Sandra Hill (15 page)

The abdomen, actually
. Toste put a hand to said spot reflexively. He still felt sharp pains there on occasion. And itching betimes, too, like a scar healing.

Phew, tell me about it
. Vagn made a loud exhaling sigh inside his brain.
There was so much blood, it turned my stomach. I would have been scared witless if I hadn’t been dying
.

“Why are you grimacing like that?” Eadyth inquired with concern.

He waved a hand dismissively, overcome by the picture Vagn painted of himself. Toste thought he really was go
ing barmy, and it was getting worse by the hour.

Alinor got up and walked around the semicircle, then gave him a hug from behind. “You loved him dearly, Toste, and my heart goes out to you for your pain.” She kissed his cheek, then went back to her seat, tears swimming in her green eyes.

Tears welled in Toste’s eyes, too. Holy Thor! Would he ever get past this pathetic yearning for a brother who’d gone to a better life.

Who says it’s a better life? After swiving your first fifty or so virgins, Valhalla gets old fast. And all that ale drinking and shield pounding!

“I remember the time you two kept changing places to court that young lady in Miklegard…you know, the one with the veils. Finally her father came after you both with a longsword.” Leave it to Tykir to lighten the mood.

Esme made a tsk-ing sound of disapproval at his side. At the same time, she squeezed his forearm in understanding. He could forgive her much for that small gesture.

“He still talks to his brother on occasion,” Esme disclosed.

Is she reading my mind now? May the gods forbid! Mayhap I should think something particularly lascivious and see if she blushes. Or mayhap I should just go take a nap for ten or twenty hours and try to get my mind in order. In any case, forget about the forgiving Esme business. Why did women always have to blather everything?

“Really?” Tykir asked. “And does he talk back?”

You bet
.

“Sometimes,” Esme answered for him with a twinkle in her blue eyes. Obviously, she was getting back at him
for past misdeeds, like making her kiss his manpart for hours on end…well, practically kiss it.

Now, there is a fantasy to play out in my mind. Forget about Vagn and Valkyries. Forget about blood-gushing wounds. How about Esme kissing my manpart? But not in a cart. Nay, this should be on a bed with me naked, arms stacked behind my neck and he…well, she could be naked, or…wait, wait, wait…she could be wearing her nun habit, and—

“Why are you smiling?” Esme wanted to know.

You do not want to know, my lady
. To the others, he said, “It’s freakish, I know, this talking with Vagn, but I still see him in my head and hear him talking, like I used to do when he was alive. And I share his physical pains, too.”

“And his thickenings,” Esme offered impudently, to everyone’s shock and delight…though not his—delight, that is.

You are getting as bold as a Viking, my Saxon lady. Too much bad company. I could think of a better use for that tongue of yours
.

“Thickening is their word—Toste’s and Vagn’s—for—”

“Esme!” he exclaimed. “They know what a thickening is.”

“Oh,” she said and blushed prettily.

“Mayhap you would like to elaborate on this,” Eirik advised.

“Huh?”

“The
mental
thickening business,” Eirik reminded him.

“Huh?”
I am beginning to sound like a blithering idiot
. “Dost really want me to explain that?”

“Mayhap later,” Eadyth suggested, “when young daughters are not about.”

“Oh, Mother!” Larise and Emma said at the same time.

Much laughter followed. Then Bolthor asked him, “Wouldst mind if I tell a saga about you and Vagn?” Bolthor never asked for permission, and everyone knew that. It was a telling moment that he asked now, and Toste did not know what to say. He truly wanted to put discussion of his brother behind him, but he did not want to hurt his good friend, either. Finally he nodded with a deep sigh.

“Hear one and all, this is the death-poem, ‘Ode to Twin Brothers, May Their Ties Last Through Eternity.’”

“Very good title,” Alinor said. Alinor always did have a big mouth and little sense where Bolthor was concerned.

A stunned silence followed, and not the usual stunned silence that followed Bolthor’s sagas. For once, Bolthor had composed a truly touching poem.

“Thank you,” Toste said finally. “Mayhap you could help me memorize that one so I can pull it to mind when my spirits are low.”

You would have thought he’d handed Bolthor a chest of gold, so much did he beam with pleasure.

“Would you mind if I change the subject?” Alinor asked.

“Do horses piss?” Toste muttered under his breath.

