Sandra Hill (14 page)

“And Tostina…could it be Toste?” Eadyth asked, also with a gasp.

Eirik recalled how hard they’d all been hit by the news of the Battle of Stone Valley. So many of their Norse comrades had fallen that day, but most especially they’d grieved for Bolthor and the twins, Toste and Vagn.

“Bolthor, Toste and Vagn all died at Stone Valley,” Eirik pointed out softly. “We have discussed that battle at length since Tykir arrived. We all miss our fallen friends. What a cruel jest someone plays on us.” He
reached over and squeezed his brother’s forearm. There were tears in Tykir’s light brown eyes.

“But what if it’s not a jest?” Alinor said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“Tostina and Bolthora…that is too much of a coincidence,” Tykir said, already handing his sleeping child to a flustered Wilfrid to hold.

Within seconds, all four of them were rushing out of the solar, down the staircase, across the great hall and out onto the courtyard steps. They came to a screeching halt at the shocking sight they beheld.

In the middle of the cart seat was Sister Margaret from St. Anne’s Abbey. Nothing unusual about that. Sister Margaret and Eadyth had often conferred over the years about the best methods for making mead. In fact, a friendly rivalry of sorts existed between them over who made the best mead in all Northumbria.

But Sister Margaret was the only normal member of the frozen tableau they beheld. The first to jump down from the cart was the leper nun. God’s teeth! What a big nun she was! And, yeech! The nun’s face was covered with oozing sores.

Or were they sores?

Eirik had suffered a lifelong weakness in his eyes which made it difficult to see things up close. Mayhap they were not sores at all. In fact…

With a wide smile, the big nun looked at them directly, or as directly as she could with her one blind eye, then tore off her veil and wimple. It
was
Bolthor.

“Thank the gods!” exclaimed Tykir, who was already down the stone steps and hugging his old friend, who had jumped off the wagon and lifted Sister Margaret to
the ground. Then Tykir lifted the giant and twirled him about with exhilaration.

“Put him down, you fool,” Alinor chastised her husband. “I want to hug him, too.” Tears were flowing freely down Alinor’s freckled face as she reached up and touched Bolthor’s leprous face adoringly. “I am
soooo
happy to see you, good friend.”

“Likewise,” Bolthor said and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on her cheek.

Eirik and Eadyth welcomed Bolthor with equal enthusiasm.

Then they all turned their eyes to the cart, where a grinning Sister Tostina beamed at them.

“Good Lord! You are the best-looking nun I have ever seen,” Alinor said.

Sister Tostina winked at her, then whipped off his veil and wimple. It was Toste, of course.

“I hope you have no Saxon nobles about, other than yourself,” Toste said to Eirik. “Otherwise, this two-day disguise of ours may be for naught.”

Eirik shook his head. “None but us here…for now.”

Tykir reached up to help Toste get down, but he waved his hand away. “First, I would like you to meet Sister Esme.”

“Huh?” they all said. It was becoming a common refrain this day.

Toste lifted the bottom half of his robe with a flourish and out crawled a woman…a nun, actually, who had been kneeling between his thighs. A beautiful nun with head rail askew and face flushed with humiliation stood and moved to the right so she was not directly in front of Toste, who stood, as well.

“Oh, now you have gone too far, Toste,” Alinor said.
“You have done some outrageous things in the past, but tupping a nun…in public?”

“This is as bad as the time he tried to seduce the caliph’s daughter atop a camel,” Tykir said, but it was obvious from the gleam in his eye he was not offended…either by the camel seduction or the nun tupping.

“What do you suppose she was doing under his robes?” Eirik asked Eadyth, and she smacked him on the arm.

“There is tupping, and then there is
tupping
,” Tykir answered for her.

It was Tykir’s turn to get smacked…by his own wife.

Sister Esme looked up at Toste. She looked at all of them standing in the courtyard with Bolthor. Then she looked at Toste again and said, “If you even blink at me in the future, let alone speak, I am going to cut off your manpart with a dull knife.”

The men in the courtyard winced.

But the ladies gave little cheers of encouragement. The women of the family ever did encourage independence of spirit in their females.

