“What?” he asked, immediately interested.
She whispered in his ear, then stepped back. “Are you shocked?”
“Alinor, Alinor, Alinor, when will you learn? You cannot shock a Viking, especially when it comes to sex.” Then he yelled loud enough to wake the dead, “Where is that bloody tent?”
Time to face the (Viking) music . . .
It was past midnight and the tide was getting low. Thork was preparing to go through the tunnel to meet with his parents for the first time in five years. Nervousness had him pacing back and forth. He didn’t know what to expect.
The fact that they came must mean they planned to rescue him. Not that he needed rescuing, but they didn’t know that. So, yea, he was pleased. Still, he was unsure exactly what reaction there would be.
From their lookout atop the mountain earlier that day, they watched as tents were erected on Small Island, and a campfire built. Good thing Sigrun and Salvana weren’t out there. From all the trunks and barrels brought ashore, you’d think they were planning a long stay. Medana will have a screaming fit. In fact, there was an air of festivity below. Hope they brought some of Aunt Eadyth’s famous mead. Truly, he should not be surprised. That was his parents. They never did anything in a small way.
It was hard to tell from the distance between the mountaintop and the island exactly who had accompanied his parents, but Thork was fairly certain that he could pick out Starri, Guthrom, and Selik. Oh joy! A family reunion!
Thork had argued with Medana throughout the day and early evening. They must go out and greet his parents. He knew his mother and father. They would not just retreat. His mother, especially, loved a puzzle, and she would consider Medana’s ransom letter and an empty Small Island a personal challenge to solve.
In the end, Medana, with a woeful resignation, gave her consent. In her mind, all was lost, now that others would know about Thrudr. While Thork would do his best to maintain her secrets, she was correct in saying he could not guarantee what others might do.
To her credit, Medana was going with him through the tunnel. Reluctantly. Along with his seven men (Bolthor was composing sagas faster than his thick brain could retain them), unarmed (yea, Medana was apparently aware that the men had been pilfering weapons one at a time; how else would Bolthor have been able to chop wood?), and seven of Medana’s women (fair is fair, she’d contended, a warped pirate logic, Thork supposed), with weapons (pirate ladies must keep up their image). She’d insisted on those equal numbers, and, Thor’s hammer, they really were dressed for war, each one carrying a short sword, battle-axe, and shield. Some, like Gudron, even wore a leather helmet. One of them, Elida, carried a bow and quiver of arrows. Demented, that’s what they were. One sweep of his father’s arm and they would be on their way to Valhalla or Asgard or wherever fallen female warriors went.
Medana, too, was attired like the pirate she was with leather tunic and braies, high boots cross-gartered up to the knees, and a red scarf wrapped around her head and tied in a knot to one side of her neck. Even in the male attire, she appeared beautiful to Thork with those amazing violet eyes and sensuously full lips. And other body parts.
His mother would love her on sight. His father would fall over laughing.
“Why are you smirking?” she asked as movable stairs were being carried over to the almost empty pond for ease of descent and ascent. They would have only two hours before the steep-sided pond started filling again, so no time could be wasted.
“I am not smirking. I was smiling.”
“You are happy to be seeing your parents, then?”
“Of course.” Actually, I was picturing you lying on a blanket, minus all those garments, with your blonde hair billowing out like skeins of silk, your thighs spread, your breasts arched up—
“But nervous also,” she remarked.
“Huh?”
“Nervous about your parents.” At the questioning tilt of his head, she explained, “You are wearing a path around the pond with your pacing, and you have developed a twitch in your jaw.”
He clenched his jaw tightly. “And you . . . are you nervous, Medana?”
“As a cat on hot coals.”
“My father and his men would not hurt you, unless they were attacked first. Even then, they would avoid physical violence with women. Even pirate women.” He waggled his eyebrows at that last part of his comment.
“Do not make mock of me.”
“I was not. You are the one who named yourself Sea Scourge.”
