Sandra Hill (2 page)

For the next half hour, thick fighting ensued, and there was no time to look around. Having the advantage of surprise, the Saxons cleft through the Norse ranks as if through sheaves of wheat. Oh, the Viking soldiers displayed great skill and stamina…they were lords of swordplay, to be sure…but they could not withstand such a large force. No matter how many of the enemy Toste slew, no matter how weapon-skillful he was, another Saxon always sprang up behind the ones he slew. It was hopeless, Toste began to realize. The ringing of swords, the screams of the wounded in their death throes, the neighing of frightened horses, the inhuman growls of the berserkers—all of these combined to turn Toste dizzy with terror. The battle was not yet over; even so, the carnage was horrific on both sides.

In his peripheral vision, in the middle of the fray he saw Bolthor, rendered weaponless, lower his head and charge at a menacing Saxon who aimed a crossbow his way. Knocking the bowman to his back like a head-butting goat, Bolthor proceeded to strangle him with his bare hands. After that, Toste saw Bolthor pick up a Saxon broadsword and lop off a man’s head as neatly as slicing a sausage. Without skipping a beat, Bolthor then took a young Saxon’s face between his massive hands and crushed his skull like a walnut. About them, the stench of sword dew was overpowering.

Shaking his head to clear it of the fuzziness that assailed him momentarily, Toste felt a sudden disturbance.
An odd prickling tingled at the back of his neck.
Vagn. Where is Vagn?
Scanning the field, he located Vagn a considerable distance away. They must have become separated some time ago in the melee.

As if in slowed motion, Toste watched helplessly as a Saxon long sword pierced his brother’s chain
shert
, passed into his chest, then all the way through his back, directly through his heart. There was blood everywhere—on his face, his body, at his feet a pool of blood.

Toste’s eyes connected with Vagn’s in that unusual way they had of sensing each other’s presence. Vagn screamed out to him, mentally,
TOOOSSSTTTE!
Several quick hand gestures in the silent language he and Vagn had developed said, “Farewell, brother. I have loved thee well.” Then Vagn sank to his knees, both hands clutching the sword that his attacker—a huge man with bright red hair and a livid scar running from crown to chin—was attempting to pull out with one booted foot braced on Vagn’s shoulder. Once the Saxon removed the sword from Vagn’s chest, he stood over him, grinning. With hysterical irrelevance, Toste noticed the bright silver eagle embossed on the villain’s shield. Vagn was still alive, but barely. His attacker laughed and left Vagn for dead, obviously wanting him to die a slow death.

A black mist came over Toste, and he went berserk for the first time in his life. Baring his teeth with savage fury, he howled with rage, then fought his way toward his brother. But, alas, though he battled valiantly, hewing down foemen right and left in his path, he had no protection at his back. He knew he was in trouble by the expression of alarm on Vagn’s face. When Toste felt the violent impact of a weapon against his skull, he fell to his
knees, just as his brother had. But, nay, Vagn was lying on his back now, eyes closed.

Dead!
His brother was dead. How would he be able to bear the loss? Toste agonized as unconsciousness overcame him. Then he laughed inwardly as another thought came to him. He would not have to grieve over his brother’s death because he was probably dying himself. In truth, the prospect of life without Vagn held no appeal.

Ah, well, he had never wished for a straw death. No Viking wanted to die in his sleep upon the rushes. Still, he would have liked to discuss this happenstance with his brother afore they entered the afterlife.

Will we meet this day in Valhalla? Or even in that Christian heaven?
he wondered.
I hope so
.

’
Tis said that the Einberiar, the brave warriors killed in battle, see the flashing swords of the Valkyries just before death. The helmeted maidens ride white horses and escort the dead heroes to Valhalla, Odin’s great mead hall in Asgard
.

I cannnot wait
.

He died with a smile on his face then, envisioning the lovely virgin Valkyries who would soon carry him off.
Imagine Vagn’s delight when we meet up in Valhalla with all those untried wenches
.

Yea, death might not be so very bad.

Sometimes girls (even nuns) just wanna have fun…

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” confessed the young woman kneeling on the hard wooden bench. She shivered as she spoke with foggy breath; it was damp and chilly in the stone chapel of St. Anne’s Abbey at the best of times, but in the middle of November in Northumbria the cold was enough to turn one’s blood to ice.

