Sandra Hill (25 page)

To prove his point, he kissed said luscious lips soundly, then stomped away. Helga loved the way Vagn loved her lips. He didn’t love her, but he loved her lips.

In the hall outside the solar, she heard her father ask him, “How did it go?”
Frigg’s foot! My father knows, too?

And Vagn replied succinctly, “Just bloody hell wonderful!”

Tiptoeing loudly…

It was two days later.

Down the stairs and through the great hall of Ravenshire, Toste carried a brass tub on his head, with a bundle of various supplies slung over his shoulder. And he was whistling.

The whistling was his downfall.

He’d almost made it to the wide double doors that led down the steps and out to the bailey when Bolthor called out, “Is that you whistling, Toste?”

With a sigh of resignation, he turned, still with the tub on his head, and said, “Yea, ’tis me.”

Bolthor was sitting at one of the long trestle tables at the far end of the mostly empty hall, whittling a piece of wood. “Dost know you have a tub on your head?”

“Of course I know I have a tub on my head.”

“You need not snap at me. I did not cause you to have a tub on your head.”

“
Why
do you have a tub on your head,” Tykir inquired silkily, having coming up behind him. So surprised was Toste that he almost dropped the tub.

“Because I want to bathe.”
Could I say anything more lackwitted than that?

“Why can’t you bathe in the spring house or up in your bedchamber?” It was Eirik speaking now. He’d come up on his other side. His three friends were surrounding him, all of them grinning.

“Because I like to bathe in private.”
They ought to call me Toste the Lackwit
.

“Ah, suddenly modest, are you?” Tykir remarked.

Or lackwitted
.

“Well, that is understandable,” Eirik said. “I do not like to show off my body parts to one and all either, impressive as they are.”

“Pffff!” Toste said, whether in regard to Eirik’s observation or his own awkward situation, he was not sure. It was an all-encompassing “Pffff,” he supposed.

While he stood there with a tub on his head, Bolthor of course launched into one of his poems, sure to be a jest-arrow directed at him.

“Is that it?” Toste asked Bolthor.

“For now. Methinks I will add some more verses later, when the ladies are nearby to appreciate my sentiments,” Bolthor explained. Eadyth and Alinor were off somewhere preparing for the huge yuletime celebration. Toste hoped to be gone by then.

“Come have a drink with us afore you cart your tub hither and yon,” Tykir invited.

If Toste declined, they would just tease him more. So he sat down, placing the tub and bundle on the rushes at his feet. They all waited till a housecarl poured them fresh mugs of Eadyth’s famous mead before speaking.

“So, how is Esme?” Tykir inquired with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Just fine.”

“Really?” Eirik asked. “She does not mind being locked in the woodcutter’s hut?”

“She loves it.”

“Naked? Is she naked?” Tykir wanted to know.

“And tied to the bed, as you were?” Bolthor added.

He declined to answer, but Tykir answered for him. “Of course she is.”

Toste felt his face heat with a blush, which was rare for him.

“Eadyth and Alinor are livid over this, you know,” Eirik pointed out.

“Over what?” he asked before he had a chance to bite his tongue.

“The way you are treating a highborn lady,” Eirik said.

They were all grinning at him, clearly not sharing their womenfolks’ outrage.

“Hah! ’Twas a highborn lady who treated me in the
same way. Ah, let me think. Yea, ’twas the
same
highborn lady.”

His friends continued to grin.

“She deserves to be punished. Surely you recognize that.”

“Toste, Toste, Toste,” Eirik said with a sad shake of his head. “Was there ever a punishment intended for a woman that did not backlash onto the man?”

“Whatever the hell that means!”

“It means that men never win in a battle with women,” Tykir explained.

“I will handle this in my own way.”

“Yea, I agree. Let Toste handle this his way,” Bolthor said.

“You just want more fodder for your sagas,” Eirik commented with a hoot of laughter.

“There is that, of course,” Bolthor admitted, “but in the end, every man must make his own mistakes.”

“She is not so bad off,” Toste argued. And a feeble attempt it was, too. “When I returned to the hut last night, she was whistling.”

