Mother Wilfreda clapped her hands sharply as she reentered the chamber and immediately threw a linen sheet over the naked body. Then she forced some herb-laden posset through the man's parched lips. When she finished, she turned on the lot of them. "Sisters! Have you naught better to do than stand about gaping at the man? Sister Margaret and Sister Ursula, go down the hall and help Father Alaric with the other Viking we rescued. The one-eyed giant had to be tied to his pallet to keep him from tossing off the hot poultices, and what a job that was. Mary be blessed, the man must weigh as much as a warhorse. Lady Esme, you stay here and watch over the soldier. If he should awaken, or worsen, call for me at once. The rest of you, come with me to the chapel. We will pray for the souls of these two men. The Good Lord placed them in our midst for a reason."
After that, Esme sat vigil over the handsome Viking for an hour and more, wondering why the Good Lord would send a heathen Viking to a ragtag, mostly half-brained congregation of nuns.
What's a Viking to do when a medieval lady says, "Eat me"?…
Toste fought desperately to emerge from the ocean of unconsciousness that weighed him down. He felt as if he were drowning in pain… mostly in his head, but in his side as well. How could the cool ocean waters turn his skin so blisteringly hot?
His heavy eyelids fluttered half open, and he saw a small, sparsely decorated chamber… not the battlefield. A cozy fire burned in the hearth, and the smell of beeswax candles wafted in the air, but he saw no items of luxury. Hmmm. Had he died? Could this meager dwelling be the much-lauded golden hall of Asgard? Nay, he must have survived his injury and been moved to some other site. With great difficulty, he turned his head to the side and noticed a woman sitting on a low stool to the right of his pallet, eyes downcast as she studied some kind of beads in her lap. She was beautiful… nay, beyond beautiful… with ebony silk hair held off her face by a black veil. Her facial features were perfect. She had a straight nose, not too big, not too small, with a hint of an upward tilt. Her skin was clear and creamy, like porcelain he'd seen once in the eastern market towns. Her lips were rosebud pink… full and lass-some.
What a thought to be having when I'm half-dead! A randy corpse. Ha ha ha! Holy Thor, my brain is splintering apart and I make jokes with myself.
He must have made a grunting sound, for she glanced up, her grayish-blue eyes wide with concern. "You're awake," she stated.
Well, hardly.
"I should go get Mother Superior."
He put up a halting hand. "Wait," he squeaked.
All things came together in Toste's mind then, as he noticed her form, shapeless in a black robe that matched her black veil. She must be a nun, and those black crows he'd thought he dreamed back on the battlefield—they must have been nuns, too. Oddly, he felt a stab of regret that this beautiful woman had chosen the religious life… and that he was not dead.
He tried several times to speak again—he had so many questions—but he could not get the words to form in his confused brain. Finally he gasped out, "Your name?"
"Esme," she whispered.
"Eat me?" he repeated. 'Twas not the first time a woman had asked that of him, but this woman was a nun, for the love of Frigg! Ah, well, he supposed even nuns had carnal appetites. Mayhap especially so, if his experience with the celibate life was any indication. "Mayhap later," he offered graciously. At the moment, he doubted whether he could lift his head, let alone his tongue.
"Huh?" She gawked at him for several long moments before understanding dawned. "Oh, you foul man! Why did we even bother to rescue you?" She looked as if she might punch him, if he weren't already incapacitated.
Rescue? They rescued me? Hmmm. I wonder… could it be possible… oh, please, Odin or God, I care not which it is… please let it be possible… "Sister?" he inquired cautiously of the nun who was now wringing her hands with distress, alternately staring at him and the open doorway, probably contemplating escape.
"You may call me Lady… Lady Esme," she rebuked him haughtily.
Aaah, so that was the reason for her ill-temper. He had misheard her name. He tried to smile, but it was beyond the muscles of his face, which were attached to a scalp that felt as if it were torn in half, which it probably was. Vagn would get a good laugh over his thinking "Eat me" when she'd said "Esme."
And that thought brought him up short.
"M'lady, did the good nuns of this convent rescue more than one Viking this day?"
