Now, that’s what I call a honeymoon…
And so it was that Hauk prepared to be wed for the second time in his sorry life. He could only hope it did not end as badly as the first, for truthfully they were both forced marriages.
The woman…Kirstin…was not to his tastes, personally, being tall and blonde, like many Norsewomen. Not that there was anything wrong with pale versions of the female sex, but a man got tired of the same diet in the bed furs day after day. On the other hand, how could he complain? He was light-haired himself. Still, he much preferred dark-haired females with a smaller, more curvaceous frame. And Kirstin was no longer a young woman, either, being closer to his own age of thirty and five, he would warrant.
But female attributes were the least of his concerns. And who was he to be particular in his present position?
He had to give Kirstin credit, though. She had a skillful tongue when it came to dealing with the bothersome Saxons who thought to manage this charade of a nuptial affair. If only said tongue would rest on occasion! Instead, it was blather, blather, blather. And she had no qualms about addressing the king or queen in familiar terms, even the occasional, oddly-worded “You who!” when the royal pair failed to respond quickly enough to her comments.
The first obstacle arose when the king had demanded that, before opening the cage, Hauk be fully restrained with ropes holding his hands behind his back and ropes tied to both ankles so that he could scarce walk. Not to mention a leather collar and a chain held by a brute the size of a small mountain.
“What? You can’t be serious,” Kirstin had exclaimed. “How will he bathe before the ceremony?”
“What need is there for a bath?” the king had inquired.
“Cleanliness?” she’d replied sweetly.
“Aethelred!” his wife had berated the king. “You cannot expect a highborn lady to consummate her marriage with a man who reeks.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” the king had muttered. Then he’d turned to several of the housecarls who were standing about drinking and enjoying the spectacle. “Take him outside and clean him up. A couple buckets of water and some soap should do the job. And get rid of that fur thing. It looks like a squirrel tupping his cock.”
“Aethelred!” Emma had chided her husband again.
“What?”
“Must you be so crude?”
“More wine,” the king had ordered.
“It’s fox, not squirrel,” Hauk had contributed. Not that anyone seemed to care.
The bath itself would have been laughable if Hauk were in the mood for laughter. The guards had not so much poured buckets of water over him but threw them, not wanting to get too close. Even with his arm and ankle restraints, Hauk had been fairly confident he could break free from these dolts and make a run for the trees, especially since the chain just dangled from his neck whilst the giant went off to the garderobe to settle a case of roiling bowels.
Hauk had considered the option of a rush to freedom, but only for a moment. He couldn’t abandon Egil in the castle, and, truth to tell, the dog lady, either. If Aethelred suspected her help with his escape, the lady might very well end up in the cage herself. Furthermore, with his luck of late, Hauk would probably be stuck with Egil’s girling, who was presumably tending the horses for their escape.
When he’d been led back to the great hall, Kirstin looked at him with disgust and remarked, “You look worse than you did before. Instead of being just dirty and greasy, now your hair is hanging in wet clumps, and I doubt you’ll ever get the tangles out of your beard. Eew, don’t get so close. Your lice might hop over onto me.”
“Does your tongue ever stop flapping?”
“Nice talk for a bridegroom!”
“And by the by, you never did answer my question afore. According to your plan, how far do we have to go to ensure our escape?”
“Um.”
Obviously, she had no plan. “Where exactly is your longship anchored?”
“I didn’t come by boat.”
He’d frowned with confusion. Knowing where America was located, roughly…beyond Iceland…he’d pictured the route from England to Iceland and beyond. Nothing but waterways came to mind. The English Channel, the North Sea, the Atlantic ocean. There was no direct path overland. “Dost care to explain?”
“Air?” she’d said, more as a question than a statement.
“You’re asking me how you got here?”
“By sky then. Jeesh!”
He’d rolled his eyes. ’Twas as he suspected. The wench was barmy.
In an obvious attempt to change the subject, she’d called up to the king, who’d been talking to the newly arrived bishop, presumably yanked from his bed by the looks of the sleep shert peeking out from his wrinkled vestments and the mitre sitting lopsided on his bald head. “Could you not find any suitable clothing for my betrothed?”
When the king hadn’t immediately answered, she’d yelled a little louder. “You-who, Aethelred!”