Three jaws dropped open, then clicked shut.

“Methinks she likes you,” Bolthor said.

I cannot believe I am sitting here listening to this drivel
. “I don’t think so. She bit me.”

“Where?” The smirk on Tykir’s face was pure…well, Tykir.

“What you need is advice from men more experienced in the art of charming women—like me,” Eirik said.

He told Eirik what he could do with his advice. Then, “What I need is to get out of here.”

“Anxious to get back to your punishing, eh?” Bolthor inquired.

“I have a whip I can lend you,” Tykir said.

“What I meant about getting out of here was something entirely different. Number one, I think I should be gone when your Saxon notables arrive. I may have fought against some of them at Stone Valley. Saxons hate Vikings, ’tis a fact of life. No offense to you or your wife, Eirik.”

“This is a rare peaceable time in Britain, Toste,” Eirik said. “Yea, I know many died at Stone Valley, but mostly the Saxons and Norsemen are at a truce, if not peace. In truth, much of Northumbria is overridden with the Vikings who have settled here. We are a mixture here now—a melting pot of the two cultures.”

“Bloody hell, Toste. I am as Viking as you are,” Tykir said. “If you are leaving for that reason, then I should go, too.”

“And me, as well,” Bolthor said.

“No one should leave Ravenshire for fear of a fight,” Eirik insisted. “None of my guests would dare object to your being here…any of you.”

“I have never walked away from a fight,” Toste said.

“Nor I,” Tykir and Bolthor said.

“There is something else to consider,” Eirik said. “I know it is a long shot, but what if Vagn’s killer were amongst the guardsmen accompanying my guests?”

Toste froze at the possibility. He agreed it was remote, but it was worth being on watch. “In any case, you all have a way of diverting a conversation this way and that.”

“Us?” they said.

“Yea, you. What I started to say before you all diverted me is that I need to get away from Ravenshire and travel to Evergreen.”

“Esme’s estate?”

“Yea. As I have told you before, something is not quite right about her situation. Why would a lord as powerful and wealthy as Blackthorne try so desperately for so many years to gain such a piddling little piece of land? Methinks I should take a day or two and ride there. Investigate a bit.”

They all nodded.

Eirik stroked his chin pensively. “My stepson John’s estate at Hawk’s Lair is not far distant from Evergreen. We could go there, see what John knows, then study the estate as well as we can without raising eyebrows.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Toste said, “except for the
we
part. I go alone.”

“Why?” Bolthor asked in a wounded tone. “I thought we were partners, you and me…especially now that Vagn is gone.”

“We are. We are.” He patted Bolthor’s arm. The skald was too sensitive by half. “But this is something best done alone, in disguise. What we don’t want is four big hulking Norsemen raising eyebrows about the countryside.”

Everyone nodded hesitantly in agreement.

“Will you go soon? On the morrow?” Eirik asked.

Toste shook his head, then smiled. “Nay, not till the beginning of next week. I have much more punishing to do.” With that, he picked up his tub and swaggered off.

And he was whistling.

The Clueless Viking Hall of Fame…

“Eirik, have you seen my large brass tub?” Eadyth asked that night.

“I might have.”

“Where?”

“Passing through the great hall.”

“You saw my tub going through the castle? By itself?”

“Not exactly. It was on Toste’s head.”

“Has he lost his mind?”

“Methinks so. Or another body part.”

They looked at each other and smiled.

When women get ideas, duck…

Tykir was panting for breath in his bedchamber later that night.

Really, sometimes his wife forgot that he was forty-and-seven years old and that he had trouble keeping up with her ten-years-younger body. Well, actually, he had no trouble keeping up, being a lusty Viking and all that, but she did make him pant more these days.

“I have a wonderful idea,” Alinor said, snuggling up to him and placing a hand lovingly over his limp manpart.

“Uh-oh!” Anytime Alinor mentioned “a wonderful idea,” especially when holding his cock, he knew he was in for trouble.

“I think Toste should marry Esme.”

Where that ludicrous idea had come from, he had no clue. Women’s minds flitted here and there like hummingbirds. Flit, flit, flit. “No matchmaking, Alinor. Toste asked us not to interfere. Remember?”