She nodded slowly.
And gave him hope. Oh, please, Lord and Odin and every blessed god that might exist, let Vagn be alive. Give me this boon and I will be good the rest of my life.
"One other," she elaborated.
I will do good deeds only. I will never swear… or only occasionally when provoked beyond all patience. I will seduce no virgins… unless they beg me. I will rob no more churches. "His name?"
"I know not. He is unconscious, as you have been. He is in another chamber, down the corridor."
Just then he heard a bellow of outrage. He would recognize that voice anywhere. 'Twas Bolthor… not his brother Vagn, as he had hoped. His spirits sank… not that Bolthor had survived, but that his brother probably had not.
"Were there other Vikings rescued on the battlefield?"
"I think not. You and the giant were the only living men we saw, and Mother Wilfreda made us look, believe you me. Ne'er have I seen so much blood and gore." She must have noticed the horror on his face then, for she paused and asked, "Was there someone in particular you were concerned about?"
He gulped several times before nodding. "My brother," he whispered. Then he did something entirely unexpected. He screamed, pouring all the grief in his pain-ridden body into one single word, "VAAAAAAAAGN!"
With that pathetic wail against the fates, he either succumbed to unconsciousness again, or else he died. He hoped it was the latter, because he honestly and truly yearned to leave behind this life.
* * *
Chapter Two
« ^ »
Northumbria, A.D. 964
Vagn the Virile Meets Helga the Homely…
"Marry my daughter, or you'll wish you were dead," Jarl Gorm Sigurdsson of Briarstead snarled.
"I already wish I were dead," Vagn Ivarsson said matter-of-factly. And if he had to continue this tiresome argument with Gorm much longer, one of them definitely was going to be dead.
The large blood vessel in Gorm's thick neck bulged even more. "If wishes were fishes, Ivarsson, you'd be a bloody whale."
" 'If wishes were fishes,' " Vagn repeated back in a mimicking voice. "What are you? A poet now? I ought to introduce you to my friend Bolthor the Skald."
"I already know Bolthor, and, nay, I am not a poet. I am the angry man who holds your life in his hands."
Gorm made a visible effort to control his temper by leaning back in a chair propped against the wall and taking a long swig of ale from a pottery jug. "Be forewarned, though, you slimy cur. If you do not heed me soon, your death will be slow and painful. Me thinks a skinning may be in order… or a gelding."
"Promises, promises," Vagn taunted bravely… though he hoped he would be able to maintain that bravery if Gorm followed through on his threats. He welcomed death these days, now that his brother was gone, but the slow, painful path of skinning or gelding… nay! Bolthor once told a saga about Gorm cutting out the tongue of one of his enemies and eating it raw, but one never knew if Bolthor spun tales of truth or fantasy.
Vagn lay flat on his back, tied to a pallet in an upper bedchamber of Gorm's Northumbrian timber castle, with a guard standing watch outside the door. The room was stifling hot due to a fire blazing in the small hearth. He licked his parched lips, but he'd be damned if he'd beg his vile captor for a drink… let alone his life.
It had been more than two sennights since the Battle of Stone Valley, and he'd almost died numerous times. Now that he was starting to recover, he yearned for the peace of death. Who would have thought that the Norns of Fate would save him so many t
imes, just to plop him, not in the hands of a Saxon enemy, but in the hands of one of his own countrymen… albeit one living at Briarstead, near Jorvik, the Norse capital of Britain? Whether he called himself jarl or earl, Gorm was Viking to the core, like himself.
"I will not wed with Helga."
"She is no longer homely. And she still has a maidenhead, praise be to Odin!"
If not for his restraints, Vagn would have pulled his own hair in frustration. "Homely or not, virgin or not, she will not be my bride. Nor will any other woman, if that is any consolation. Find someone else. Sweeten her dowry pot enough, and she should have suitors aplenty. In truth, few men choose a bride based on appearances."
"You rejected her once afore… on appearances. Called her Helga the Homely at the Vestfold Althing, you did… not to her face, but to plenty of others."
