Page 10 of Down and Dirty

Or mayhap this was Muspell. It was certainly hot enough. But, nay, Britta did not think she had done anything so bad in her lifetime to merit those eternal fires.

Still, I must be in bad odor with the gods. Naught goes right with me anymore.

When Britta emerged from the haze she found herself in, it was not her head that throbbed but her backside. She wasn’t impaled on the sharp rocks but sitting in a flat, sandy arena.

A man wearing short, thigh-exposing braies and a short-sleeved shert leaned over her, his clean-shaven face florid with anger. To her shock, she realized that she was dressed in a similar fashion, right down to the heavy skin boots. Into her ear, the man shouted, “Lady, get yer butt in gear and climb back up that cargo net. NOW!” He had a ruddy complexion, which got redder, a clear sign of his anger.

Best he be careful. She knew a man, Snorri the Red, who’d had a similar ruddiness. One day in the midst of one of his yelling fits, he just dropped over, dead as a lutefisk.

“Move it, move it, move it!” the man continued to scream.

“What?” She glanced upward and saw not the cliff face but a high wall made of rope. And women, in similar attire, were climbing upward. Could they be Valkyries? Nay. None of them looked goddesslike in beauty. And, truth to tell, if they were all virgins, she would bite her best sword. Not in that scant attire.

One of them fell down, dusted herself off, and immediately started over. Some men, blowing metal whistles, smirked as they stared at the women’s fabric-strained buttocks sticking out like obscene boulders above them.

“You heard me, birdbrain. And you know the correct response. Yes, Master Chief Uxley, sir. Say it with the proper respect.”

Birdbrain? Is he calling me birdbrain? “What did you say?” Britta was about to clout the insulting man aside his head, which had been shaved nigh bald, but then she reminded herself that she was in some strange place. Mayhap she should play along till she got her bearings.

“Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Drop, sister, and give me ten,” the man hollered, spittle pooling at the corners of his mouth, as he jabbed her in the chest with a forefinger.

“What?” she said again. What has got the miscreant’s bald head in a blaze?

“You heard me. Push ’em up, sweetie.” He said “sweetie” as if it were a slur and pointed to a woman behind her who was raising and lowering her body, which was level with the ground, but never quite touching it. She assumed this was what he wanted her to do when he mentioned “pushing-up.”

“Yes, Chieftain, sir,” she said, dropping down to the sand. But what she thought was, Go swive a goat, Chieftain, sir.

Anger flared in his eyes. “Master chief. Not chieftain. Now give me thirty for insubordination.”

I would like to give you something, you witless cur, but it has naught to do with pushing-ups. Gritting her teeth, Britta decided that compliance was the wisest course of action till she determined where she was.

Thus it was that she found herself raising and lowering her body like a lackwit, along with a half dozen other women. If this was meant to be punishment, she had news for the man with the flaming face. Flogging was punishment. Kneeling on a stone floor for a day was punishment. Eating gammelost was punishment. Being imprisoned in a nunnery was punishment. Raising and lowering the body in sand was not punishment.

The whole time she and the other women did the pushing-ups, the chieftain kept goading them. “Are you sure you don’t wanna ring out? Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a quitter. It’s only your first day. You gotta have a fire in the gut to succeed here, ladies. I don’t see a spark in a blasted one of you.”

One woman muttered, “I got fire,” and the rest echoed her refrain. Britta did, too, figuring it must mean something significant.

“Do you really wanna put yourselves through this pain? Wouldn’t you like a nice manicure about now?” the miscreant leader continued.

“For a certainty, it would be nice to have a man to cure me.”

The chieftain’s face got ruddier, his eyes bulging.

That was her cue to remain silent, she suspected. Since none of the other women were quitting, she followed suit. When in doubt, just follow your instincts; that had always been her philosophy. When she completed the exercise, which was more difficult than it appeared, no doubt due to her recent bout of mead madness, he ordered her once again to climb the rope wall.

She started to climb, then turned back to stare down at the chieftain. “Dare to look at my arse, you bloody lecher, and you will find your face in the sand when I come back down.”

His sputtering and the other men’s laughter could be heard as she climbed up the rope netting, not an easy task, since it swayed and moved to and fro with the climbers. It would have been easier if she were barefooted. Leastways, she could grip the ropes with her toes. This way, her skin boots could get no purchase. But anger fueled her, and she soon reached the top, which she straddled, as best she could, panting for breath. She had not realized how high it was… more than two floors of a fortress castle. She tried her best not to look downward.

Glancing around, Britta realized that from this vantage point she had a bird’s-eye view of a vast region. She should have recognized the scent of salt water in the air, but still she was surprised to see the blue ocean on one side with extremely large metal ships not so far away. Not a low-riding wood dragon ship in sight. Was it a harbor of some kind? If so, where was the market town that usually catered to the incoming and outgoing traders on longboats and knarrs?

There were people running on the beach, both singly and in groups. Was someone chasing them?

On the other side of the arena where Britta sat, high up, there were many buildings, but none resembled the timber-sided keeps she was accustomed to or the rare stone castles that the Normans favored. Nor were there farmsteads and grazing animals. Not even the wattle and daub cotters’ huts. These buildings were rather ugly, although they did hold precious glass windows.

But wait. In the distance she saw a white castle with a red roof. How odd! Why would anyone want a white dwelling? It must get dirty. She figured the king must live there, since only a king would have staff enough to keep the building clean.

And the people… Thor’s toenails, there were hundreds of them walking about, most of them in uniforms of brown or white, even women. She also saw what appeared to be horseless carriages traveling hither and yon, but mayhap she was mistaken about that. She must be.