Rough and Ready (8 page)

Torolf caught himself grinning as she stomped away. And that was really surprising to him, because he had thought he would be miserable if he came back to this primitive time.

I like Hilda. I really like her, he realized. Then almost immediately thought, Uh-oh!

How to Seduce a Man, Part I…

Despite the late and unusual events of the night before, Hilda and her women were up before dawn starting their daily chores. The days were short this time of year in the Norselands, and they had to take advantage of the lessening daylight hours.

The debris left from the sheep work had to be cleaned up, and the groomed sheep driven up into the hills. Goats and chickens were fed, and the goats were milked. The cook was making porridge and the day's manchet bread; everyone would break fast after the initial chores were done. Elise went into the weaving shed and set her helpers to carding wool, spinning and weaving cloth. A half-dozen women were hauling deadfall limbs down from the mountain; a vast amount had to be cut into firewood for the hearths before the winter snows came. The sisters, Dissa and Dotta, were drying fish that had been caught two days before and strips of venison. Astrid was bringing in the last of the honey and the combs to be used later not just for a sweetening but also for mead and candles. Dagne and her helpers picked root vegetables… onions, carrots, and turnips.

The men were up already, too. They were in the storeroom where Sigrun was attempting to find braies and tunics and belts that would fit them, along with ankle boots. Some of the women here were as tall of stature and big-footed as men.

Hilda was hoping that the men would begin training them this afternoon, but she did not want to ask Torolf about it again, lest he bring up the bedding. Holy Thor! Why had she agreed to such a deal? Because I had to, if we are ever to be able to defend ourselves once Steinolf comes.

But first the women had requested that a Thing be held. Hilda had no doubt what the subject of discussion would be: the men. That's all the women had been chattering about all morning. She had no idea if any of them had actually mated with them yet, and she was not about to ask. She especially did not want to know if any had been with Torolf.

After everyone was seated in a circle, they dispensed with the reading of the laws by the law speaker, since they'd held a Thing such a short time ago.

"Who wants to speak first?"

Grima, the healer, stood. "There are nigh on sixty of us and only five of them.

How are we going to divide them fairly?" One of Steinolf's men had knocked out her front teeth two years past when she'd failed to cure one of his warriors of the devil's disease of the manparts.

Hilda put her face in her hands. Blessed Frigg! They think they can divide men up, as if they were apples.

"We could take turns. Five at a time. If the men are still here after twelve days, and pray to the gods that they will be, then we can start the rotation over again. By the time they depart The Sanctuary, hopefully some of us will be increasing." This was the ever-logical Gunnvor speaking.

Five men swiving twelve women each? It sounds ridiculous, and yet I have known men who would do it in a trice.

"Where will the mating take place? Some men do it out in the open, like pigs rutting, but I for one want privacy." Hilda was shocked to hear Inge make this observation.

The others voiced their agreement.

"We could set aside places," fifteen-year-old Tofa suggested. "Like a corner of the weaving shed. A section of the storeroom. The goat byre. The guardhouse.

That extra large sleeping closet. The scullery, if it is late at night."

Hilda's eyes widened with surprise. Where had those ideas come from in such a young girl?

"Yea, and we could put soft wool blankets and candles in those places," Elise suggested.

Son of a troll! How obvious can they be?

Hilda held up her arms for silence. "Slow down, ladies. You are making many assumptions here. For example, are there any of you who are not interested in coupling or breeding?"

A dozen women raised their hands, including herself and Britta.

"That is all well and good, but just because you all want to mate, that does not mean the men do. Men are a lustsome lot, to be sure. But dost not think the men should do the choosing?"

Some women were disgruntled, mainly those who were not very comely, but in the end, they all agreed that it was only fair that the men make the choice.

"But we can help them make that choice." It was Rakel speaking now. Rakel carried a mix of Viking and Saxon blood. Rumors said she had been a woman of easy virtue at one time, mayhap even concubine of a nobleman.

"How?" a number of women asked, believing that Rakel must know some secrets in the bedsport.

"Seduction," Rakel said bluntly.