The king’s eyes had gone wide when he realized that she addressed him thus.
Did that stop the wench? Oh, nay! She’d just blathered on, “Lord Hauk is a man of noble status in the Norselands. He cannot be wed in a threadbare, dirty tunic. And barefooted, to boot.”
“What boot?” Hauk had asked.
Everyone nearby glanced down at his filthy feet and long toenails. A few of the women gagged and stepped back, as if the toenails might reach out and grab them. In his experience, females had an odd aversion to untended feet. Hah! They should meet Olev the Hermit whose toenails were so crusty and bone-like that he had to use a hand saw to cut them, which is why he had nine and a half toes. As for smelly feet, personally he was more sensitive to the scent of hairy arses or unwashed ballocks, or that gods-awful gammelost, the stinky cheese some chieftains fed their warriors betimes before battle so they would go berserk.
Back to his jabbering betrothed, who had obviously failed to realize that Aethelred’s housecarls had to release his hands and feet in order to get a shert and braies on him, risking bodily harm or his escape. Instead, they’d thrown an open-sided, knee-length garment over his head and tied it at the waist with a thin rope.
“They are not about to release me,” he’d started to explain, “so you can adorn me to your standards.” He smiled to ease his criticism of her well-intended remarks.
“Shhh!” she’d said.
Truly, the wench went too far, shushing him. He’d been about to tell her so, but the king, by then recovered from his initial startlement, responded, “What difference does his clothing make? He will be naked within the hour. Unless…” He’d glanced to some of his drunken cohorts for support. “…unless Viking men have a way of consummating a marriage with their cocks covered. Which wouldn’t surprise me. It’s cold enough in the Norselands to freeze a bear’s ballocks, let alone a man’s staff, which on a Norseman probably resembles a skinny icicle. Ha, ha, ha!”
Much laughter had followed. Even the bishop, who’d been handed a cup of ale, had appeared amused.
“Actually, where I come from, condoms do cover the male penis during sex,” Kirstin had said, “and no one would argue that protected sex is not intercourse. Tell that to thousands of college guys who buy condoms by the dozens. Ha, ha.”
Hauk had no idea what a condom was or exactly what she had implied, but even he had been shocked that a woman would discuss sex, or male parts, in mixed company. “Have you no shame, woman?”
“Oh, please! Get over yourself!”
He’d recalled of a sudden how Ivan the Ignorant always said that the best wench he’d ever met had no tongue. Could be there was wisdom in Ivan’s ignorance. He’d been confirmed in that conviction when she began you-who-ing again, this time to the queen, wanting to know if a bridal bower was being prepared. Little did she know that the cage and a pile of fresh straw was probably to be her wedding bed.
But now the ceremony was about to begin. Somehow, someone had gathered some flowers together and woven them into a crown of sorts that sat on Kirstin’s head, which gave her a bridal look. And, in truth, made her look younger. Almost maidenly.
“By the by,” he whispered, “are you a virgin?”
“No. Are you?”
Again, he was taken aback by her bluntness. “What a question!” he declared indignantly. “Untried at thirty and five years? What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. That remains to be seen.”
Did she imply…? Holy Thor! She did! “I could show you right now what kind of man—”
She elbowed him into silence as the God-man began to expound on the heavenly responsibilities of marriage. He elbowed her back, just to show he would not be managed, but his elbow hit one of her arm rings and he nigh fell over at the stinging sensation, which felt like a thousand bees biting him at once, accompanied by a brief sizzling noise, like water on a white-hot blacksmith’s iron. It wasn’t that it hurt so badly, but that he was shocked by the sensation.
He glowered at her, but she just stared ahead, unaffected. He was beginning to wonder if she was some otherworldly creature, sent by the gods, mayhap the jester god Loki, or the Christian One-God, as she’d said. And I am to be wed to her…this magical wench? Where was I when the luck tokens were being passed out by the Norns of Fate? What will happen when I put my cock inside her? Will she sting and scald me there, like she did my elbow, till I am a bare nub of my former glory? He edged away from her a bit.
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” the bishop pronounced. “You may kiss your new wife, Viking.”
The crowd roared and pounded the trestle tables with their fists and wooden mugs. The king was starting to look bored, which was not a good sign. Only Odin knew what a bored king would want next.