“I did not! Some miscreant monk who did not want to give up his sack of gold coins is the one who did that. All I did was kick him in the shin and knock him to the ground afore making off with the unholy hoard of treasure.”
He shook his head with amazement. The possible mother of his child off a-pirating and attacking priests! Lady Alinor would probably not be too happy about the priest business, being a Christian and having been raised in a Saxon household. Thork never told people that he was half Saxon because he considered himself all Viking.
But on to other matters. “Do you know if—”
“Do not ask me again,” she warned. “I already told you, at least a dozen times, that I will not know for a sennight or more.”
“I just thought . . . well, do these things not come early betimes?”
She crossed her eyes with frustration, and looked damn adorable when she did. “ ‘These things’ do not come early for me. Now, stop asking.”
He glanced down to her stomach.
“And stop looking at me there.”
He went down the ladder first and waited for Medana at the bottom. And enjoyed watching her descent as the fabric of her braies tautened over her buttocks. Which reminded him that he hadn’t taken her from behind yet, dog style, one of his favorite sexual positions. He wondered if he’d get the chance now.
“You better not be ogling my arse,” she warned.
“Of course not,” he replied, and continued to ogle. Mayhap he would still get an opportunity to try other positions. There must be dozens. Mayhap even hundreds. Nay, he could not think of that. Not now. Not when he was about to face his mother. She would know what he was thinking. Mothers, leastways his mother, could practically read the minds of their naughty sons. Gods! You would think I am eight years old and not twenty and eight.
He took her hand, but she pulled it away. “We are not greeting your parents hand in hand.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would imply we are lovers, which we are not.”
“Right,” he agreed. Although, you must admit, we were lovers already, and we might be again, please gods. It is in the hands of the Norns of Fate now. Or my mother’s, if she finds out what I have been up to.
Torches were being carried by some of his men, and a full moon had just emerged from behind a cloud cover. So there was reasonable nighttime visibility, more so when they emerged on the other side where the moon and stars reflected off the water.
As they walked across the narrow landmass connecting the two islands, he could see that everyone was abed for the night in the three tents and on the ground. Torches on tall poles set at intervals gave some additional light. Two guardsmen were up and on duty but they studied the seas, not expecting to see anyone coming from this direction.
“Hail! We come as friends!” Thork shouted out.
Startled, the two guards jerked around and noticed them for the first time. “Foemen! Foemen!” one of the guards yelled, not recognizing him.
Oops, Thork had forgotten to mention his name.
Too late!
His father’s other men were rising, too. Out on the longship, torches were being lit. His brothers, naked as the day they were born, emerged quickly from one of the tents. All of them drawing weapons.
Which caused Medana to cut him with a killing glance, as if he’d led them into a trap. She let loose with one of her two-fingers-to-the-mouth whistles. A call to arms.
“Are you demented?” he barked at her.
/>
Guthrom raised a battle cry. “Weapons! Weapons!”
Others were clamoring about in a rush to arm themselves.
“Death to the pirates! Hew them down!”
“An ambush . . . we are being ambushed!”
Guthrom was closest, so Thork roared at him, “Lower your sword, Guthrom! It is me, Thork.”
Guthrom didn’t hear him apparently because he not only failed to lower his sword but he grabbed a pike as well.
Selik was trying to pull on a pair of braies one-handed while he held a broadaxe in his other hand. And he was yelling, “They came from the sea. Must be underwater warriors. Water gods . . . and, bloody hell! Goddesses, too. Must be they are Valkyries.”
He heard Jostein mutter something about, “If these are Valkyries, I do not want to go to Valhalla.”
“Is it possible the Water Valkyries are the pirates who took Thork?” Guthrom asked no one in particular.
My family! Thork thought in the midst of the chaos. I should have expected that things would not go smoothly. How anyone could mistake the women of Thrudr for Valkyries was beyond Thork.
