by Sandra Hill
“And you are thirty, Finn, but you act like a graybeard. Nay, not a graybeard, because even they enjoy women.” Steven stood and matched his stance, hands on hips. His words were biting, but they were said with a teasing smile.
The two of them were of the same height, with the same long, black hair, and eyes a peculiar shade of silver gray, but the resemblance ended there. Steven’s countenance was ever joyous and Thorfinn’s grim. The youngest sons of Viking nobles, Jarl Harald Gudsson and Lady Katla of Norsemandy, the brothers owned and lived on estates in the Norselands, Amberstead and Norstead.
“Steven, I like women, and I sure as stars enjoy swiving, like any man, but once grown, a man gets more discriminating. The sap does not have to rise at the least swaying hip.” In truth, my sap has gone gummy these past few years, with good reason. Women . . . one woman in particular . . . have colored for all time my view of the fairer sex as devious and untrustworthy.
“By the runes! You are far too serious,” Steven said with a grin. “I had no intention of bedding the girling. A mature woman awaits me back at our camp, warming my bed furs.”
“Mature?”
“Yea. Fifteen.”
He shook his head at his brother’s hopelessness.
“Didst know that the eunuchs teach the harem girls how to pleasure a man by practicing with a marble phallus?”
That got his attention . . . and brought on many an explicit mind picture. “I have ne’er heard such.”
“See, there is something I can teach my big brother.”
I seriously doubt that.
“I bought two of them.”
Here it comes. He lays the groundwork for one of his jests.
“Do you want one?”
Do not ask. ’Tis a trap. Still, he was curious and took one of them in his hand, amazed at the smooth heat it threw off. “Whatever for? Are you starting up a harem at Amberstead?”
“A harem? Hmmm. There is a thought.” He tapped his closed lips pensively with a forefinger.
Thorfinn could not be angry with his brother. In truth, if not for Steven, he would go insane at the bleakness of his life. “You will give Father Bart another attack of heart pains.” Vikings practiced both the Norse and Christian religions, and Father Bartholomew traveled betwixt Amberstead and Norstead, dispensing his priestly services, tut-tut-tutting whenever he heard references to the Viking gods. Personally, Thorfinn thought they were one and the same. Father Bart considered Steven a libertine and told him so on every occasion, clutching his chest in exaggerated distress as he did so.
“No harem then.” Steven grinned, caressing the marble column in his palm. “They are sex-play trinkets.”
Thorfinn’s jaw dropped open. His brother never ceased to amaze him. Then, jabbing Steven with an elbow, Thorfinn laughed. “Come, let’s us walk off this camel piss. We must needs talk.”
“Should we not first express thanks to our host?”
Thorfinn glanced over to the stout Caliph reclining on a low divan with three half-nude females feeding him dates dipped in honey and fanning him with large palm leaves. “Methinks he will not miss us.” Besides, he asked me earlier if I would rut with his second wife, who is barren. Not that Steven needs to know that.
With a silent signal to the half dozen of his shiphird, or “ship army,” in attendance to rise and follow after them, Thorfinn and Steven walked companionably out into the street and headed toward the outskirts of the city where their tents had been erected.
Despite the lateness of the hour, the streets were alive with activity. Light was provided by torches on tall spikes. Camels gr-onk, gr-onk, gr-onked their nasal cries. Exotic music wafted from various buildings . . . discordant, twanging melodies. Braziers cooking lamb and vegetables on long sticks were offered to passersby, for a price, of course. Merchants, bowing low with obeisance, cajoled them to buy their wares from open and closed stalls. “Master, come smell these spices from the Orient.”
“May Allah bless you with many children . . . a certainty if you give your wife these fine silks from Miklagard. ”
“Amber from the Baltics, sweet Frankish wines, fresh dates and figs.”
“Ah, such fine virile young men! Surely, you need a female slave or two to warm your blood.” Yes, even men, women, and children were for sale. He had to drag Steven away from that one after seeing through an open curtain a nude slave girl performing a sex act on another nude slave girl.