Hauk turned to Kirstin and said, “This is a new custom to me. The wedding kiss. In my land, the groom chases the bride across the courtyard, then swats her on the arse with the flat side of his broadsword, to show who will be master of his home.”
“I know. It’s called the brud-hlaup, or bride-running.”
Why was he not surprised that she would know that? In fact, she started to expound on related matters, “When my father married for the fourth, or was it the fifth time, he—” Blather, blather, blather.
Hauk yanked her into his arms by looping his bound wrists over her head and behind her lower back, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, but before she could utter another word, he laid his lips on hers.
And it was sweet.
Way sweeter than he’d expected.
Way sweeter than he’d ever experienced.
Kisses were a waste of time, in his opinion. A boring prelude to better things. Leastways, that’s what he’d thought in the past, from way back when he’d first tried his charms as a fourteen-year-old youthling on Inga, King Olaf’s chambermaid.
Now…well, now, he knew that a kiss could be a bliss in itself. A simple brush of lips, at first, like a greeting. Hallo, Inga! Nice seeing you again! Wouldst care to tup? But then lips moving of their own volition, shaping until a perfect fit was made. That’s the way, Inga. Move to the left a little. Nay, you’re hitting my nose. Yea. Like that. And there was delving, too, as the tongue sought its natural channel, creating a wet path of what some might call slobber, but was more like what the skalds poetically called “sex dew.” Inga, Inga, Inga! Naughty, naughty, naughty!
But this was not Inga. It was Kirstin. And, best of all, the woman had stopped talking. Another benefit of kissing he’d failed to appreciate until now. But wait, was that a low moan of pleasure emanating from deep in her throat? Thank you, Odin…it was, it was! He felt that moan like an echo all the way across his tongue, down his throat, downward, downward, downward, till it lodged where least expected and let out a wild, silent, vibrating yodel, a long drawn-out kulning.
Truly, this new view of kissing was something Hauk needed to examine in more detail. But not now, and not here, where hundreds of randy men, and dozens of equally randy women, chanted their approval of the spectacle he was creating.
He drew back slightly to stare at his new bride.
She was equally stunned, or aroused, if her glazed blue eyes and parted lips were any indication.
“More! More!” the raucous, laughing crowd demanded.
Hauk wasn’t sure if they wanted more kissing, or more bodily contact, like mayhap an actual consummation taking place right here in front of one and all. Either way, he had no intention of giving the bloody Saxons any more entertainment. He began to raise his hands, but the bare skin of his inner forearms brushed against her arm rings. A hot tingling sensation was his first warning. But it came too late. Instinctively, he widened his arms to avoid contact, but in the process his own arm ring seemed to weld themselves to hers, just above the elbow. Try as hard as he could, the attachment held.
Then everything happened at once. His entire body went hot and tingling. His tongue felt numb, and he could not speak. In his confusion, he felt light-headed and dizzy. He could swear that he began to rise above the crowd, Kirstin still in his embrace. And they were swirling about, like a fast country dance. Or like a tornadic waterspout he’d seen years ago on the Baltic Sea, spiraling like a funnel out of the black clouds during a thunderstorm, except in this case the air was moving them up, not down.
Higher and higher, he and Kirstin went. Faster and faster. Up through the ceiling and roof of the great hall, into the night sky, which seemed bright as day. Even the stars were dancing. Or so it seemed. And the moon was a huge golden ball dripping honey. Strange. Very strange.
That is a lot of honey! he mused, ducking his head to avoid any of the drips.
Perhaps this was his barmy new wife’s introduction to the honeymoon. In some Norse clans, family and friends of the bride and groom gifted them with enough honey mead to last a month. Since Vikings drank a lot of mead, and since it was believed that a month was the measure of time it would take for the moon to revolve around the earth, well, that period of newly wedded bliss came to be called the honeymoon. It was no coincidence that a month was enough time to conceive a child afore the man was free to go off a-Viking again.
And isn’t it ironical that I would have these thoughts whilst twirling up in the sky. Truly, this is the strangest day of my life.
