by Sandra Hill
"Take heed, daughter, Vagn Ivarsson is a man full-grown. A warrior of note. Yea, he has a mirthsome side, but do not delude yourself that you can grasp such a man by the tail."
And a very nice tail he has, too, Helga thought.
"Why are you smiling?"
"Just picturing you teasing my mother."
He nodded, then concluded, "Vagn would not be the worst man for you to choose as husband."
"Do not bring all that up again. I beg you, Father. Do not humiliate me so." She knew what Vagn's answer would be, and it would be a crushing blow to her, for many reasons.
"I will not bring up the subject," he agreed, "but think about what I have said."
She did. Way too much.
Fathers know more than we think they do …
Vagn, with sweat pouring off his body and his heart beating as if it would burst, wondered idly, Am I having fun yet?
Wearing only braies and half-boots, he was engaged in swordplay with Finn Fairhair in the exercise room at Briarstead, as he had been for the past hour. About them, other soldier pairs did the same. He had to give Finn credit. He gave as good as he got in the warrior arts, despite his coxcomb appearance.
Vagn felt a tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Gorm crooking his finger at him. Another soldier stepped into Vagn's place to engage Finn.
Wiping perspiration off his chest and belly with a linen cloth, he watched the old man eye him craftily as they walked to a more secluded spot.
"Well?" Vagn asked.
"Don't you think it's time you did something about my daughter?"
"Huh?" It was the last thing he'd expected from Gorm.
"You know she's pregnant, don't you?"
That was definitely the last thing he'd expected. "What makes you think so?" He would not betray Helga by acknowledging what he already knew.
"Pfff! She weeps at the least provocation. She yawns all the time. She has been ooh-ing and aah-ing over various babes in the village. She has vomited in the morn on occasion and is always munching on dried manchet bread. She is happy as a lark one moment and mean as a boar the next. I would say that spells pregnant."
I would, too. "Mayhap it is just that time of the month. You know how some women get half-demented just afore their monthly flux."
"A father knows."
"Well, whether she is or she isn't, this is something betwixt me and Helga. I assume 'a father knows' when his daughter has been engaged in certain acts, too. So I will not deny my involvement."
"What do you intend to do about it?"
"I intend to marry Helga."
"Have you asked her?
"Nay."
"How can you be sure she will accept?"
"I will wed with her… that, I assure you."
"Does she know that you know she is breeding your child?"
"Nay."
"Does she know that she is breeding?"
"I do not know. Probably."
"What a mess!"
"It is not a mess. Everything will work out in the end." I hope. "Just… do… not… interfere."
"You dare to say that to me when I have stood back and allowed you to swive my daughter."
Help me, Odin. I am dying here. "Don't you think it's a mite crude to speak so of your daughter?"
"I mean her no disrespect. Just don't you do her any disrespect."
"And how would I do that?"
"By failing to offer for her."
"I told you, I am going to, in my own good time."
"Would ye like some advice, boy?"
"Nay."
"Do not give her a choice. Women claim to want a choice, but they really want a man to take over."
"In a million years, I cannot imagine Helga wanting no choice. She would clout me over the head for daring to take over her life, even if I wanted to, which I do not."
"Our forefathers had the right idea. Toss a wench over your shoulder and carry her off to your lair."
"I have no lair."
"My lair is your lair."
"Aaarrgh!"
Gorm slapped a hand over his burly chest suddenly and exclaimed, "Oh, Oh! Methinks it is my heart again. Methinks I will not live to see a wedding, let alone my first grandchild. Best you stop dawdling, boy."
Vagn would have felt sorry for the old man if the slyboots weren't shifting his eyes guiltily. "You fraud! Stop swilling ale and eating fatty sausages, and your chest pains will disappear like that," he said, snapping his fingers.
Gorm changed direction then, after trying to pull a fast one on him. "Mayhap there will be a Christmas wedding yet. You're half Christian, aren't you? Pray."
"I am not going to pray for a Christmas wedding. Not to the Norse gods, or to the Christian One-God."
"You need all the help you can get, boy."
"I do not."