He stopped several times to make purchases, which he ordered delivered to his campsite in the morning. Saffron and tea. Several ells of fabric, which he would gift to his mother. Salted meats and fishes; the sailors left on his longship had been complaining about the hated old cheese known as Gammelost and roasted camel tongue, a delicacy the Norsemen failed to appreciate.
Steven bought an ointment that purported to enhance male pleasure in the bedsport.
“I would be damned afore I would put some unknown substance on my manpart. For all you know, it might shrivel it down to a nub,” he told the lackbrain.
His brother stopped, aghast, and tossed the ointment aside.
Several of his men dropped off to visit houses offering sexual favors. Of any kind! Acts were described aloud in explicit detail, along with their prices. He would not admit it to Steven, but he was not sure what some of them were.
Steven guessed his thoughts, though, and said, “I have no idea what that last one is either.”
Once they got back to the campsite, he went into his tent and brought out two mugs of mead he had brought from Norstead. Made by kinsmen of his at Ravenshire, the beverage was warm, of course, but still better than that camel piss.
Sinking down next to Steven onto a sea chest, he said right off, “I am going home on the morrow. Two months I have been gone, what with bad weather-luck and all. I cannot neglect Norstead any longer.” Time for me to admit defeat.
Surprised, Steven said, “Thank you, Odin! My prayers have been answered. And your wife?”
Thorfinn’s wife, Luta, had deserted him five years ago when he had been off a-Viking, a springtime custom for all good Norsemen. She had taken with her their infant son, Miklof. She had not left alone. Even worse, accompanying her had been that slimy sly-boots Gervaise of Jorvik, a young, wealthy Saxon merchant, a man he had once called friend.
Thorfinn had been in a rage at first—still was, in many ways—especially when he had learned that the trading vessel taking them on one of Gervaise’s trading trips had sunk in an ocean storm. He no longer cared whether Luta had died, or how. After all, she had broken bond with him in leaving. But his baby . . . ah, he had loved Miklof the instant he came squalling from his mother’s womb. Thorfinn’s heart would ne’er recover from his loss.
But then, several months back, an Arab trader named Ahmed had reported seeing Luta and Miklof in a Baghdad marketplace. The detailed description he had given came too close to the mark for Thorfinn not to investigate. Steven, ever irksome, had insisted on accompanying him on this two-month wasted venture. So far, neither Luta nor Miklof were to be found in the Arab lands. Ahmed must have been mistaken.
“Someday you will understand, brother. Leastways I think most fathers feel the way I do. Losing Miklof . . .” He had to stop speaking for the lump choking his throat. “Losing Miklof was like losing a part of myself. I have not been whole ever since.” He blinked repeatedly to stem the tears in his eyes. Tears! What kind of man am I who weeps like a woman? I have got to stop this madness.
Steven gazed at him with compassion. “Everyone has demons, Finn.”
He arched his brows. “You, too?”
“Of course.”
He could not imagine what, so merry of heart was his brother. Clearing his throat, he said, “One thing is for certain. If I ne’er see a camel again . . . or sand, for the love of Thor . . . it will be too soon. I vow not to complain about the Vestfold cold again. Man is not meant to bake his skin.”
“Well said! Does that mean you have finally given up this bloody searc
h?”
He nodded. “I will try on the morrow to find that one last woman I was told about. If she is here with my Miklof, I will take him back with me. If not, I concede defeat. They must be dead.”
“Praise the gods!” Steven looped an arm around his shoulder. “Mayhap now you will regain your sense of humor. You have been much too dour of late. Betimes I think you have forgotten how to smile.”
“And methinks you smile too much.”
They both smiled at each other.
“Be ready at dawn to go back into the city. We launch our longships afore noon.”
“As you wish, master.”
He shook his head at his brother’s flummery. “One more thing: do not dare go back into the city to buy any slave girls.”
The flush on his brother’s face told him that was just what he had intended. Gods, will this nightmare ever end?
You can do WHAT with a pole? . . .