The unskilled women looked at each other with dismay.

"I never knew how to flirt," Britta said, "and do not wish to learn now." In Hilda's opinion, Britta did not need to learn. The pretty man followed her around like a newborn pup. But then, Britta was among those who had decided not to have children.

"I have been too long away from society to remember how to flirt," Inge remarked. "Exactly how does one seduce a man?"

"There are ways," Rakel said with confidence.

Oh, my gods and goddesses!

"There are ways to dress that would entice a man." Rakel ripped her gown at the neck, parting the material so the tops of her generous breasts were exposed.

The women listened to her intently, no doubt planning to alter their apparel once they left the Thing.

Hilda looked down at her almost flat chest and grimaced. She would never be able to entice a man.

"And you should walk a certain way to entice a man." Rakel demonstrated by arching her shoulders back and swishing her hips from side to side as she strutted across the clearing.

Hilda put a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. The men would think all her women had gone barmy if they walked thus.

"Bend over in front of them betimes. Some men like a shapely arse." Rakel bent over at the waist and aimed her backside at the group.

Never, ever would Hilda do that. Not purposely.

"Bat your eyelashes, like this. And give them sultry glances with your lids half-shuttered."

How absurd! Half of them are looking cross-eyed.

"Most of all, there is the art of good bedsport. How many of you have tried tongue kissing?"

Where was Juan Valdez when you needed him?…

"Can y'all believe it? There isn't a drop of coffee in this whole damn place,"

Cage griped early that morning. "Honest to God, a Cajun cannot live without his chicory fix."

Little do you know, my friend. There is a whole lot more missing than meets the eye.

"My back is killing me. Men were not designed to sleep on hard wood benches."

It

was Pretty Boy complaining now.

"Did any of you notice that there isn't one single book here, not even a Bible?"

That was JAM, of course.

Stop complaining. You have that miniature Bible that you always carry in your back pocket.

"And the head is outside. Shiiit! I do not like freezing my ass when I take a whizz. But you know, something isn't quite right here." Geek was studying the interior of the great hall where they were sitting like it was a specimen under glass.

Wait till he goes into computer shock. I can't imagine our resident genius laptop-deprived.

"I kind of like it here," Pretty Boy said.

They all snickered at that remark.

"Forget conveniences. I told Britta that she doesn't need to use a shredded twig for a toothbrush. Everyone knows that kissing keeps the teeth white and healthy.

Yep, tonsil hockey encourages saliva to wash food from the teeth. It even lowers the level of acid that causes teeth to decay and get plaque."

"Fuckin A!" Cage saluted Pretty Boy. "Here's to saliva!"

"Unbelievable," JAM commented. "Where do you come up with this shit?"

"What did Britta say to that baloney?" Geek wanted to know.

"Oh, well, she told me to go kiss the backside of a sheep."

Pretty Boy joked a lot about Big Mama, but Torolf saw something more. He'd fallen hard for her. In fact, they could be in a cave, and Pretty Boy wouldn't object, as long as his personal Amazon was there.

They sat down on two sides of a long table, at the far end of the hall, waiting for breakfast. A huge fire blazed in the hearth, providing welcoming heat on this cool autumn day and some light. Even in daytime, the hall was dark and dreary.

If they're expecting hotcakes, ham, eggs, and buttered toast, they are sure gonna be surprised. More like unsweetened gruel, except maybe for honey, and dry manchet bread, if they're lucky.

"Let's cut the crap here, chèr," Cage said, patting him on the shoulder, "Joke's

over. I fer one have had enough playacting, as if we're freakin' Vikings.

When

do we go home?"

"Yeah, this is taking reenactment to a new level," JAM agreed, wiping his fingers with distaste over the tabletop to remove some of the ash from the fire.

You could say JAM was a bit anal about cleanliness. In fact, he had a cleaning lady come to his Coronado apartment twice a week, and he lived alone. How much dirt could one man make?

"My family went to one of those time capsule kind of villages when I was a kid,"

Pretty Boy said, "except it was Colonial, like Williamsburg, and people stayed there for vacations and pretended they were really back in time. Some vacation!