In the confusion, one of the women shot out an arrow, and hit a member of his family high on one thigh. Guthrom! No wonder! He’d been standing there making a fool of himself with those ridiculous speculations about the women. But whoa! A little higher and his brother’s manhood would have been in peril.
Guthrom dropped his sword and gaped at the arrow sticking out from his thigh. The stunned expression on his face was one Thork would relish telling him about. Later.
The whole time Thork was shouting, “It’s me. Thork! You bloody idiots!”
Starri picked up several of his throwing knives. Thork recognized him immediately by his red hair and freckles, noticeable even in the half light. If Starri released even one of those knives, someone was going to be dead, so expert was his brother at this particular skill. Thork was about to rush forward and tackle him to the ground, but just then, a loud, booming voice bellowed, “Halt! Lower your weapons, you bloody lackbrains. It’s your lackbrain brother Thork!” Emerging from the tent was his father, who was tying the cords on his braies. Peeping out from behind him was his mother in a night rail, covered with a shawl over her shoulders.
Everyone froze in place, even the women. His father was an imposing figure. And, gods be praised, Thork could see by the torchlight that his father was remarkably the same since last he’d seen him, except for a little more white in his long, sleep-mussed hair. If he’d expected to see a graybeard bent over at the shoulders as some aged folks tended to be, or if he’d thought that old war wound would have deemed his father a cripple by now, Thork was sorely mistaken. And pleasantly so.
The frozen tableau seemed to go on for an hour, but it was probably only a moment before a feminine voice said, “Thork?”
It was his mother.
She took one step forward.
He took one step forward.
Like a whirling dervish, his mother then nigh flew through the air and launched herself at him. Lifting her off her feet into his embrace, he felt her tears against his neck “My son. My son,” she kept crooning as her hands patted his back, as if he were a babe and not a full-grown man. When she drew away from him to study his face, she chastised, “How could you have stayed away so long? Do not ever do so again.”
It was time to face his father, who’d come up behind Lady Alinor. He’d managed to don a belted tunic, and around his neck was the familiar chain with the hanging star-shaped amber pendant. From a young age, Thork and his brothers had been fascinated by the bloodred drop caught in the yellow stone centuries ago.
Nothing had changed and everything had changed.
“I should knock you to your sorry arse,” his father growled.
There was silence all around. Even the women pirates waited with bated breath to hear what the high jarl would say.
“You should,” Thork agreed.
“Are you well?”
“As well as can be expected having been captured by a hird of dangerous female pirates.” Thork was trying for a tone of levity.
His father did not smile, but instead scanned the crowd behind him, giving a nod to his friend Bolthor, then Finn, Jostein, Alrek, and Jamie, whom he also knew well. Henry and Brokk had never met Thork’s father.
“Wait here a moment,” Thork said to Medana. “Whatever you do, don’t kill anyone.”
She curled her upper lip with disdain at his lame attempt at humor in such a dire situation.
He went over to check on Guthrom’s wound, which turned out to be nothing more than a scrape. The arrow was already removed, and his mother wrapped a linen strip around the wound, while Guthrom winced and complained. “Stop being such a whineling,” his mother cautioned. She’d tended much worse injuries when they were boys.
Thork couldn’t wait then. He turned to Starri, the brother he’d been closest to, and said, “Sorry I was to hear of Dagne’s death.”
Starri did not acknowledge his sympathetic gesture. At first. Then he said, “You did not come for her funeral. Where were you when I was grieving?”
“In a Saxon prison,” Thork replied.
Starri laughed. “A likely story,” but then the two brothers hugged, and all was forgiven.
Thork took his mother by the arm and led her back to where his father still stood talking to Bolthor and Thork’s other men. Medana and the women still had their weapons in hand, but fortunately they’d heeded Thork’s order not to move. Thork went to stand beside Medana, as a show of support. His mother went to his father’s side and was chatting softly with Bolthor.
“Can I assume you have composed a saga to tell me about this happenstance?” his mother asked Bolthor.