But then they began to drop. Fast. His senses went blank as they landed, he flat on his back on a hard surface with Kirstin atop him. Not the way he’d imagined their wedding night to play out. Well, mayhap her manning the rudder, so to speak, but not quite in this way.
Plus, he was fairly certain it was Kirstin who was screaming, “You idiot! Look what you’ve done!”
Definitely the strangest honeymoon in the history of Vikings, Hauk decided, and wagered that there were more than a few gods up there laughing their arses off.
There are road trips, and then there are road trips…
Egil stood with Bergliot at the edge of the forest, staring, gape-mouthed, at the whirling dervish that appeared in the sky above them and came crashing down to the ground at their feet. They had been waiting, hoping, that Hauk would be able to find a way to escape the Winchester castle.
Looks like he did!
Bergliot…rather, Bjorn, still in female clothing…exclaimed, “Frigg’s foot! Wish I could do that.”
The lackwit!
The lady in blue had landed atop Lord Hauk, but already she was raising his bound hands over her back as she shimmied downward to escape his restraint. At one point, her mouth, still spewing forth curses, was aligned above a part of Hauk’s body, which, under other circumstances, he might appreciate. But not now, of course.
Once free, she stood between his splayed legs and straightened the floral circlet on her head. Gazing around, she gave a groan of dismay and kept muttering something about idiots and this being the wrong place and time.
Meanwhile, the master still lay, eyes closed, spread-eagled on the ground.
“Is he dead?” Bjorn asked.
“No. Just unconscious, I think,” the woman answered, nudging Hauk on the hip with the toe of her shoe, at first lightly, then harder. When she got no reaction, she looked over at Egil and Bjorn. “We’re going to have an army of drunk Saxons after us any minute now. Do you think the three of us can get him up onto a horse?”
With all the weight the master had lost these months in captivity, Egil was fairly certain they could manage. Bjorn was stronger than she…he…looked. So, it was with much grunting—and more cursing from the woman, who knew some famous Anglo-Saxon words for fornication—they managed to get Hauk’s body up and over the bare back of a swaybacked mare, arse upward, with his head and arms hanging over one side and his legs down the other. In the process, his open-sided tunic had come undone, and, with the slight breeze that rose suddenly, they all got a good whiff of his still dirty body.
“Eew!” Bergliot said.
“You don’t smell like a flower yourself,” the woman remarked.
“Huh?”
The woman quickly introduced herself as Kirstin Magnusson, daughter of Magnus Ericsson.
“Egil Karlsson here. One of Lord Hauk’s hersirs when he is about fighting wars and such,” he said, then added, “And this is Bergliot, my ward.”
Kirstin nodded, then with a narrow-eyed scrutiny of Bjorn, observed, “Nice disguise, Bergie! Though you ought to cut back on the crotch scratching.”
“Bugger off!” Bjorn replied.
“What a sweet girl!” Kirstin observed.
What? In all the weeks they’d been at Winchester Castle, no one had questioned Bjorn’s gender, and, yet, this woman in one glance knew the truth.
“You make a great pair. The weird witch and the cowardly caged Viking!” Bjorn interjected, still annoyed over the lady’s criticism of his crotch scratching…something Egil had been remarking on for weeks, for Thor’s sake! The boy was stubborn as a fenced bull during the rut season.
Bad enough Hauk would be hearing such comments from others, but it was unacceptable from his son. Egil reached over and smacked Bjorn’s head for calling Hauk a coward. That insult of his master he could not abide.
Then, turning to the lady, Egil wanted to ask her how she could tell the she was a he, as regards Bjorn, other than the cock scratching, but decided to save that question for later. Already, they were hearing a rustle of activity from within the castle.
“I’m not a very experienced rider,” she told him. “In fact, I haven’t been on a horse since I was twelve years old.”
“You’ll have to ride behind the master, then,” Egil told her. “That beast is the tamest of the three horses and shouldn’t bolt when being pursued.” I hope, he added under his breath.
Although she appeared about to protest, she arranged her gown up under her bottom and between her knees, tucking the hem forward and into her belt, before letting him boost her up. And the three of them were on their way. Not as fast as he would like, with Kirstin and Lord Hauk moving at a slower pace, always lagging at least five horse lengths behind. There was a fear that a Saxon troop might close in on them using younger steeds.