Esme elbowed him and muttered, “Coarse lout!”

“We must needs talk about Esme,” Alinor said.

“Hah! Your turn,” he whispered in an undertone.

She shot him another of her blue fire glares before sitting up straighter, the creamy complexion of her face pinkening with a blush.

I would like to say some other things that would bring a
blush to your fair face, Esme. Wicked things. Tempting things
.

“I’m sure you are already aware of the plans being made for you regarding the Witan and a troop of retainers that Toste is putting together,” Alinor began.

Esme cast him a questioning look at the mention of retainers.

Oops, I forgot to mention that. I forgot to tell you lots of things, faced with your naked body and bobbing breasts in a tub of rose petals. Bolthor ought to create a saga about that! I can just imagine what it would be. “Ode to Bobbing Breasts” or something equally outrageous
.

I am still waiting for the “Ode to Eat-Me,”
Vagn said in Toste’s head, which caused him to choke on his mead. He had to give his brother credit; he had a quick wit for a dead man.

“What Alinor is trying to say,” Eadyth said, “is that we have been talking about this situation, and—”

“Uh-oh!” Tykir said, rolling his eyes. “The women have been talking.”

“Now, Tykir, do not be so quick to judge. I, for one, value the female viewpoint,” Eirik said, batting his eyes in a cowlike fashion at his wife.

“You traitor!” Tykir laughed.

Toste missed this kind of brotherly teasing. He missed so much about Vagn, but especially the teasing, he realized now.

Bloody hell! I tease you enough in your head. You want more than that?

“What I started to say, Esme, was that, yea, you should try the Witan, and you should amass a troop for Evergreen, and do everything in your power through diplomatic means, but there may be one thing extra you should keep in mind as a back-up plan,” Alinor said.

Blah, blah, blah. Women loved to blah, blah, blah. Why did they not leave man’s work to men?

“And that would be?” Esme asked hesitantly.

“Marriage,” Alinor and Eadyth announced at the same time.

Whoo-ee, you weren’t expecting that, were you, big brother?

Esme rose indignantly. “I have not spent eleven years in a convent, avoiding marriage, just to give in now.”

“Nay, nay, nay!” Toste stood, as well. “Are you two demented? What would marriage solve for Esme?” For some odd reason, the prospect of Esme being married filled him with horror.

A bit of dog in the manger, don’t you think?

“Shut up!”

“Who are you telling to shut up?” Esme asked with even more indignation.

He must have spoken aloud.
By thunder, my brain is splintering apart
.

“Sit down, you two,” Alinor said, waving a hand toward them. “Give us a chance to explain.”

They both sat, hesitantly.

“Esme, we are not saying that you
must
wed. We are saying you should consider it,” Eadyth elaborated. “And it would be different from what you have been offered in the past by your father. This would be your choice.”

You are not picking some lecherous lout for a husband, I am warning you right now, Esme. Not even a non-lecherous lout
. Toste put his fingertips to his mouth just to make sure he wasn’t speaking his thoughts again.

“You could pick a man who would be as much a puppet under your control as your father’s choices would be under his,” Alinor said.

Oh, that is just wonderful. Encourage her to get a milksop for her lifemate. Do this, do that. Hell!

“You could make a list of all the qualities you want in a husband—a good leader to work for you with the king and his court, a good fighter to work for you against the king and his court, a good farmer or man familiar with the land to turn Evergreen prosperous again, a good principled man.” Alinor was on a real roll, or so she thought.

“A good lover,” Tykir interjected with a wink at his wife.

“That, too,” Alinor said.

Toste closed his eyes and swore he saw balls of fire.
Esme is definitely not picking a good lover for a husband. Not while I am around
.

“Do not discard the idea out of hand,” Eadyth advised Esme.

Do discard the idea out of hand, Esme
.

“Think about it,” Eadyth concluded.

“I must admit, you ladies make some good points,” Eirik said.

I…do…not…think…so
.

Eadyth fairly beamed at her husband.

“Well, it is not going to happen,” Toste said firmly, standing once again. “Do not listen to them, Esme. You will not wed, and that is that. I forbid it.”

Everyone, including Esme, went wide-eyed at his vehement words.

Uh-oh! Perchance I went a bit too far
.

Like ten hectares too far? Tact, my brother…where is the tact I taught you so well?