"I did not!"
"Ten years old you were at the time, and Helga only seven, but she has remembered all these years… not that she ever mentions it. But I remember, you cod-sucking weasel."
Oh, bloody hell, could it have been that time when Toste and I were fostered apart? "Twen-twenty years," Vagn sputtered. "You have been harboring a grudge for twenty years over a mere youthling taunt?" And I do not care what you say, Helga must be homely if she has not wed yet at the ripe old age of twenty and eight. An averaged virgin. Eew!
"You named her Helga the Homely, and she has suffered mightily for it. Plus, you ne'er showed up for the betrothal ceremony when you were fifteen. I see naught mere in that."
"I keep telling you, that was my twin brother, Toste. And he was only a halfling, for the love of Thor!" At the mention of Toste's name, tears welled in Vagn's eyes. He still could not accept the fact of his brother's death. How would he ever go on without his other half? How could he care about Gorm or his threats or some barley-faced maiden lady when his life had lost its anchor?
"If I say you are Toste, then you are Toste," Gorm said with stubborn illogic. "Your father promised you for my daughter when you were a babe, and you will not escape a wedding yet again. Not this time."
"I… am… not… Toste."
"She has no breasts to speak of, and she is skinny as a broom, but you can fatten her up," Gorm continued, as if Vagn hadn't spoken. "Plus, she has a shrewish disposition, I must admit that to you aforehand, but that is probably due to her being a rejected wench. No doubt her female parts have withered like dried raisins. She is as independent as a man… acts as her own textile merchant, she does… but a strong Norseman could put her in her place. And she does have all her teeth."
Aaarrgh! Helga had been gone the entire time Vagn had been confined here… off on a buying expedition to the Norselands where her maternal grandsire still lived. Gorm had outlived several wives, including Helga's mother and his latest spouse, a Saxon lady. Helga was expected to return this eventide with a shipload of embroidered cloth for her trading stall in Jorvik. That's all I need—a woman in trade—and not of the bodily kind, either. And what was that about withered female parts? Raisins? Yeech! "What makes you think she would even want me?"
"Her opinion matters not. I want you for her."
Just then, Vagn noticed an odd expression on Gorm's face. Vagn narrowed his eyes as he studied the old man, suddenly suspicious. "She doesn't know that you've kidnapped me, does she?"
"I didn't kidnap you. I rescued you." Gorm's rheumy old eyes shifted here and there, but never lighted on Vagn.
"Hah!" Talk about splitting hairs!
"She'll accept you once she gets accustomed to the idea."
"Hah!" You don't know women, if you think that.
"A man has a right to have grandchildren," Gorm said sulkily.
So that's what this is all about. "Thank you for the honor, but find yourself another breeding bull."
"Three wives and Odin only knows how many other wenches I've tupped, and only one living child do I have to show for my efforts… and her a split tail, besides. I want grandchildren… preferably grandsons."
Vagn had to grin, which caused his dry lips to crack and seep blood. Turned out the mean old bastard was just a mean old pudding heart. That didn't mean Gorm wouldn't skin him, though… or geld him.
" 'Tis not funny."
"On the contrary, 'tis very funny. But I'm not going to marry your daughter, even if you have made me smile. Now, pass that jug over here. And untie these ropes afore I piss my braies."
"Father!" a female voice shouted from downstairs… a female voice that sounded a mite angry. "Father! Where are you? I swear, I am going to whack you over the head with the flat side of a broadsword if the rumors are true." Immediately there was the sound of someone running up the stone steps.
"Uh-oh!" Vagn and Gorm said at the same time.
"There best not be a man in that room with you, tied to a bed, like Rona said there is," she shouted, closer now.
"You allow your daughter to speak to you like that?" Vagn asked Gorm.
"Hah! You obviously have never had a daughter or you would not ask that question. She gainsays me at every turn."
Within seconds a woman stood in the doorway, but she was like no other woman Vagn had ever seen.