“It wouldn’t exactly be matchmaking.”

“It would be exactly matchmaking if you are involved.”

“Toste needs someone to love now that Vagn is gone.”

“A man does not need someone to love.”

She removed her hand from his nether region and smacked him on the chest.

“Not
all
men need someone to love,” he amended, not being a total lackwit.

She moved her hand back where it belonged, so she apparently forgave his loose tongue.
Smart wife!
“Toste has a hole in his life.”

“Which you intend to fill?”

“Mayhap.”

“Alinor, do you not have enough to do helping Eadyth prepare for this grand feast?”

“Everything is arranged. All the plans are made. Eadyth has more than enough servants to carry through once the guests arrive. In the meantime…”

“How about our sons? Dost know what Thork did today?” Their eleven-year-old son was a handful—a rogue in the true spirit of Viking males. Their other three sons, Starri, nine, Guthrom, six, and Selik, two, showed signs of following the same mischievous path.

Alinor sighed. “What did Thork do today?”

“He pinched a chambermaid on the arse.”

She giggled. “Did you reprimand him?”

“Of course I did.”
Actually, I couldn’t stop laughing, especially when he told me this particular chambermaid had a huge arse which begged to be pinched
.

“Now that you bring up your son’s misdeeds…” Alinor began.

Why was it that they were
his
sons when they did something bad, but
her
sons when they proved angelic?

“…Starri and Guthrom had a spitting contest over the parapet, some of which hit a milkmaid passing by, which caused her to lose the contents of her stomach.”

Tykir didn’t want to tell her, but he was the one who had taught them about spitting contests. On the other hand, she probably already knew that.

“Back to Toste…” she said.

Holy Thor! She is like a dog with a bone once she gets started on something. She never lets go
.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a yuletide wedding?” She was moving her hands on him in a most delicious way now.

Tykir placed his hands over his face and said, “I surrender.” He meant it in more ways than one.

Rub-a-dub-dub…

“Why are you bringing a tub in here?” Esme practically shrieked her question because she had a pretty good idea why.

Toste just smiled and said, “Greetings, Esme. Did you miss me?”

“Miss you, you goat-breath idiot? I…don’t…think…so.”

He blew dramatically into a palm placed in front of his mouth and nose, then sniffed. “Smells fresh to me.”

Why does he always home in on the most irrelevant part of what I say?
“How could I miss you? You’re here all the time.”

He winked at her. “Bolthor thinks you like me.”

“Bolthor is a dunderhead.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.”

“Nay. Don’t do that,” she said, immediately contrite. It wasn’t the kindly skald’s fault that Toste was behaving like a beast.

Toste had slept with her in the small bed for two nights now and been gone off and on during the daylight hours. Last night he’d tied her wrist to his again, then laid a hand possessively over one of her breasts. Every time she
moved he took it as an excuse to fondle her breast. And of course she remained nude and tied to the bedposts every time he left the hut. He hadn’t bothered with the gag, since apparently no one would come to her rescue even if she screamed loudly.

He placed a cauldron over the fire and filled it with a bucket of water from the rain barrel outside. Now he was traipsing in and out, filling the tub. Cold air rushed in from the open doorway, which chilled Esme even though she was covered with the fur pelt.

“I am not getting in that tub,” she declared.

“Wouldst like to wager on that?”

“A lady deserves her privacy when bathing.”

“One, there is no lady here. Two, you gave up any rights to privacy when you deprived me of mine.”

Three, you are a loathsome lout
. “What do you hope to gain with this vengeance?”

“Vengeance is its own reward. Besides, I find that I like the idea of having my very own sex slave.”

“Se-sex slave?” she sputtered.

“Yea. You did not think I was going to be satisfied with a loaf of unleavened bread in my bed forever, did you? I mean, there is a charm in looking at you bare-arse naked, flat on your back, legs spread in invitation, but at some point you must earn your keep.”

He was probably teasing her, but she decided not to test him on the issue. Another thought came to her unbidden. “Did anyone see you bringing that tub here?”