“What right have you to forbid me anything?” Esme said, standing to glare up at him.

“I have the right because…because I choose to have
the right,” he argued nose to nose with her in utter illogic.

Toste could swear he heard laughter in his head.

Bolthor murmured something about green-eyed monsters, whatever that meant, and everyone else in the room nodded with odd little smirks on their faces. He did not care. They were speaking of marrying Esme off, and he could not allow it. He had lost one person he loved and—

Toste stopped himself short.

Now we are getting somewhere
.

It could not be.

Wouldst like to wager on that?

It was impossible.

Dumber than a Danish door hinge!

“Dumb dolt! Awk! Awk!” said Abdul.

Grabbing Esme’s hand and ignoring the snickers behind him, he began to pull her out into the corridor. “I must needs speak to you in private,” he choked out.

“And I have a few things to say to you, as well,” she stormed.

This is your chance, big brother. Don’t blow it
.

What did Adam do when offered the apple?…

Helga was driving Vagn barmy. Full-blown, pulling-at-the-hair, humming-at-the-groin barmy.

How could she do this to him? Tell him she wanted to couple with him…plant that idea in his lustsome brain…then add the piddling little detail that it wasn’t really him she wanted but his seed. The insult of her offer! The sheer offensive insult of her expectation that he would just flit off like a carefree bird and leave a child of his loins behind, like a molting feather.

Not bloody likely!

If it had not been snowing for three straight days, making visibility impossible and the temperature nigh freezing, he would have hightailed it out of Briarstead on his trusty horse Clod the night Helga first made her offensive offer. But he’d stayed…
may the gods and all the fallen
warriors up in Asgard stop laughing!
…and she’d been torturing him ever since. The deliberately seductive sway of her hips as she slithered by. Licking those big, luscious lips of hers when she knew he was watching. Lowering her lashes and giving him sideways glances in a most inviting way. Always leaving him wondering whether she wore undergarments or not. Once she even winked at him…the willful witch.

Aaarrgh!

Gorm had asked him yestereve if he was suffering another headache from his dead brother. What he’d wanted to answer was, “Nay, a cock ache.” What he’d actually said was, “Yea, just a twinge.”

Gorm’s retainers had taken to making a wide path when he headed their way because of his foul temper. He’d heard one man ask another, “What bug crawled up his arse?” He’d wanted to say, “Helga,” but of course he didn’t.

And some of Helga’s ladies…her embroiderers…had taken to snickering when he approached. He had no idea why, and was fairly certain he didn’t want to know.

So now Vagn stomped off toward his bedchamber with a jug of ale in hand. It was barely past dark, but he planned on drinking himself into a stupor. He hoped he didn’t have more dreams tonight. Wherever his brother was—dead or alive—he was hot on the tail of a black-haired beauty. Vagn was starting to feel perverted, intruding on his brother’s sexual escapades…enjoying them, in fact.

But then, the other alternative was dreaming about Helga…mostly about her attacking him in the most incredible fantasies. Tying him to a bed to have her way with him. Licking him head to toe to gain his assent.
Dancing for him, naked. Wetting those hot-as-sin lips of hers. He didn’t know if these dreams fell into the area of perversions, but, frankly, he didn’t bloody well care.

Pathetic, that’s what he’d become. He had reverted back to an untried youthling who got his thrills from damp dreams, not real bedsport.

After stoking the fire, he removed his clothing and crawled onto his bed with only a fur pelt over his lower half. He was about to reach for the pottery jug on the floor when he heard a short rap on the closed door. He had only imbibed two long swallows of ale so far—not nearly enough to withstand another of Gorm’s marriage proposals. Last time, he’d offered him a toll bridge in the border lands as an added enticement. Before that, it had been a Nubian slave girl from an Eastern harem, yet to be bought. That on top of being named Lord of Briarstead, a chestful of gold coins, three horses and one longboat.
Gorm is relentless. I wonder, what this latest offer will be. Nay, I do not wonder, because I do not care
.

“Go away, Gorm.”

The door opened anyway. It wasn’t Gorm. It was Helga, which was even worse. Ominously, he heard the door lock click behind her.

“Go away,” he said more forcefully, and turned on his side away from her, facing the fire.
I am not going to think about her standing here in my bedchamber. I am not going to think about her offer to come to my bed furs. I am not going to let my cock do my thinking. I am resolved—she means naught to me. So there, you wily wench!

