Page 37 of A Tale of Two Vikings

“I dare.” And I want to.

“King Edgar will have something to say about this matter, I daresay.”

Blah, blah, blah. Let’s end the talking and start fighting. My stomach is growling with hunger and my tongue thirsts for a big horn of Margaret’s Mead. Toste shrugged. “Edgar is not my king.”

Her father’s brows narrowed with suspicion. “Has she hired you and a troop of Vikings to man the parapets at Evergreen? If so, you should know that the girl has no coin. A pauper nun, she is, and not even that.”

Why does he keep calling her “girl”? Ah, I see, probably to belittle her and make her feel subservient. Voltar the Vicious used to do that with his young wife, Olga Quiet-Tongue. “Oh? Really? Tsk tsk, Lady Esme, you did not inform me of that fact.” Esme was looking at him as if he’d gone mad. He had. Mad with rage. Mad with the injustice of his twin’s death. Mad with the injustice of Esme’s ill-treatment. Mad with the blood-lust rising in him, along with another kind of lust. Mad, mad, mad! He turned his attention back to Lord Blackthorne. “Mayhap your good king would be interested in knowing what happened to Evergreen’s revenues these past ten years.” He blinked his eyes innocently at the thieving nobleman.

“You…you…” Blackthorne sputtered.

“Well, it has been pleasant chatting with you, Lord Blackthorne, and you two knaves, too, but Bolthor and I were about to have a cup of mulled mead. It is damned cold out there. Do not slam the doors on your way out.” With that, Toste took Esme by the hand and began to walk toward the great hall. He did not mind putting his back to the three blackguards, because he knew Bolthor was watching out for him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, now that they were out of her father’s hearing.

“Do not thank me yet, m’lady.” He stared straight ahead as he spoke, still leading her by the hand. “Your bill will be paid in good time.”

“My father already told you I have no coin, but I will be able to pay you eventually…if you are willing to forgo immediate payment. I am more than aware that you put your life on the line for me today.”

“I have no interest in coin. Wealth aplenty do I already have. But you will pay. You will pay.”

She frowned. “How?” She gasped then as understanding hit her. “You would not demand such. Surely you would not.”

“I would, and I will.”

“You have not seen the last of me,” Lord Blackthorne yelled.

Toste had not realized that Lord Blackthorne still lingered inside the abbey. “Yea, yea, yea,” he called back over his shoulder. Cowards always threw out threats when they thought they were outside the range of sword or arrow.

“And the banns for your wedding will be called, whether you like it or not, girl.” This threat was addressed to Esme, of course. Neither of them turned to look at her father, but pretended they did not hear.

“You are getting married?” Toste asked Esme.

“Over my dead body.”

“Good. I never lie with married women.” Or dead ones, for that matter.

She gasped again. “Your constant jests are…disarming.”

Hah! I will show you disarming when you are flat on your back, legs spread, with a smile on your face that only a Viking could put there.

“I’ll be back afore you can blink, Viking,” her father shouted.

“Holy Thor, is he still here? The man never gives up.”

“Nay, he does not. I know that better than any,” Esme said with a sigh.

“And with me will be a large troop of soldiers.” Toste turned his head slightly so he could look back. Yea, her bullheaded father still stood at the open doorway with his two sons, all of them red-faced with frustration and anger.

“He means it,” Esme said.

“I do not doubt that, but we will be long gone.”

“We?”

“You, me and Bolthor.”

He could see hope war with distrust on her too-open face. “Where are we going?”