Vagn remembered meeting the child Helga, whom his brother had later dubbed "Homely." And she had surely been that, and more. With a big mouth and teeth too big for her small, pale face, she had resembled a horse more than a sweet maid. Plus, her hair had recently been cut and deloused and stood up in spikes about her head. Smitten, she had followed Toste about like a lovesick cow… or, more aptly, a pony.
This was a far different Helga than that earlier version.
She stood tall, with masses of typically Norse blond hair spilling out of a knot atop her head. No wimple or head rail for this creature. She wore a gunna of sky-blue-colored wool, with intricate, multicolored embroidery outlining the hem and neckline and wrists, belted at the waist with a gold-link chain. Gorm hadn't lied—she was thin and flat-chested—but other assets made up for those deficits. She was no longer young, but her cheekbones were high, her eyes wide and as brilliant a blue as her garment, and her lips… ah, her lips were exceedingly large and carnal; as a child, that big mouth had been a disadvantage; as an adult female, it was beyond seductive. All the components of her being were feminine, but her stance—feet widespread, shoulders thrown back, and the posture of hands on hips—gave an entirely different picture. This was no meek maid, about to do any man's bidding.
Helga would not stand out in a crowded hall because of her beauty, but she would stand out just the same. He didn't know about other men, but Vagn would give her a second look. Mayhap even a third.
"Father! What have you done now? Rona told me you brought a prisoner back from Stone Valley two sennights ago—a Norseman—and that you are holding him against his will. She also told me you have been drinking ale. What if you get those chest pains again? You cannot forever blame it on bad digestion."
"Now, now, daughter! I have everything planned out. You are not to worry. Come closer. There is someone I want you to meet. In truth, you already know him."
Helga gave her full attention to Vagn for the first time. He had never been an exceedingly modest man, but he had not shaved or bathed for at least fifteen days, and his hair had not been cut for a year. Truth to tell, he stank. Bloodstains matted his chest hairs, and smeared much of his body. He doubted he looked much like he, or Toste, had looked twenty years ago. Still, he saw the point when recognition dawned in her big eyes.
"Toste? Toste Ivarsson?"
"Not Toste. Vagn," he corrected her.
Gorm waved a hand airily, persisting in his delusion, " 'Tis Toste. Do not listen to him."
"You have kidnapped Toste Ivarsson?" The woman was as stubborn in her blindness as her father.
"I'm Vagn, I tell you." Are these people hard of hearing?
"Not kidnapped, rescued," Gorm said.
"Then why am I tied to this pallet? Why is my body racked with pain? Why does my head ache so? Why am I dying of
thirst? Why is my bladder about to explode? I am a prisoner." Well, all right, Gorm did do everything in his power to save me before making me his prisoner, but that is beside the point.
"Why… is… he… here?" Helga asked her father through gritted teeth.
Yea, Gorm, tell her why I am here, you gruel-for-brains.
"Dearest Helga, may I present your bridegroom?" Gorm announced cheerily, as if handing her sweetmeats on a platter.
Helga made a most unflattering snort of disgust.
Now, Vagn was not pleased about Gorm's marriage plans, either, but he thought he deserved more than a snort of disgust. Methinks I may have been insulted here.
"Have you lost your mind?" Helga asked her father.
"You do not want to wed with me?" Vagn asked with wounded pride. Lackwit, lackwit, lackwit!
"Have you lost your mind, too?" Helga asked him.
"Possibly." Absolutely.
"I have told you way too many times, Father. I do not intend to wed. Why will you not listen to me?"
" 'Tis unnatural," her father said.
"Do you think 'tis unnatural?" she asked Vagn.
Well, seeing as how I have no intention of marrying, either, 'tis a difficult question to answer.
"Don't bother answering," she said with a sneer. "You men always stick together. You think women should be sheep and follow after the nearest ram. You want us to submit to your greater intellect. Hah! You strut about with that dangly part betwixt your legs and think it makes you superior, when in fact it just makes you look silly."
"I ne'er likened myself to a ram," Vagn remarked with a laugh. "Although I do baaaaaa on occasion." Did she really say "dangly part"? I do not have a dangly manpart. Mine is quite… un-dangly.