Silence reigned, but only for a moment before she said in a shaky voice, “How do you feel about self-caressing?”

All of Vagn’s good intentions floated away with those few words. He turned back over and sat up. Stacking his
hands behind his head, he observed her standing by the door, nervous as a virgin before a ritual sacrifice.

That is not a comparison I should be making
.

Her face was flushed with color, but that was all he could see, because her body was covered entirely by a blue cloak which she clutched together with both hands at her waist. But wait, there was another body part exposed. Her bare feet. Her oddly erotic bare feet.

Could she be naked underneath?

At first, he could not breathe, let alone speak. When he got himself reasonably under control, he remarked as casually as he could, “Self-caressing, Helga? Me or you?”

He had expected to shock her with his question. Instead, she seemed to ponder his words. “Well, Rona says—”

“Rona? Who is Rona?” he interrupted in an almost shrill tone.
Helga is discussing self-caressing with me. Have I entered another world—a strange otherworld of demented people? Is this a jest? Toste, are you responsible for this? Did you plant the idea in her half-brain head, from wherever you are?

Her eyes seemed to light up with pleasure that he did not know this Rona person. “That is neither here nor there, but Rona says men like to caress themselves betimes—”

“Only if there is no other option available.”

“Quit interrupting me. ’Tis hard enough to get this out without your teasing,” she snapped, then seemed to catch herself. After all, a female should not be snappish when she was engaged in the business of seducing a man to get his man-seed. “What I was trying to say is, Rona claims that men caress themselves betimes, but what they really like is to watch a woman caress herself.” She said
all in one whoosh of breath, as if she had to get it all out afore she lost her nerve.

Now, to say that this particular assertion got his attention would be the understatement of all time…like saying Viking men were somewhat virile. Every hair on his body waved in the wind. His nipples ached, and they almost never ached. His tongue thickened. His staff was thickening, too. And humming, for a certainty. In fact, it was singing “Alleluias.” Surely Loki the jester god was engaging in his pranks again, because no mortal being could ever come up with such a notion to tempt an already lustsome man.

Vagn had no intention of getting Helga with child and walking away. The best way to avoid that happenstance was to keep his manpart as far distant from her woman folds as possible, like in another country. So, what did he say? “Mayhap I would need a demonstration to decide…whether I would like to watch you self-caress or not.”
Liar, liar, liar! Lackwit, lackwit, lackwit! I am a blithering idiot
. Meanwhile, said manpart was making a tent of his bed fur.

“All right,” she said.

All right? What does she mean, “All right?” She cannot mean to…

Uh-oh!

She unclapsed one of her hands.

She does
.

Helga bit her bottom lip nervously, then spread her cloak wide and let it drop to the floor. Tears of embarrassment glistened in her blue eyes…an indication of how difficult this disrobing was for her. She probably still suffered from the Helga the Homely misname she’d been given so long ago.

And it
was
a misname, because the woman who stood before him now in all her naked glory presented a picture beauteous beyond belief—to Vagn, leastways. He suspected that some men—
blind dolts
—might find her too tall and skinny and big-mouthed. She was taller than average for a woman and very slender, with small, almost nonexistent breasts and exceedingly long legs. Instead of being put off by her less-than-generous endowments, he found her slimness appealing. Her hair was pale gold hanging down to her hips. Her mouth, one of her greatest assets, was wide and wet from her darting tongue. Her eyes stared at him, direct with question.

“Helga, you are beautiful,” he said finally.

“I am not,” she replied. She might not like his compliments, but her breasts did. The nipples hardened and stood out like pink sentinels.

He should tell her to put her cloak back on and run fast from his bedchamber, but she had already begun the self-caressing, and he could not have stopped her now even if he wanted to, which he did not.

She traced her lips with the tips of her fingers. The fingertips of the other hand made a trail from her chin down her neck over her shoulder and down one arm.

“Helga, have you ever touched yourself before?” he choked out.

She shook her head slowly from side to side. “Am I doing it incorrectly?”

“How in the name of Thor would I know?”

She frowned. “You have ne’er played this game afore?”

“Never.” And that was the gods’ own truth.

His answer seemed to please her. With a secretive little smile, she ran the palms of both hands down her sides,
over her waist and hips to her thighs, then back up to lift her small breasts from underneath.

