Page 40 of The Blue Viking

He hitched one hip. Hell, he’d only been trying to make her feel better. How had she turned the tables on him? Well, at least she wasn’t weeping anymore.

“I suppose it’s a cultural trait amongst you Norsemen since you do it so well,” Maire continued.

“Do what so well?” She’d lost him back at the culture thing.

“Lying.”

Now, Bolthor, Stigand, Toste, and Vagn stiffened with affront. “Maire, your words wound deeply. Best you be careful whom you insult. Stigand tends to lop first and think second.”

But Maire wasn’t paying any attention to him. “You know what they say about Vikings, don’t you?” Truly, the woman did push and push. If she were a man, she’d be dead as a herring by now.

Five pairs of fists went white-knuckled at this point.

“Maire, have a caution,” he warned.

“Every time a Viking lies, his… uh, male part shrinks.”

Five male jaws went slack-jawed with disbelief. Indeed, a whole hall full of jaws dropped open. But did Maire know enough to stop then? Nay. She just blathered on.

“Aye, that’s what the old proverbs say. The part that Viking men prize so much shrinks and shrinks with each lie till eventually it resembles naught more than a wee nub, and eventually falls right off.” While she was pontificating, she held her hands an arm’s length apart, for demonstration purposes, but the palms moved closer and closer till in the end she clapped her hands together.

Every single man winced. A few might have whimpered.

Now she’d gone too far. He should ignore her, but no man worth his salt could let such an insinuation go unchecked. “Let me see if I understand what you are saying. Every time a Viking lies, his cock falls off?” Rurik demanded of her.

“Eventually.”

It was hard for Rurik to tell if that was a sparkle of mischief in her eyes, or some residual tears. In any case, it was the most ridiculous statement he’d ever heard anyone make.

“That’s the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard anyone make,” he said then. “And why only Viking men?”

“Must have been a witch’s curse put on lying Viking men,” Maire surmised, waving a hand blithely. And, yes, that was a definite twinkle in her eyes.

“Vikings don’t lie any more than Scotsmen.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Maire disagreed. “For example, Vagn …”

Vagn jumped about a foot off the floor at being singled out.

“… when Stigand raised an arm in front of you this afternoon, following your baths, did he not ask you if he smelled? And did you not say, ‘Nay’?”

Vagn’s face flushed bright red.

Stigand looked at him, saw his guilt, raised his arm and sniffed his armpit, then thwapped him with a big palm on the back of his head, causing Vagn to fall to the rushes. Then, that fool, Vagn, could be seen checking inside his braies, discreetly, for any evidence of shrinkage.

“And Toste …,” Maire called out to the rascal, who was trying to sneak out of the hall through the scullery door with the sheepherder’s daughter. “Did I not hear you tell Inghinn yestereve that you were in love with her?”

Toste tried to keep walking, but Inghinn stopped. “Well?” she demanded of him in a quivery voice. “Were you lying?”

“I… um… well… not precisely,” Toste said. “I was in love with what you were doing with your hands and—”

Inghinn slapped him across the face and stormed away but not before calling over her shoulder, “Now that you mention it, his worm was smaller than usual.”

“ ’Tis not. ’Tis not,” Toste protested.

Inghinn’s father, Fergus, gave Toste a glower that said this subject of bedding his daughter was not over, but for now he hurried off to placate the now sobbing Inghinn.

“She’s only teasing us,” Rurik tried to tell his comrades. “It’s just a jest.”