Page 35 of A Tale of Two Vikings

Esme felt heat infuse her face. Her father was right. This was her one weakness, one which she would have to address after she inherited. There were still some of her maternal grandparents retainers at Evergreen, but they were few and mostly old. She needed hard fighting men, but she could only hire troops after she gained money, and she could only gain money after she regained her mother’s lands. Her father certainly hadn’t been saving all the revenues for her these ten years.

“Go pack your bags, girl. You are coming home today.”

“I am not!” St. Jude made me say it. Or was it the devil? Either way, my father is not going to like my obstinacy.

Her father stood and advanced toward her. Once he towered over her, he said, “You will…even if I have to carry you out over my shoulder. Your charade of being a novice is over. You will obey me.”

“Why would you take me home…as if I have any home, other than this nunnery? Will you murder me on the way, or after we arrive at Blackthorne?”

“Murder will not be necessary, wench,” he drawled. “Your wedding will take place as soon as the banns can be read. Two sennights at most.”

The fine hairs stood out on the back of Esme’s neck. “Oh? And who is the lucky bridegroom?” I can just imagine.

“Oswald of Lincolnshire.”

I cannot imagine what you are thinking. Oswald? Esme tilted her head in confusion. “He is already wed, with several children.”

“Not that Oswald,” her father said, lifting his chin defiantly.

“I don’t under…oh, nay, you cannot mean the grandsire. Oswald the Elder?” Finally my father has pushed the limits of cruelty.

“The very same. You are fortunate, girl. He is a lord in his own right.”

“He is older than you,” she said, disbelief ringing in her voice. “And last I heard, he had a disease in his manparts.” Inside, Esme felt like weeping. If she had ever hoped her father might entertain affection for her, that hope was gone now. “You are a beast.”

Her father shrugged.

“How could you, John?” Mother Wilfreda said. “Tsk tsk tsk! Even for you, that is low.”

“Mind your own business, hag,” he told the nun without even glancing her way.

“Either pack a bag or come as you are,” her father said to Esme, grabbing her forearm in a pinching grip.

She shrugged out of his grasp and yelled, “Unhand me, you demon! I would rather be dead than wed to that sick old man.”

Her father swung his hand and slapped her hard across the face, clutching on to her forearm again. “’Tis time you learned to obey your betters.”

The blow was so hard, Esme saw stars. She staggered backward and almost fell to the floor. Her father’s grasp on her arm held her up.

“You wretch!” Mother Wilfreda said and rose abruptly to her feet, knocking over her stool and scattering seeds and powders all over the table.

Cedric stepped in front of the nun and blocked her passage so that she could not come to Esme’s assistance.

Edward, meanwhile, came toward her and grabbed her other forearm. Together, her father and Edward began to drag her across the room and out the doorway. As they headed down the corridor, she noticed a confused Father Alaric walking across the great hall carrying a tray with three wooden goblets of mead. Along the wide corridor that led to the massive double front doors, two dozen nuns and novices peered out of doorways, all of them wide-eyed with fear, some of them weeping. The overly tall Sister Mary Rose held a small skull in her shaking hands, probably St. John the Baptist; she had several of those. She must have been working on her supply of relics when the “visitors” arrived. But wait. Sister Mary Rose had been sent to warn Toste and Bolthor to stay away. Had she returned already, or never gone out?

“Bloody hell! Who are they?” her father asked, coming to an abrupt halt.

Edward and Cedric said foul words under their breaths.

At first, Esme thought it must be the nuns that had prompted their expletives. But when she raised her head, she saw a wondrous sight.

“The Vikings are coming! The Vikings are coming!” Sister Hildegard shrieked suddenly.

“Thank God!” Esme murmured.

Standing in the open doorway that led out to the courtyard were Toste and Bolthor. Each leaned casually against an opposite door jamb, ankles crossed.

Toste’s right hand held a broadsword. He was testing its sharp edge with the thumb of his left hand. Back and forth his thumb flicked as if strumming an instrument…a lethal instrument. His posture bespoke nonchalance; his gesture bespoke just the opposite, especially when his eyes lit on Esme’s cheek, which probably showed the imprint of her father’s hand.