Page 3 of The Blue Viking

“A fool’s bolt is soon shot,” Rurik mumbled under his breath.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bolthor wanted to know.

“Not a thing,” Rurik replied with a sigh. “I was just thinking about Scotsmen,” he lied. But to himself, he translated, Dumb people don’t mind sharing their opinions. “Besides, methinks it matters not why Maire the Witch put the mark on me. I just want it removed so I can resume a normal life.”

“But—” Bolthor started.

Rurik put up a hand to halt further words on the subject, but Stigand the Berserk, another of his retainers, was already joining in. “The witch made a laughingstock of you. Everywhere you go, people smirk behind your back and make jokes about you.”

Rurik frowned. He did not need to hear this.

And, really, what could Stigand be thinking … to risk provoking him so? His trusted friend pushed all bounds by reminding him that people were making jest of him; he knew better than most what a sore point such mockery had always been with Rurik.

“You should let me lop off her head,” Stigand suggested gleefully. And he was serious.

Was that not like Stigand… ever the protector? Rurik could not help being touched at the fierce soldier’s attempt to shield him from pain. But Rurik was quick to state, “You are not lopping off any more heads.” The bloodlust was always high in Stigand and had to be reined in constantly. He had a habit of decapitating his enemies with a single blow of his trusty battle-ax, appropriately named Blood-Lover. Throughout their three-year quest, they’d constantly had to restrain Stigand, lest a sheepherder or unwary wayfarer get in his path when he was in a dark mood. So intense were his berserk rages on occasion that Stigand actually growled like an animal and bit his own shield. In fact, just last sennight, he’d almost decapitated a Scottish princeling who’d winked repeatedly at him. Turned out the young nobleman was not a sodomite, but had suffered from a nervous tic since birth. “Leastways, do not think of lopping off Maire’s head till she has removed the mark.”

“I know, I know—” the twins, Vagn and Toste, said as one. ’Twas eerie the way the two grown men, identical in appearance right down to the clefts in their chins, would come out with the same thought.

Vagn spoke first. “I have an idea. Now, do not be offended when I tell you this, Rurik…”

Toste snickered as if he knew what his brother was about to say.

Rurik was sure he was going to be offended.

“You always had a certain word-fame for woman-luck, but perchance you have lost the knack,” Vagn elaborated, “and that is what caused the witch to mark you. ’Twas frustration, pure and simple.”

“The knack?” Rurik inquired, against his better judgment.

“Yea, the ability to bring a woman to pleasure,” Vagn explained. “Wenches like the bedsport, too, you know. I certainly have that knack.” Vagn puffed out his chest.

“Me, too,” chimed in Toste, Bolthor, Stigand… even Jostein in a squeaky, not-quite-man voice.

Rurik suspected that the twins were using his mission as an excuse to sample women all across Scotland. This was new carnal territory to explore.

How did I ever gather such a bizarre retinue? Rurik thought. Which god did I insult to bring on such misfortune? But what he said was, “The only thing I know for a certainty is that witch-hunting is becoming one immense pain in the arse.” He was not exaggerating when he said that. Truly, a Viking should be on the high seas sailing a longship, not bouncing his rump on the back of a horse for days at a time. Portly Saxons, or dour Scotsmen, might not mind the constant jostling, but Vikings, being physically fitter than the average man and having less fat on those nether regions, were better suited to other modes of transportation, in Rurik’s opinion. He had to grin at the egotism of that observation.

Mayhap, he should suggest that Bolthor create a saga about it.

On the other hand, mayhap not.

Based on past experience, it would have a title like “Viking Men With Hard Arses” or some such nonsense.

All five men fixed their gazes on him, and he realized that he had been chuckling to himself witlessly.

With a sigh of despair at his own disintegrating brain, he sank down onto a boulder. Picking up a small knife, he began to scrape peat moss and other slimy substances—like mud mixed with twigs and grass—from his leather half boots, which had been made in Cordoba of the softest skins and cost three gold coins.

“This witch-hunting business is becoming bloody bothersome,” Rurik continued in a low grumble, but not before spitting out yet another clump of what tasted like soggy charcoal.

They all nodded vigorously in agreement.

Bolthor lumbered up and loomed over him, adjusting the black eye patch over the socket of one eye that had been lost in the Battle of Brunanburh many years before, when he was hardly older than Jostein. He squinted at him through his good eye, then put a palm over his mouth to hide his smile, as if there was humor in a grown man falling into a peat bog.

“You know, Rurik, the Scots poets have a practice of writing odes, unlike we Norsemen, who prefer a good saga. Dost think I could put together an ode or two just for practice? How about Ode to a Peat Bog’?”

Everyone guffawed with mirth, except Rurik.

“How about ‘Ode to a One-Eyed Dead Skald’?” Rurik inquired.