“Where are we going?” Kirstin asked when her mare managed to catch up with him and Bjorn. They had been traveling for hours on a dirt road, unoccupied at this time of night. It had been well after midnight when they’d left Winchester. The sun should be rising soon, which would make their travel easier. But also easier for the Saxons to shorten the distance.
“To Jorvik.”
“Hmm. That’s modern-day York.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Why Jorvik? Isn’t there any place closer that would be safe?”
“That’s where Sweyn’s ship army should be arriving, if they are not already on their way here. We could go to Southhampton, of course, where Duke Richard’s ships should have already unloaded an army of fighting men, but, no, Lord Hauk would much prefer to march with Sweyn, I’m thinking.”
“Actually, Duke Richard isn’t coming, but he has sent men to help his daughter Emma and the king to escape to exile in Normandy.”
“What? Who told you that?”
“Oops…I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising, would it, if the royal couple found refuge in her homeland?”
Egil narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “Did Queen Emma tell you of such a plan? If so, ’tis important that my Lord Hauk know of this so he can stop the bloody bastard from escaping his wrath.”
They both looked at Lord Hauk who was still dead to the world, atop her horse.
“You’re right. We should just proceed toward Sweyn’s army,” she said then, as if her agreement meant aught.
But then, she seemed to think of something else. “Don’t tell me you’re going to join in the battle right away. Hauk needs time to rest and recover from his ordeal.”
“Of course we will be raising our swords. Lord Hauk can rest once the battle is won. Believe you me, he will insist on participating.”
“Why? Why does he have to be in the fight?”
“He is a Viking.”
She shrugged, as if she understood.
“Besides, my master has more reason than most to want to spill Saxon blood. And not just because of their placing him in a cage.” He glanced pointedly toward Bjorn.
Lady Kirstin shrugged again.
“So, you are Magnus Ericsson’s daughter? I fought with him at the Battle of Stone Hill years ago. Will the old warrior be joining in this fight?”
“I’m sure he’d love to, but he’s too far away. In America. No, I’m on my own.”
“Why exactly are you here? In Britain, I mean.”
“To save Hauk.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Were you really his betrothed at one time?”
“Pfff! Hardly. No, I was sent to save him.”
“By whom?”
“God, I think.”
“Ah, the Christian One-God.” Egil had heard many a Papist lay all kinds of claims on their deity, who was supposedly three gods in one being. But why would their god not send a weaponed warrior, or an army, to save Lord Hauk, rather than this one puny woman?
He sighed. Who could guess the way of the gods?
“The question is, whether I’m supposed to leave him here, or take him back to the fut…to America with me,” she pondered aloud, not appearing to want or expect an opinion from Egil.
Still, he asked, “Should a bride not leave that decision to her man?”
“Not in my world!” He must have looked at her with disbelief because she added, “In my country, women are equal to men, in all ways.”
He could swear he heard Hauk mutter, “Gods forbid!”
Kirstin must have heard the same thing because she swatted the master on his arse with the palm of her hand and said, “Behave.”
Egil was beginning to wonder which world she came from, like mayhap a barmy place in the Other World, not that Ah-mare-ick-ha discovered by his old comrade, Leif Ericsson.
All speculation in that regard ended, though, because approaching them from up ahead, coming in the opposite direction, was an army led by none other than Sweyn Forkbeard, easily identifiable in the misty dawn by his flaming red hair and his long, cleft beard. Before Egil had a chance to register this good fortune, he watched Sweyn raise a sword ahigh and kick his horse into a gallop, then yell, “Kill the Saxons!”
What Saxons? Egil wondered, pivoting his head to look behind, until he realized that Sweyn thought they were the enemy. And that demented Kirstin Magnusson was waving her arm and yelling, “You who! Hold your fire!”
“What fire?” Egil asked, just before an arrow pierced his shoulder, his horse reared up, and he fell to the ground with a thud. ’Twas just a flesh wound, he realized immediately, yanked the arrow out, and stood to glare at the miscreant who’d shot him.
Meanwhile, he heard Kirstin screeching at Sweyn, “Friendly fire, is it, you idiot? These are your fellow Vikings, and they have important information for you. Are you blind? Or just the usual thick-headed macho man?”