He heard a small groaning noise and realized it came from himself. “Did Rona tell you to do that?”

“Nay, I thought of it myself.”

“Smart girl!”

She smiled again, shyly, and used both thumbs and forefingers to tease her nipples, which were large considering the size of her breasts. The whole time she gazed at him, gauging his reaction, which was formidable, if she only knew.

“I really don’t know what to do,” she confessed and let her hands drop to her sides. She was panting lightly at her own self-arousal, but probably was unaware of what she had done to herself.

“You are doing fine so far,” he said. “Just imagine as you touch yourself that it is me touching you.”

“I already am.”

His manpart jerked.
Oh, Helga, you divulge too much. I will use that information against you in some way, I guarantee it
. “Come closer so I can see better,” he suggested.

She stepped to the side of the bed so that she stood between him and the hearth. Her body was backlit by the fire, which still blazed warmly, painting her with hues of red and gold.

“Spread your legs.”

She did.

“Wider.”

She did, but he could tell she was uncomfortable standing thus.

Who cares! I like it
. “Look down at your woman fleece, Helga. The curls glisten like gold. Are you wet there?”
Her eyes shot upward to meet his with shock. “Touch yourself and see.”

“I am. St. Bridget’s breath, I have wet myself,” she wailed once she touched herself there lightly.

He almost laughed aloud at her innocence. “Nay, sweetling, ’tis woman dew. Your body readies itself for my…I mean, a man’s entrance.”

“Oh.” He could tell that news fascinated her, and she touched herself there more thoroughly, then gasped when she must have discovered that particular spot where a woman’s pleasure was centered. She jerked her hand away as if burned.

Vagn hadn’t had so much fun in ages and ages, and he wasn’t about to let it end so soon. “More, Helga—go back to that small bud and stroke it like you would the petals of a flower. Gently. As if your fingertip is the wing of a butterfly.”

To his utter amazement, Helga, who could be the most obstinate woman in other circumstances, chose to heed his demands now. But then, she was a woman with a mission.

She stroked herself with one hand down below, and twirled a nipple with the fingers of the other hand. Vagn was so aroused, his blood roared and his cock pulsed. If he was not careful, he would come to peak beneath the bed furs, alone.

Suddenly Helga stopped and looked at him directly. “Are you going to make love with me, Vagn?”

It was the hardest thing Vagn ever did, but after a long pause, he said, “Nay, but I can bring us both pleasure without actually completing the act.”

She tilted her head to the side. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was trying to understand how that could hap
pen or if she was contemplating his offer. In the end, she commented, “What would be the point of that?”

“Pleasure.”

“But no babe?”

“No babe.”

She sighed deeply, then walked to the door, where she picked up her cloak and wrapped herself tightly in its folds. Before she left, she turned and told him, “I won’t stop trying.”

He smiled grimly—how else could he smile but grimly, when his body was tuned like an overstrung harp?—and countered, “And I will look forward to those efforts…with a passion.”

Once she was gone, a voice in Vagn’s head said,
Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Turning the screws…

It was two more days before Helga had the nerve to try her skills at seduction again.

The ice storm that had hit Northumbria was deemed the greatest in a century. Lucky for her. She was fairly certain that Vagn would have run from Briarstead like a scared rabbit if the roads had been clear. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed her first attempt at temptation, she was sure. He’d enjoyed himself, no doubt about it.

Now, on to step two of her seduction plan.

“Exactly what is step two?” she asked Rona. It was late afternoon, and they stood in the salon folding and inventorying ells of embroidered cloth to be sold at market this spring. She and Rona were the only ones there due to the poor light caused by the continuing winter storms.

“The Pull-Back,” Rona said without hesitation.

Helga stopped working and stared at Rona with amazement. “I hope this one isn’t as scandalous as the first one. I don’t think my heart could take it.”

Rona flashed her a dimpled grin. “Admit it, m’lady. You enjoyed yourself.”

Helga pursed her lips and pretended offense, but only for a moment. “I did. Hell and Valhalla! I made myself so hot, I fair went up in flames. So, what is this Pull-Back?”

“Now that you’ve got his attention, pretend to change your mind. Well, not change your mind so much as change your direction.”

“I’m afraid to ask what you mean by that.”

“Show interest in some other man.”

“What man?”