“Welcome to Ravenshire,” Eadyth said, stepping forth.

“Thank you,” Sister Esme said, jumping down off the cart after brushing off Toste’s offer of help. “I am Lady Esme of Evergreen. Please get me away from this oaf afore I kill him.”

“Hey, I am your champion. I am the one who saved you from your father. I am the brave knight who wore this ignominious disguise
for you
,” Toste yelled to her back.

Lady Esme said a very vulgar thing then—not at all the kind of thing a nun should be saying. But of course the ladies clapped and the men grinned, including Toste.

Eirik decided then and there that this was going to be a very interesting yule season at Ravenshire.

Everything’s turning up roses. Thank God!…

Esme half reclined in a large brass tub afore a roaring fire in her small guest bedchamber at Ravenshire. The air was sweet-scented, as would be her body, from the dried rose petals which covered the surface of the hot water. The perfect cure for her aching bones and cramped muscles.

Why then was Esme bawling her eyes out, with loud, hiccoughing sobs? For twenty and four years—almost twenty-five—she had learned to control her emotions. Even when beaten by her father…even when threatened with death…even when faced with the prospect of a dotty old husband…Esme had held her tears in check. Now she could not stem the flood.

It was relief, pure and simple. For the first time in many, many years, she felt safe. Oh, the danger still existed. Her father could petition the king, who would undoubtedly hand her over, if he could find her. But for now, for this short period, she basked in the luxury of tranquillity.

A short rap on the closed door interrupted her tears.

“Come in,” she called out to Eadyth, who was no doubt returning with the maid and more pails of hot water. What a gracious hostess Eadyth had been so far, treating her as a welcome guest and not the intruder she was.

The door closed softly.

Still half reclining with her neck resting on the curled edge of the tub, she said, “Just put the pails next to the
tub. I’ll ladle the water in myself as needed. And thank you once again, Eadyth.”

She heard a stool being pulled close to the tub and a male voice say, “I may wear a gown on occasion, but I’m not Eadyth.”

It was Toste, of course. The arrogant, crude, presumptuous Viking rogue.

“Go away, you odious oaf,” she said, her eyes flying open as she sank lower in the tub.

“You’ve been crying.” The tone of his voice was so doleful you would think her tears hurt him.

“I got soap in my eyes,” she lied.

“I have to talk to you,” he said, bracing both elbows on his knees and his chin in his two hands.

“You can talk to me later. And stop looking like that.”

“How?”

“Like you are trying to see through the water.”

“Well, I am. What kind of Viking would I be if I did not enjoy the sight of a naked woman?”

“Aaarrgh!”

“You are not to worry, Esme. I can’t see anything…yet. Mayhap in a while, when the petals start to droop, your hidden assets will no longer be hidden.”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten silently. When she opened them, he continued to stare at her. “Are you still here?”

“I am.”

“Speak your mind and begone,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I have been speaking with Eirik and Tykir about your situation. They agree with our plan, as far as it goes, but there is one happenstance we had not counted on.”

Esme immediately grew alert and sat up as straight as
she could without uncovering any “hidden assets.”

“The Witan is meeting next week. The king’s council of close advisers, of which Eirik is a member, is holding a regular session in Winchester.”

All the fine hairs on her body, wet as they were, stood at attention. “My father is a member of the Witan, too.”

“I know,” Toste said, his usually teasing expression somber now…somber in a way that frightened her. “It is my belief and that of Eirik and Tykir, as well, that your father will bring up your situation at that time. Whether he knows of your whereabouts by then or not, he will petition the king for either your guardianship or your marriage to Lord Rotting-Cock.” Esme had made the mistake of telling Toste of her father’s latest marriage plans for her.

She should have cringed at his vulgarity, but she was becoming accustomed to his earthy language. “Either way spells doom for me and any future I might have at Evergreen,” she mused dolefully.

“Not necessarily. Eirik will be our ears and when the moment is right, mayhap our advocate. For now, you must bide your time, and know that you are safe here at Ravenshire.”

“For now,” she said.

“For now,” he agreed. “One more thing. Alinor has chided me up one side and down the other for my treatment of you. She says I embarrassed a lady of good breeding and that I must humble myself afore you with contrition.”