The last strains of “Do the hustle . . .” rang through the room, accompanied by the rhythmic pounding of athletic shoes on the hardwood floor, the wheeze of panting breaths, and Lydia calling out, “One last time, ladies. Cooling down. Lunge-slide and clap. Slow and easy. Lunge-slide the other side and clap. Do the hustle, forward, and clap, do the hustle back, and clap. Lunge-side again. Right. Now left. Knee lifts. And scissors. Now one last hustle. That’s it. That’s it. Now sloooow down.”
Turning to the twenty ladies in the advanced aerobics dance class behind her, Lydia smiled. “Good workout.”
Even though it was only noon, this was the last class of the day for her . . . a perk of being the owner of the Silver Strand Studio, the premier aerobics dance and yoga facility here in Coronado. One of the reasons she’d bought the club two years after her husband’s death was so that she could be her own boss . . . so that now she would be home when her four-year-old son, Mike, got home from nursery school.
Her class members followed her lead in slowing down to recover, this time to the slower beat of Rascal Flatts’ “I Melt.” They checked their pulse rates as they moved.
"I am sweating like a warhorse,” Madrene MacLean complained. Madrene, the blonde-haired, statuesque wife of one of the SEAL commanders over at the naval base, hated exercise and didn’t mind telling everyone so, but she was trying to lose the last of the baby fat from a recent pregnancy. And to tone up her very impressive breasts, which she disdained but which always earned her a second look from men everywhere.
“That’s the point, Madrene. No pain, no gain,” Lydia said. “If you don’t sweat and ache and pant, then you’re not working hard enough.”
“Hmpfh! There are a few people back in the Norselands that would find humor in that philosophy. Deliberately making oneself sweat and ache! Life is hard enough, they would say.” Madrene was using a Silver Strand Studio towel to wipe off her brow and neck as she talked. Madrene was always saying weird things like that, referring to Vikings of old and Dark Age “Norselands,” as if she had personal experience with both. Plus, she talked in a quaint manner sometimes, using words like “mayhap,” or "’tis” or "’twas.” Or, even more interesting, “bedsport.”
“Stop complaining,” Madrene’s sister Kirstin Magnusson said, as she too mopped her brow. “Now you won’t feel guilty when you have crème brûlée for dessert at lunch today.” Kirstin, three years younger than her sister at thirty-two, was a newly hired professor of ancient studies at San Diego State University. Kirstin shared her sister’s long, platinum blonde hair, but whereas Madrene was buxom, Kirstin was flat-chested. Both of them were stunningly beautiful.
“As if I would e’er feel guilty over food!”
“You’re coming to lunch with us today, aren’t you, Lydia? ” asked yet another member of this very interesting family. It was red-haired Alison Magnusson, who was married to Madrene and Kirstin’s brother Ragnor; she was a Navy physician affiliated with the SEAL teams. Alison’s brother was Commander MacLean. Lots of convoluted family connections here. “We’re celebrating over at the Del.” The Del she referred to was the famous Hotel del Coronado, known for its red-roofed, castlelike appearance and for the famous people who had stayed there over the years.
“Of course,” Lydia answered. Mike was going to a birthday party straight from nursery school today and didn’t have to be picked up ’til three. “And crème brûlée sounds veeeery tempting.”
They drove together in Alison’s Mercedes sedan. On the way and while walking into the Del, there was talk, talk, talk. These women did know how to talk. Not that they shut Lydia out, but mostly she just chose to sit back in fascination. So, this is what big families are like. Lydia was an only child of Minnesota dairy farmers. Dave had been the only son of a nearby couple who raised beef cattle. While her parents had been loving, she had always felt lonely . . . still did, even with her darling Mike. And it looked as if he was going to be an only child, too.
Once seated in the Sheerwater Restaurant in the Del, with its spectacular view of the Pacific, they started off with one of the Del’s signature margaritas—watermelon today.
“To tube tying!” Madrene raised her stemmed glass in a toast.
Everyone tapped glasses with her, even Lydia, who had to ask, “Tube tying?”
“Yea, ’tis true. I had my tubes tied on Monday.”
Lydia choked on her drink. Oh, good Lord!
Madrene smiled widely, then took a long drink, licking the salt off her top lip. “Do not missay me. I love children. I have three of them. Two-year-old Ivan, fifteen-month-old Ranulf, and now three-month-old John. Methinks that is enough.”