My brother Danny and I got the only spanking of our lives for putting a bag of salt in the communal kettle of porridge."

"My dad took me on one of those trail rides when I was ten. You know, like City Slickers. My mom had just died, and he wanted to cheer me up." Now this was something. JAM rarely talked about his childhood. "I never ate so many baked beans in all my life… on tin plates. I always wondered… Did cowboys have permanent gas with all those beans they ate? I mean, really, do you think Roy Rogers farted in front of Dale Evans?"

They all grinned at that image.

"I'm confused about one thing. The language," Cage said. "I can tell that these ladies are speaking a different language, but I can understand them perfectly."

Torolf nodded. "One reason might be that Old Norse is similar to modern Icelandic, and we all took the short course in Icelandic before we went there last year. Old Norse isn't at all like Norwegian today. Even a thousand years ago, though, there were enough similarities between the Viking and Saxon languages that people could speak to one another."

"How do you explain the women being able to understand us?" Pretty Boy asked.

Torolf shrugged. "A miracle?"

"Seriously, Max, you've made yer point," Cage said.

"All that Viking crap yer always spoutin'… we get it now. Life was hard, yada, yada, yada. Now, let's go home."

They are not going to believe me about the time travel. Not yet. "I want you to help me get rid of Steinolf first."

"For real?" Pretty Boy asked.

"For real. He's as bad a motherfucker as those crazies who took down the twin towers. He's terrorized most of the people in this region. If someone doesn't stop him, he's going to take over all the Scandinavian countries. I'm not going home till he's dead meat, along with his sadistic followers."

"Okay, we stay till Steinolf is gone. Right, guys?" Cage looked at each guy in the group, individually. They all nodded.

"What do we use for weapons?" JAM asked. They were all sharpshooters, to some extent.

"Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. Yeah, we have no night vision goggles, or thermal imaging, or a boatload of weapons, but we'll improvise." He pulled the KA-BAR knife out of his boot. "This is all I have."

The other guys had knives, too, and JAM had a ninja throwing star.

"Any of you good at archery?"

Cage and Geek raised a hand.

"I doubt if any of you have used a broadsword, but all you really need to know is how to swing it in an arc to lop off a head or slice off a limb. Aim for the neck."

They all gave him a look of wonder.

"I can use a slingshot really well," Cage offered. When Pretty Boy elbowed him with a chuckle, he added. "Hey, don't knock it. I can down a rabbit at fifty feet with a slingshot. I even downed a bear one time, but then I had to finish it off with a bowie knife."

"You are so full of shit," Pretty Boy said with a laugh. "You had me till that bear bit."

"Okay, so I knocked off rabbits, not bears. Same thing."

"In what world?" Pretty Boy countered.

"Enough, guys! We can make some other weapons," Torolf concluded. Besides, he didn't need to tell these experienced SEALs that in the best battle no shots were fired. He doubted they would be able to claim that for Steinolf's gang when all was done. In fact, he wasn't leaving till the bastard was lying in his own blood. Suddenly, Torolf went stiff and wide-eyed.

"What?" everyone asked as one. SEALs were alert to the least change in one of their teammates. They even knew each other's scent.

"Sonofabitch! It's the damn dog again." He swung his right leg out from under the table and over the bench. Stig was clinging to his leg like a SEAL

trainee

hugging the greased pole on the grinder in BUD/S. He limped to the door with the stupid dog hanging on, then he pushed it outside.

When he got back and the guys were done laughing their asses off at his expense, the pragmatic Geek asked, "How far are we going to have to travel? And is that longship salvageable?"

"Feet on the ground all the way," he replied. "As for distance, I'm not sure.

As

little as ten miles, up to twenty."

They all nodded. Traveling by foot was no problem for a SEAL. They often ran thirty miles a day, just for exercise.

"As for the longship, I'll check it out, but I'm not so sure we want to use it.

Too visible."

They nodded at this, too. SEALs preferred to travel under cover, usually at night. But then they had night goggles.