Esme had to smile. “Was that an apology?”

“Yea, ’twas. Do you accept it?”

“I do accept, and despite your crude treatment of me, I must offer my thanks for rescuing me. If you had not
removed me from the abbey, I would be in my father’s hands by now.”

He nodded his acceptance of her thanks, then added, seemingly as an afterthought, “Just how thankful are you?” He was gazing pointedly at the cluster of rose petals surrounding her hidden breasts.

“Not that thankful,” she said with a laugh as he got up and prepared to leave the chamber.

She thought she heard him say, just before the door closed after him, “Being a champion is not all it used to be.” He was probably talking to his dead brother, Vagn, which was his practice of late.

If Toste only knew how much she appreciated her champion, he would not give up so easily. Lucky for her he was a dimwitted Viking.

You want her to do WHAT?…

After dinner that evening, Toste sat in a cozy semicircle in the upper solar of Ravenshire before the hearth, chatting softly with those around him. In the corner was a foul-mouthed squawking bird, which somehow contributed to the homeyness of the scene. His latest favorite expression, taught to him by Tykir, no doubt, was, “Ye gotta love a Viking!”

No one wanted to retire yet. There was still so much catching up to do, and a lingering relief that at least two Viking soldiers had survived the Battle of Stone Valley. Tykir kept grinning and Alinor kept touching Toste and Bolthor, as if to make sure they really were alive.

With Toste were Eirik, Eadyth, Tykir, Alinor, Bolthor, Eirik’s two oldest daughters, Emma, who was twenty-four, and Larise, the widow of a Jorvik merchant at
twenty-six. And, of course, Esme, who sat beside Toste, giving him a totally new view of who she really was.

I lusted after her as a nun. Now I lust after her as a lady. What next? If Vagn were here, he would say ’tis past time I got my ashes hauled
.

Attired in a sapphire-blue gown edged with silver braid borrowed from Eadyth, she looked like the lady of high station she was.

Esme was apparently larger in the chest area than Eadyth.
Every time she moves my eyeballs practically bounce out of my head. If past experience proves true, I would guess that her breasts would fit perfectly in my big hands. Aaarrgh! Stop gaping, Toste, lest you embarrass yourself
. Toste wasn’t sure if it was himself or Vagn talking in his head.

Her long hair, black as a raven’s wing, was held back off her face with a twisted silver circlet and hung down to her waist.

Of course, that just made Toste think of other times and places where her hair might lie loose.
Like on my bed furs
.

Her thick-fringed eyes matched her gown, snapping with blue fire whenever she glanced his way. She might claim to have forgiven him, but her eyes and stiff demeanor told a different story.

I ever did like a battle, m’lady. Do not challenge me with your haughty looks, or you might just find out what a Viking soldier can do with his…weapons
.

Well, that was certainly mature
, Vagn said in his head.

When did I ever aim for maturity?
he answered his brother.
You are supposed to be having a rousing good time up in Valhalla. Swive a few Valkyries for me, brother. And go away. People are starting to think I am demented. I am starting to think I am demented
.

“Who are you talking to, Toste?” Eirik asked.

“Barmy as a bat,” Abdul opined.

That is for sure
. “No one,” he replied.

The men sat with legs outstretched and ankles crossed, sipping at cups of Margaret’s and Eadyth’s mead; Sister Margaret had gone to her bed long ago since she planned to rise early and return to the convent under armed guard. The ladies propped their feet on little wooden footstools known as Widow Makers.

“I still cannot believe that Vagn is gone,” Eadyth said, bringing up the subject he had hoped to avoid. But he should have known these good friends would want to discuss his dead brother.

I can’t believe I’m dead, either
, Vagn said/thought. Or was it himself thinking that thought?
Aaarrgh!
He nodded, unable to speak.

“I cannot imagine how hard this must be for you, Toste. You two were inseparable,” Eirik said.

Not just a brother. My best friend
. A feeling of tightness crushed his chest like a vise. His heart pounded madly.

“Ivan, King Haakon’s third cousin, passed by here two sennights ago,” Eadyth told him. “He saw Vagn fall with a most grievous sword wound to the chest.”