Page 26 of A Tale of Two Vikings

It did. “I forgot,” she lied. I will remember it always.

“You kissed?” her father chortled. “Loki’s lips! There is hope yet.”

Now he has done it. My father will be planning the wedding feast.

“You are mine now,” Vagn murmured even as he drifted back to sleep…a normal sleep, not the sickbed fever. “Not Toste’s. Not any other man’s. Mine.”

He does not mean it. He must be under the influence of his fever. Brain fuzzy. Still, her heart sang at his words. In that instant, Helga the Homely became Helga the Hopeful. And that was a dangerous thing for her.

“Come closer,” said the (Viking) wolf to the lamb…

A sennight later, Vagn was in the stable grooming his horse.

“What a good fellow you are, Clod! I no longer see your ribs, and your coat is nigh glossy with good health. Mayhap we both are survivors. What think you of that?”

Clod’s answer was to reach back and lip him on the shoulder. A horse kiss.

“Are you ready for a long trip, boy?”

Clod neighed his response, which Vagn chose to believe was positive. After all, neigh and yea sounded much alike.

“That’s good. I’m thinking one more week and we should both be in good enough shape.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Helga asked, coming into the barn and shutting the door after her to keep out the cold. She herself was warm in a full-length russet wool cape with a red fox lining. “Father asked me to find you. He is perched afore the fire in the great hall wanting to finish the game of chess you started yestereve.”

Vagn did not look at her directly, but he was very much aware of her presence. He was in an odd mood—lustsome, actually, now that his body was regaining its normal vigor—and if Helga knew what was good for her, she would pick up her skirts and run for her life.

“I was talking to my horse,” he said, continuing to run the brush from back to flanks, then over again. “We are planning a journey.” Is that lavender I smell? Uhhhmmm. Come close, Helga, and let me see if it is your clothing or your skin that emits that scent. Just a little closer.

He saw an expression of alarm flash across her face at the news of his impending departure; she immediately masked it. A good sign. She tried to fight her female urgings, but she was tempted by him. Vagn could tell these kinds of things about women. Beware, m’lady, this Viking has been celibate for a year. You play with fire coming into my lair.

“Where are you going?”

Blah, blah, blah! More chit-chat. Ask me why I have turned away from you. Ask me what I hide beneath my braies. “To Vestfold. To my father’s estates.” But first, I have a few things to take care of here. Like you. And those luscious lips that beg for attention. Lick them one more time, m’lady. Go ahead. See how far you can push a Viking on the mend.

She tilted her head to the side, confused. “I thought you had no love for your sire. I thought you mentioned being outlawed.”

He nodded. All right, let’s get this somber discussion out of the way and move on to things of an unsomber nature. “All that is true, but one of the last things Toste and I discussed afore his…afore the battle…was returning home to make peace with my father.”

“So, you will do this in honor of your brother.”

Well, that is like a dose of cold water on my randiness. Why must women ask so many questions? Vagn sighed deeply, no longer in such a lustsome mood. “Nay! I will do it to find my brother. If he is alive, he will make his way there.”

She gasped. “Oh, Vagn, you cannot go on believing that Toste survived. ’Tis impossible. Father said you were the only living Viking he saw that day, and you had been left for dead.”

Do not dash my hopes so easily, m’lady. Do not. “My horse survived,” he insisted stubbornly.

“And because this beast made it through the battle, you believe Toste did, too?” She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Vagn decided to change the course of this way-too-personal discussion. “Do not call Clod a beast. It hurts his pride. See how he hangs his head.” Actually, Clod was munching on some oats at his feet.

She smiled at his teasing and made a little curtsy of apology to his horse. Perhaps to him, as well.

He liked her smile. He liked the mouth that formed the smile. He liked what he could do with that smiling mouth…if she would just stop talking. “It is not just Clod that gives me hope,” he said, somber again. “It’s a feeling I have that Toste is not dead.”

“The headaches?”

“That and much more. Toste and I have this connection, like an invisible thread. Each of us can sense when the other is happy or sad or in trouble.” He shrugged, then laughed. “This morning I got a thickening of a sudden, and all I had been doing was shaving off my face hairs.”