"I will pray for you then." As Gorm swaggered off, well-satisfied with the lackwit advice he had given him, Vagn heard him mutter, "A father's work is never done."
On the road again… almost…
Carts were piled high with chests and supplies outside in the bailey, awaiting the start of the trip to Ravenshire. Horses were shifting restlessly. Guardsmen muttered amongst themselves, anxious to get on their way.
Still, Helga sat on a chair in her solar, as if all the world could wait for her… which it must. There was no way she was getting on anything that moved, whether it be cart or animal, till her stomach settled down.
Vagn walked into the solar and approached her. She could see the concern on his face. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "My stomach is just a bit queasy. Probably the start of my monthly flux," she lied. Despite all that she and Vagn had shared in bed, she found herself oddly embarrassed to discuss such bodily functions.
He seemed to accept her explanation, but shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Well, this delay gives me time to say something I have been wanting to say to you for days."
She waited, but he still did the foot-shifting exercise. Tilting her head to the side, she asked, "Are you all right?"
It must be his wounds hurting him again and he does not know how to tell me he will stay behind.
Nay, 'tis worse than that. He will go with us to Ravenshire, but he will not be returning to Briarstead with us after the visit. It is over. Oh, my gods and goddesses! It is over.
She really did feel like throwing up then.
But wait. Vagn was doing something that caused her even more concern. He dropped to one knee before her and took one of her hands in both of his. "Helga, there is no smooth way for me to say this, except, Will you marry me?"
"What?"
"Now, now, sit still and hear me out. Do not say me nay till you hear my proposal."
"Vagn, please, you know how I feel—"
He put the fingertips of one hand to her lips. "I wish to take you for my wife. I want to protect you under my shield. I want to stop sneaking about at night. I want to wake beside you in the morning. I want to make love with you whene'er I wish without having to hide. I want to have children with you. I want to grow old with you." He shrugged at his inability to express himself better. "Will you marry me?"
His proposal could easily have charmed Helga into compliance, except for one word which stood out like a sore thumb. Children. "You know," she accused him. "You know that I am with child, and now you want to marry me."
"I do know, Helga, but—"
She stood abruptly and shoved his beseeching hands aside.
"Nay, I will not marry you."
"Now, Helga, be reasonable." He stood, too.
"Reasonable?" she practically shrieked, then lowered her voice for fear she would attract attention. "We had an agreement."
"Yea, we did, and part of that agreement said I would ask you to marry me if you conceived," he argued. The stubborn lout!
"Why? Why do you want to wed me?" Deep down, Helga knew that if he said three simple words to her, she would capitulate.
Unfortunately… or fortunately… he did no
t utter those words. "It is time for me to wed. We do well together. Why not?"
"Ooooh, I would like to clout you a good one."
"Huh?"
"Vagn, if it were not for this child"—she put a hand protectively over her flat belly—"would you be asking me to marry you today?"
He thought for a moment, then answered honestly. "Probably not today, but mayhap someday I would have. I like you, Helga, and I think you like me, too."
Like? Like? The dunderhead! "I would ask you one more question, Vagn. If your brother were still alive, would you be asking me to marry you?"
"That is an unfair question. If my brother were alive, I wouldn't even be here."
Her shoulders sank with defeat. She'd given him a chance, and he'd failed her. "If I were ever going to marry, Vagn—and I am not—I would want more from a marriage than that. I am sorry, but nay." He was about to say more but she put up a hand to halt him. "I will not deny you access to this child, and you may acknowledge it, if you wish."
"Of course I will acknowledge my child, you foolish wench." He wagged a finger in her face menacingly. "Be forewarned, though, I do not accept your rejection. We will marry. You can bet your luscious lips on that."
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!"
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
« ^ »
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.
"Viking men are very clean,
wasting much time on daily hygiene.
Yea, Norsemen are rarely stinksome,
which is what makes them so winsome.
'Tis why Saxon women think them nice,
unlike their own men infested with lice.
But there are times wenches like a man dirty,
and it's not in a tub with water squirty."
"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 accompanyi
ng 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 …