Bolthor beamed. “Several, in fact, m’lady.”
Tykir turned his attention back to Thork. “I am curious to learn how a presumably fierce Viking warrior could allow himself to be captured by females, and how you all seemed to rise out of the sea just now. Are they witches, as well?”
Thork felt Medana stiffen beside him. He squeezed her arm in reassurance.
His father’s eyes latched on to his hand on his captor’s arm. His father didn’t miss a thing.
“At low tide, a narrow strip of land emerges, connecting Small Island with that larger island behind us. See the tunnel that allows entrance, but only for an hour or two each day, depending on the tides.”
His father glowered at Thork . . . and sighed. Before Thork could respond, his father pulled him into a big hug that nigh broke his ribs and had him standing on the tips of his toes. His father was only slightly taller than his sons, but he was massive in the breadth of his chest and the size of his arm muscles. He would not let go for a long time and then only when he said against Thork’s ear, “I am much grieved with you, son, and you will pay for your sins, believe you me. For now, though . . .” He seemed to gulp. “I missed you.”
When finally released, Thork saw tears in his father’s eyes, and that, if nothing else, caused shame to envelop him. “I will never stay away again.”
His father’s fierce expression softened. “Now, introduce us to these captors of yours.”
“This is Medana, the leader of the Thrudr sanctuary.” He winked at Medana to give her a nudge of assurance.
She scowled at his wink.
“She is queen, so to speak, of Thrudr, that mountainous island over there,” Thork continued, knowing that Medana would hate him giving her that title. “ ’Tis where I have been living nigh on three sennights now.”
His father studied the island and the tunnel opening, understanding coming gradually to him.
“I still think they came up from the water,” Selik said from behind them.
“Spare us your youthling wisdom,” his father snapped.
Selik just grinned.
His father gave his full attention to Medana now. With a sweeping glance of condescension, he said, “The Sea Scourge, I presume.”
“Precisel
y.” Thork motioned her forward.
Her chin was raised high as she stepped up beside him and in an icy voice of equal disdain said, “Welcome to Thrudr, Jarl Thorksson.” In the Norse culture, men took their father’s first name as a surname. Thork had been named after his grandfather Thork, Tykir’s father. “I have heard much about you, as well as your good wife,” Medana continued, nodding at his mother, whose jaw had dropped long ago and continued to gape open.
Catching herself, Lady Alinor spoke up, “I look forward to knowing you better, Medana. Is that permissible for a captor and the captive’s mother?”
His father snorted his opinion as to what would be permissible or not permissible when he was around. “They are pirates, not bloody Valkyries.”
“But I thought—” Selik started to say.
“Hush!” Guthrom said, nudging Selik with an elbow.
“Permissible? Since when, wife, must we extend courtesy to outlaw Norsewomen?” his father grumbled.
Lady Alinor gave her husband a sweet smile, at the same time warning, “Watch your fool tongue, husband.”
Thork also introduced Medana to his three brothers, who by now were much more interested in the women. They were all fully clothed now, but not before the ladies of Thrudr had gotten an eyeful. Plus, most of Guthrom’s one leg was visible through the long slit in his braies.
“And these are some of the women of Thrudr,” Thork went on. “First off, this is Gudron, mistress of military.” That should be obvious to one and all, with the large woman dressed in full battle gear, including a leather helmet, chain mail, and both a short sword and a pike.
“That is a nice sword,” Selik commented. “Is it pattern welded?”
Tykir reached over and swatted his youngest son aside the head before Gudron could reply.
“What? All I said was—”
“And this is Bergdis, mistress of buildings and woodworking,” Thork interjected before his father and Selik got into a wrestling match. Not an uncommon occurrence. The short woman with frizzy red hair carried an axe, possibly the one Bolthor had been using for firewood. She smiled, showing a space where a front tooth was missing. “Bergdis is an impressive rower when the women of Thrudr go a-pirating.”