“Watch your words, wench, lest I slice off your tongue which outruns good sense. Like the usual lamebrain woman who knows naught of warfare and man business but thinks she must wag her tongue nonetheless!” He turned to one of his comrades-in-arms and asked, “What is a match-ho?” which gained him a shrug.
“Wench? Did you call me a wench? I’ll have you know I have a doctorate degree in higher education. I have more smarts in my little finger than you have in your whole hairy body.”
“Was that an insult?” Sweyn asked the same aide. And gained another shrug.
But then, Hauk, who had still been lying atop the mare in front of Kirstin, slid off the horse and stood, leaning against the animal for balance, momentarily, before stepping forward. “Greetings, Sweyn. ’Tis past time you got here. I was beginning to think I would have to fight the bloody Saxons on my own.”
“Hauk? Is that you, Hauk? Not so handsome anymore, eh? I heard you were living in a cage. I can see it must be true. I can smell you from here. Ha, ha, ha! The skalds will be busy for years telling tales of The Caged Viking. Ha, ha, ha! I heard you tried to eat through the bars.” Sweyn dismounted and began to walk toward them.
“And I heard your third wife divorced you for a younger, more cock-worthy Viking,” Hauk countered.
“’Twas just a rumor. I still have only two wives,” then added under his breath, “which is two too many.”
“Just so you know, you do not smell like flowers, either, Sweyn. More like horse and sennights of brewed man-sweat.”
The two men laughed and embraced in a manly hug.
“Will you join us in the fight?” Hauk asked.
“You could not stop me if you tried.”
“My sword, Neck Biter, has a hunger for Saxon blood.”
“Sorry, but I get first claim on the king’s fool head. I plan to mount it on the prow of my longship for the sharks and sea birds to nibble on as I journey home.”
“Methought you would like to put him in a cage.”
“There is merit in that idea, too. Naked, wearing his bloody crown.”
“Mayhap I would spare him to you for that purpose, but only if you give me a limb or two for keepsakes.”
“Will an eyeball do?”
“Men!” Kirstin muttered from where she still sat atop the sorry-looking mare.
But they all heard her and turned to stare.
“And who is this wench?” Sweyn asked.
Hauk rolled his eyes and revealed, “My wife. A gift from Aethelred.”
“Wedlock? For you who always disdained the chains of matrimony? And I thought the cage had been your greatest torture!”
Egil could understand Sweyn’s misthinking about Hauk’s marital history. Not many people knew that the master had married a Saxon lady all those years ago, never having lived with her or taken her to his home. And then she’d died. It was as if she’d never existed. Except for…
“’Twas my second greatest torture. My greatest torture was riding the skies in a magical whirlwind.”
“Was that you?” Sweyn inquired, throwing his head back to laugh uproariously. “Methought ’twas an omen from the gods prophesying my upcoming luck in battle.”
“Nay. ’Twas me. And my wenchy wife.” Or did he say “witchy”? Egil wasn’t sure.
Hauk looked at Kirstin to see if she was amused at his words.
She was not, the frown on her face a clear clue to her displeasure.
So Hauk glared at her, no doubt remembering that he should be displeased over the manner of his escape from the Saxon castle and her spouting off her opinions to Sweyn.
She glared right back at him.
“You did that strange trick without my permission,” he lashed out indignantly. “What will you do next, turn me into a toad?”
She muttered something about him already being a toad.
“Because I object to being hurled about like a jester’s puppet?”
“You escaped, didn’t you?”
“I would have escaped anyway, in my own way, and my own more seemly manner,” he insisted.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little gratitude would be nice, baby.”
“Baby?”
“If the name fits!”
They faced off at each other, of an equal height with her still on the horse, him pressed against the animal’s side, and continued to glare, one more stubborn than the other, not wanting to be the first to look away.
Egil suspected that his master had met his match, in more ways than one. He could scarce wait to see what they would do next.
But first, Egil had other matters to be concerned over. He must tell Hauk about Bergliot. Soon. Afore he discovered elsewhere that the maid was actually Bjorn. His son.
Help me, gods! he thought, suspecting that Hauk would be a mite displeased at his withholding that information. He sighed. Where is a mead barrel when a man has a mighty thirst…or the need for ale-bravery?