Page 2 of A Tale of Two Vikings

His brother just grinned and danced away.

The hail began to die down and was replaced with sleet, which in turn created a mire of mud underfoot. What a miserable day! If they didn’t soon find this monastery, he was going to turn on his heel and head back to the ship, blessed booty be damned!

Then, ignoring Vagn’s flummery, he commenced afresh his earlier diatribe. “’Tis all your fault. ’Twas you who convinced me that we should join the Jomsvikings, and look where it has landed us.” They were surrounded on all sides by Viking warriors intent on plunder or battle, or whatever they faced ahead—way too far from the four longships anchored near shore. “A bloodthirstier lot I have ne’er met than this mercenary band, including our chieftain. I swear, Sigvaldi would hew down his mother if she sneezed the wrong way. And, by the by, you failed to inform me that no women were permitted at the Jomsviking fortress at Trellenborg. ’Tis a year since we joined this troop of noble warriors. Nobility is one thing, celibacy is another. Not what I envisioned, I’ll tell you that.” It was not the first time Toste had voiced this particular complaint to his brother.

“Methinks you have lost the adventuresome spirit, brother. To go a-Viking is a way of life for us Norsemen. ’Tis what men do when the crops are harvested and high-winter has not yet icebound our longships.” Vagn shrugged as if there were naught more to say on the subject. Norsemen would be Norsemen, was Vagn’s simple philosophy. Toste thought Vagn had finished blathering, but then he added more of his non-wisdom, “A dollop of celibacy hones a man’s appetite. Makes him a more self-disciplined fellow.”

“Hah! More like a wallop—as in overabundance—of celibacy hones a man’s randiness and makes him nigh beastly when he finally lands betwixt soft thighs. The monkish life is not for me.”

“Me, neither,” Vagn admitted. “Shall we go home?” A dozen hailstones lay in Vagn’s as yet unhelmeted, dark blond hair. Water rivulets ran down his face in muddy streaks. He looked absolutely ridiculous, and absolutely endearing, at the same time. Toste loved his brother more than himself.

Choking back the emotion that clogged his throat, he asked, “Home? What home? Oh, nay, you surely do not suggest we hang tail and return to our father’s estates in the Norselands? He outlawed us—his own sons.”

“He would take us back,” Vagn said softly.

“Mayhap, if we would agree to his never-ending demands: Stop being so frivolous. Fight in his army, which is always at war with one minor Norse king or another, or one Saxon thegn or another. Bend knee to our two scurrilous older brothers, who are heirs to the jarldom…not that I would want to take on that mantle. Wed a noble wench of Father’s choice. Make public apology for past misdeeds. Need I remind you of the Helga the Homely incident? Or Ingrid Hairy Chin?”

“Groveling would be required, of a certainty. And much kissing of arse,” Vagn pointed out with a wince. Neither of them were ever much good at groveling. “But we are older now, Toste. Being landless knights no longer holds appeal. Perchance settling down with a wife and family would not be the worst thing in the world. Our friend Rurik seems happy enough in that role. And, of a certainty, there is not much attraction anymore in raiding greedy clerics of their gold crucifixes and ruby-encrusted chalices. We have wealth enough, both of us.”

His brother’s words surprised Toste, mainly because they mirrored his own thinking of late. But that had been the pattern their entire lives. They always thought alike, having the same tastes and dislikes, even feeling each other’s pain and joy on occasion.

Toste shifted the halberd—a long-handled spear/battle-ax—in his right hand to its leather shoulder strap and used his free arm to wrap his brother’s shoulder and squeeze tightly. In a voice choked with deep sentiment, he said, “This will be our last battle, then. We will go home to make peace with our father and establish our own families and estates.”

“Can our estates border one another?” Vagn asked.

“I would have it no other way.”

They smiled warmly at each other, glad to have made a long-overdue decision.

“That reminds me of a saga I have been writing,” Bolthor the Skald—also known as Bolthor the World’s Worst Skald—said as he huffed up behind them. Bolthor was a giant of a man, still well muscled from fighting, even at forty and more years, but he had lost one eye at the Battle of Brunanburh some twenty years ago. It was a liability for a soldier. Still, he’d insisted on coming with them to join the Jomsvikings. Or more likely, his former leaders, Tykir in the Norse lands, and Rurik in the land of the Scots, had sicced him on them, having endured more than enough sorry sagas relating the intimacies and foibles of their lives. Either way, they were stuck with the good-hearted behemoth poet. “The saga could be called ‘The Lost Vikings.’”

“Uh, mayhap later,” Toste said quickly, noticing a dreamy look passing over Bolthor’s face which usually portended a vile poem about to spew forth.

“We are not lost, Bolthor,” Vagn pointed out. The fool! Did he not know that it was unwise to encourage the skald in any way? Vagn waved a hand to indicate the vast number of Jomsviking warriors traveling with them. “Surely, we cannot all be lost.”

“I did not mean the entire bird of soldiers was lost. Just you two.”

“Oh,” Vagn said, still clearly confused.

But then Toste made a mistake as foolish as his brother’s. He remarked to Bolthor, “I thought you always started your sagas with ‘good’ in the introduction. Like ‘This is the saga of Tykir the Good.’ Or, ‘This is the saga of ‘Rurik the Greater.’”

“Hmmm. You are right, Toste,” Bolthor said, biting his bottom lip with worry. Well, leastways they had time to escape his presence whilst he pondered the dilemma.

Toste and Vagn began to walk faster, but Bolthor yelled at their backs, “Wait! I have the solution.” With a groan, Toste and Vagn were forced by politeness to stand and listen. “This is the saga of Toste and Vagn, the best Viking twin warriors in all the Norse lands.”

“That limits our area of greatness, does it not?” Vagn whispered for Toste’s ears only. “How many Viking twin warriors do you think there are?”

“I pray thee, Bragi, god of eloquence, to bless me this day,” Bolthor continued, his one good eye raised skyward. Then to Toste and Vagn he said, “Methinks a good title would be ‘Twin Vikings Who Lost Their Way.’”

“Huh?” Toste and Vagn said at the same time.

“Once were two twins from the Norse lands

Who thought they were best at all things.

Running, racing, fighting, swordplay…

Flirting, swiving, flirting, swiving…