A groan emerged from the other side of the confessional screen. “Again?” Father Alaric asked with a deep sigh. “You made your penance just this morn with all the other novices. What sin could you possibly have committed in such a short time…in a nunnery, of all places?”

“I blasphemed when I stepped in some droppings from Sister George’s goat in the sacristy.”

“The sacristy?” Father Alaric sputtered. “Really, those rescued animals of Sister George’s are getting beyond bothersome. It’s nigh sacrilegious where they show up.”

“Wait till you see the five-legged piglet she brought in today. Methinks it sleeps now in the baptismal font.”

“What?” Father Alaric shrieked, then seemed to recall his setting. “Back to your confession, child. Which bad word did you use?”

“Christ’s toenails,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“Christ’s toenails,” Father Alaric murmured under his breath—whether to repeat her words or utter his own expletive was unclear. “Tsk tsk tsk! Using the Lord’s name in vain is unacceptable for a novice with a true vocation.”

“’Tis difficult being good all the time,” Esme complained. “Thou shalt not swear.” ’
Tis hard not to swear when one is living in the midst of a gaggle of fifty lackwit nuns and novices who produce beer to subsist
. “Thou shalt not be greedy.”
The person who thought that one up must never have experienced the sparse purse of a convent
. “Thou shalt not be slothful.”
Up before dawn, to bed soon after dark, and not a second for dawdling that I’ve ever seen
. “Thou shalt not harbor unclean thoughts or deeds.”
As if I would know an unclean thought if I stepped in it! I haven’t seen a man worth salivating over in ten long years
. “Thou shalt not be noi
some.
Well, all right, mayhap I do whistle on occasion, or sing unmelodiously, or voice an unsolicited opinion or two
. “Thou shalt not be prideful.”
Yea, I take great pride in my sackcloth gown
. “Hah! There are so many
shalt not’s
, ’tis tedious keeping track of them all,” she concluded to the old priest, who continued to make the tsk-ing noises.

“Lady Esme, I am more and more inclined to believe you are not destined to become a nun.”

“I am not
Lady
Esme anymore—just
Sister
Esme.”

“Not till you take your final vows, and it appears more and more likely that may never happen,” the priest said sternly, then immediately softened his voice and added, “Be reasonable, Lady Esme. You have been here eleven winters…since your thirteenth birthday…and you have not yet become a bride of Christ. Go home. Be a biddable daughter. Marry. Have children.”

“Never!”

“Tsk tsk tsk. Your pride will always be a boulder in your path to holiness.”

“Nay, the only boulder in my path is my father. He wants me dead, or buried in a convent.”

“Lady Esme! Honor your father and mother; ’tis the first commandment of our Blessed Lord.”

“He couldn’t have known
my
father when he made that rule. Satan in chain mail, that’s what my father is.”

She couldn’t see clearly through the screen, but Esme would bet her beads that the priest was praying and rolling his eyes heavenward.

“Enough!” Father Alaric said finally. “Go and sin no more, my child. For your penance—”

Esme could guess what that would be: another rosary said on her knees on the stone floor of the second chapel.
But, nay, this time Father Alaric had something different in mind for her.

“Go with Mother Wilfreda and several of the good sisters to nearby Stone Valley.”

Stone Valley? Why would he send me there? Didn’t I hear of a battle taking place there this morn?

“A mission of mercy. If it be God’s will, you shall perform a rescue…an act of supreme compassion.”

“Rescue? Who needs rescuing?” She thought he might mention some injured monk or a Saxon soldier in need of care. Mother Wilfreda was a noted healer, and injured wayfarers often traveled to the abbey for her care. But, nay, Father Alaric had something entirely different, and totally unexpected, in mind.

“A Viking.”

Birds of a most unusual feather…

Toste lay on the cold ground of a Saxon battlefield waiting for the Valkyries to come take him to Valhalla. He hoped it would be soon, because his head felt as if a drum were beating inside his brain, about to explode.

