle she'd prepared, put on a cloak and made her way toward the woodcutter's hut, which she hoped was far enough away from the keep that no one would suspect what was going on.
"Dear God," she prayed, "please help me, and I will say a paternoster every day for the rest of my life."
She thought she heard a voice in her head, presumably God's, say, "You are on your own."
So be it.
Even tricksters get tricked betimes…
"The lady Esme wishes ye to attend her out at the woodcutter's hut."
"Huh?" Toste said. He was alone in the solar and nodding off to sleep, having drunk many more horns of mead than he should have. "Why does she want me? And why at the woodcutter's hut? And how in Thor's name would I know where that is?"
The old slattern blinked at him in what was supposed to be a sexual way, he supposed. "I be thinkin' that a virile Viking like you would know what she wants."
"Huh?" he said again.
"Are ye comin' or not? It's past my bedtime, and Lars is waitin' fer me in the furs. Expectin' a second swive, I 'spect."
He couldn't imagine anyone wanting even a first swive with her. "Yea, I am coming," he said. He was too intrigued by the possibility—remote as it was—that Esme wanted something more from him. After all, her last words to him had been, "You will pay." But it was understandable, really. He had always had a way with women. She wanted him, pure and simple. It was the only explanation.
He couldn't wait.
Caught in the spider's web…
Toste made his way clumsily down the path, lit only by the torch the old crone carried before him. He shouldn't have drunk so much mead, especially on the eve of a journey.
If he'd known the woodcutter's hut was this far from the keep, he never would have come. Well, actually, he would have. His curiosity had always been stronger than his good sense.
When they finally arrived and he saw light seeping through the shuttered window openings and smoke coming through a hole in the roof, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't one of Tykir's jokes, as he'd begun to suspect.
The slattern opened the door for him, shoved him inside, then slammed the door after him. He could swear he heard a lock click into place, but he was probably mistaken.
The single room was dark, except for the hearth fire. When he accustomed himself to the dim light, he saw Esme, and he relaxed with a grin.
She wore a gossamer-thin bed rail. Backlit by the fire, the outline of her nude body underneath the rail could be seen as clear as day.
He stepped forward and began to reach for her.
She danced away. "Nay, Toste. Do not be so anxious. Take off your clothing first."
Take off my clothing? Whoa! We are moving a bit fast here, aren't we, my lady? But Toste was not dumb enough to speak those words of caution. "I thought you were angry with me," he said even as he began to disrobe.
"I am, but I find that other emotions inside me are even stronger." She put a palm against her stomach as if to indicate where those stronger emotions were located.
His cock, which had already raised its head with interest at the vision of Esme in the see-through garment, now came to full attention. He'd treated her badly earlier tonight, when he'd implied that if she would do such and such he would not leave. Mayhap he would be able to make it up to her now.
When he was fully naked and she gawked at him as if a trifle frightened—as well she should be—she said something that entirely destroyed the impression of naèveté.
"Toste… uhm… would you mind if I tied you to the bed?"
Not only was he shocked but his precious manpart was shocked, too. Why else would blue veins be standing out on it as if it were going to explode? "Why?" he asked her, once he pulled his gaping jaw off the floor. That has to be the dumbest thing I have ever said.
"Because I am rather shy… and this is my first time… and, well, I would feel better if I could explore your body first… and… oh, I suppose it was a bad idea."
"Nay, nay, I didn't say that. But you don't have to restrain me to explore my body, dearling." I wonder if I am in a drunken stupor and imagining all this.
"Oh, you say that now, but if I touch you in the wrong way—or the right way—you might be tempted to… never mind."
Tempted? I am so tempted, lady, that my thickening is about to explode. "Nay, we will do it your way," he said quickly afore she changed her mind. He made his way toward the pallet in the corner and was disconcerted, but only for a moment, to see soft cloth strips hanging from each of the four bedposts. She had been prepared for his yielding. Ah, well, he would make her yield much more by morning. He lay down and submitted each of his limbs for her to tie, which she did with surprisingly strong and secure knots.