I’ll never complain about being tired with one little boy again. “I wasn’t being judgmental,” Lydia inserted quickly. “Believe me, I’m all for women’s rights and birth control. I was just . . . surprised.”
“I know that, dearling.” Madrene squeezed her hand. “Ian was supposed to get one of those vasectomy things, but he walked around half-green for the past sennight; so, I took pity on the lackwit. But believe you me, I intend to profit from that favor. I’m thinking, a tractor.”
Kirstin and Alison laughed.
This woman is nuts. “A tractor?” Lydia was having trouble following Madrene’s train of thought.
“My husband is a commander of SEALs, but I yearn to be a farmer. In fact, my father gifted me a farm in the Imperial Valley as a bride-gift. Someday, when Ian retires, we will become farmers, although every time we visit, Ian gets a rash. I think he does it apurpose to thwart me.”
Somehow, Lydia could not picture Ian MacLean giving up the teams to become a farmer. On the other hand, Madrene appeared to be a very strong-minded woman. Instead of voicing that opinion, she told Madrene, “My parents are dairy farmers in Minnesota. I couldn’t wait to get away. It’s grueling work.”
“Oh, I know good and well how grueling the work is. My father had a large farmstead afore coming to this country. I ran the household ’til my first marriage, and then again after my marriage failed.”
There had to be a story there, Lydia decided, but one she wouldn’t ask about right now. She hadn’t realized that Ian was Madrene’s second husband.
Ian had trained for SEALs with Lydia’s husband, Dave, but he married after Dave’s death. So Lydia had never socialized with them and barely knew Ian well enough to say hello, even though he and the other teammates had come to Virginia for Dave’s funeral. She’d met Madrene through the aerobics class.
“Back to Madrene having her tubes tied. You have to understand that where we come from”—Kirstin exchanged a secretive glance with Madrene—“women do not have this kind of choice. Well, men either. Birth control was nonexistent back then . . . I mean, back there, except for early withdrawal, which is highly unreliable. Besides, most Viking men are too prideful of their male parts, not to mention lustful, to give up any part of the sexual experience. It’s not unusual for women to have ten children or more. In fact, our father has bred fourteen children, twelve of them still living.” Kirstin seemed to realize belated
ly that she had spouted out quite a bit of information. Probably the college professor in her. “Sorry. It’s a sore subject with me.”
Fourteen children? Lydia forced herself not to arch her brows in shock. “Where is it precisely that you’re from?”
“The Norselands,” Madrene replied.
“Norway,” Kirstin said at the same time.
Pink color rose in both their cheeks.
I feel as if there is a whole other conversation going on here below the surface. Surely, there is birth control in Norway. “Do you have children?” She addressed both Kirstin and Alison.
Kirstin shook her head. “Nope. No children. No husband. I’m thirty-two years old, which is totally over the hill back in our . . . um, country. But here . . .” She shrugged. “I’m still hoping for Prince Charming to come riding over the horizon on his fair steed. Or Harley. Hey, I’ll even accept a broken-down pickup truck for the right guy. In the meantime, I enjoy my job.”
“No children for me, either, though I do have a husband. ” Alison blushed just mentioning her husband, and Lydia could understand why. Lydia had met Ragnor Magnusson one day when he came to pick up his wife at the studio. Some kind of computer genius, he was pure, one-hundred-proof hunk. “We didn’t want to have any children ’til we decided exactly where we wanted to live. Then when we were ready, nature wasn’t. But we’re still trying.”
An awkward silence followed, but not for long.
“Since you and I are the only single ones here, maybe we should hit the Wet and Wild one night,” Kirstin suggested. The Wet and Wild was a singles bar that catered to military personnel, especially SEALs, from the nearby base.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Another Navy SEAL? I don’t think so!
Madrene narrowed her eyes at Lydia. “Have you been with any man since your husband died?”
Lydia bristled at that intrusive question, but then relaxed, knowing Madrene meant well. “There’s a landscape contractor I know . . . but, really, we’re just friends.”