With great effort, he lifted his heavy eyelids and gazed upward. What he saw scared him spitless, and he was not a man easily scared. He said something quite embarrassing then, for a Viking: “
Eek!
”

Five black crows stood in a circle about him—very large black crows. In fact, they were the height of humans and they cackled in the Saxon tongue. They must be the ravens of death. In the past, he had seen vultures hovering over battlefields waiting to feast on the mortal carrion, but he’d never seen them up close; nor had he ever imagined them being so big.

“He’s awfully big,” one of the crows said. “How will we carry him?”

And what is wrong with big?

“Mayhap we could drag him over to our cart.”

Birds have carts?

“Are you barmy? The man is half-dead. He would ne’er survive a dragging.”

Good thinking. No dragging
.

“Each of us could take a limb and lift him. Yea, that’s the way.”

Take a limb? Oh, bloody hell! They’re going to dismember me and gnaw on my bones
.

“That would no doubt kill him.”

For a certainty
.

“He will probably die anyhow.”

A little optimism wouldn’t hurt, you know
.

“He has nice hair. Not quite silver. Not quite gold.”

What does the color of my hair matter? Dead is dead
.

“Tsk tsk tsk! Who cares what color his hair is! Look at the muscles in his shoulders and arms. He could probably pull a plow for us…if he survives.”

What? What have the ravens of death to do with plows?

“He’s a heathen,” still another of the crows whined. “Why should we save a heathen Viking?”

Well, actually, I’ve been baptized. You could call me a heathen Christian
.

Another crow, obviously the head crow, swatted the whining crow about the head. “For shame! God shows His mercy to all men.”

God? Uh-oh. Mayhap I’m not going to Valhalla after all
.

That thought was reinforced when the crows lifted him unceremoniously off the ground by his arms and legs. Pain shot from his splitting skull through his injured
body—
some Saxon bastard must have run a lance through my side, even after I fell from the head blow
—all the way down to his frozen toes, and he surrendered to blissful unconsciousness. With luck, he would not wake up when the crows began to feast on his flesh.

Is well-dangled the same as well-hung?…

“Well!” Esme remarked as she gazed down at the fallen Viking, now reclining on a hard pallet in a guest cell at the abbey. A roaring fire at her back provided welcome warmth on this cold day. “Well, well, well!”

“Well, indeed!” concurred a flushed Sister Margaret, who swayed slightly on her feet, tipsy from sampling her own latest batch of mead after their grueling trip back from the battlefield. Margaret was the daughter of a famed Saxon ale maker, and she’d brought his recipe with her to the convent. In truth, if it weren’t for the profits earned from the mead enterprise—aptly labeled Margaret’s Mead—the abbey would have been forced to close long ago. Esme’s knack for growing vegetables in the abbey gardens also helped them subsist.

But that was neither here nor there. More important for the moment was the blond-haired Norseman who lay blessedly unconscious before them…naked as a newborn babe. Nay, that was not an accurate description. This man was no child. If he were, they wouldn’t be ogling him so. He had no apparent injuries other than a cracked skull, but they’d had to check to make sure. Mother Wilfreda had performed her healing ablutions on the man and left momentarily to get her chest of herbs.

“Well!” added Sister Mary Rose, a worldly nun who prided herself on being sharp as a sword. She used to sell
fake relics on the church steps of the Pope’s own monastery in Rome and still traded in the toenails of baby Jesus or Virgin Mary eyelashes on occasion when the nunnery floundered in dire straits…which was often. “I have seen many a man in my time, and I daresay this one is surely the fairest of them all. And well-endowed, for a certainty.”

Esme had no means of comparison other than her five brothers, who were naught to brag about, but she agreed wholeheartedly. That dangly manpart appeared large as far as those things went.

All six of the nuns in the small chamber kept staring at said manpart, except Sister Hildegard, who harbored an ungodly fear of Vikings. She was saying her beads and muttering something about heathen rapers and pillagers.

“I think it moved,” observed honey-scented Sister Ursula. She was the resident beekeeper, who supplied the honey for mead and the wax for church candles. Sister Ursula was slightly dim-sighted, and she squinted at the man’s staff. The rest of them could see perfectly well, but they all leaned forward to get a better view anyway. Esme detected no movement, despite a careful scrutiny.