Then she stepped back from the pallet and said, "Do not be angry, Toste."
"Why should I be angry?" Understanding came to him of a sudden. A trick! He had been tricked. He fought mightily against his restraints, to no avail. "Can I assume there will be no tupping tonight?"
She nodded.
"Do not do this, Esme. You have no idea what the consequences will be. I have killed men for much less."
"You forced me to it. Agree to my plan, give your word of honor, and I will release you right now."
He told her to do something vulgar to herself.
She winced but did not back down. When he continued to glower at her, she walked closer, tied a thin strip across his mouth to prevent his yelling, and pulled a fur pelt up over his body against the chill which was sure to fill the hut in the coming hours.
"I will check on you in the morning," she said after covering herself with a cloak and slipping her feet into leather shoes. To her credit, her expression was filled with sadness. Then she left. Just like that. She left.
Silence filled the hut, and Toste shook his mead-fuzzy head. He could not believe what had just happened. A part of him admired Esme for her daring in pulling off such a trick. But a bigger part of him was blood-boiling angry.
Toste started to laugh behind his gag and couldn't stop. Not even when tears rolled from his eyes. Esme had won this battle, but she'd best beware. This war was far from over.
* * *
Chapter Ten
« ^ »
Brother, where art thou?…
Vagn was dreaming. He knew he must be dreaming. And yet the picture behind his eyelids was so vivid.
He was lying on a bed. Correction: His brother Toste was lying on a bed. And he was spread-eagled, bare-arse naked, tied to the bed posts.
Is someone trying to make my brother wed, just as Gorm restrained me in hopes of a forced marriage to his daughter Helga?
Do people wed in the Other World?
He would be worried about Toste and whatever torture was about to be inflicted on him, except that his brother was laughing uproariously at his predicament. And Vagn saw a woman's form in the shadows. Was there ever a man's predicament in which a woman wasn't involved? It was the same black-haired witch he'd seen before, the one who turned his brother hard with lust.
It was all so confusing. First he'd seen images of his brother being picked at by black crows. Then he'd thought his brother kissed a nun. Now he seemed to be involved in bondage, and laughing about it. What could it mean? One thing was for sure: Valhalla, or heaven, for that matter, was not all it was cracked up to be… if that was indeed where Toste resided now.
Where art thou, brother?
How can you speak to me from the Other Side?
Is there a reason you keep calling to me?
Dost need my help?
When
Vagn awakened, he found his face wet with tears.
Well, he thought grimly as he dressed for the day ahead and noticed through the arrow slit window that it was snowing again, much as I would like to help you, brother, I have my own torture to take care of.
Since when do Vikings sit back twiddling their thumbs, and other body parts, whilst others take the offensive?
Since when do Viking men allow their women to rule the roost?
Since when do Viking men let their women do more outrageous things than they do?
Enough!
Today was the day Vagn Ivarsson was going to show Helga the Temptress that her tempting days were over.
Cosmo, where art thou?…
Helga was running out of ideas.
In fact, she was running, period. She'd seen the glint in Vagn's eyes this morning when he was breaking fast with her father's guardsmen and it said, loud and clear: Helga, you'd best run for your life. There is one mad Viking out for your tail.
Even Helga recognized that the candle incident went beyond what was proper into the realm of the scandalous. Perchance even the perverted. How would she know? She'd never even heard of perversions till a few days ago.
"Greetings, Helga," a male voice said.
She almost jumped out of her skin. She was sorting embroidery threads in the rear of her sewing solar, out of view from the door… or so she had thought. But fortunately, it wasn't Vagn. It was Finn Finehair.
"Greetings, Finn," she replied as he came closer. His mustache was looking particularly fine today and he'd forked his beard. What was the occasion?
Uh-oh! He was gazing at her the way Vagn did on occasion. With hunger.
At first, he just leered down at her, twirling one side of his mustache with his fingertips. Did he have any idea how ridiculous he looked? Apparently not.
"Wouldst like to sit next to me tonight at dinner?" he asked, still leering.