Rough and Ready (13 page)

He saw the panic on Hilda's face. "Oh, my gods! What will we do with all these men? How will we feed them? And find sleeping space… and clothing?"

"Don't worry. A hunting party will go out in the morning and get game. And Cage'll catch a pig load of fish."

"I cannot have them inside the keep… I just cannot."

He saw the wild fear in her eyes. Men had been the root of these women's problems. In her mind, the walls of her refuge were beginning to crumble.

"These

men have probably been living outdoors these past few years, anyhow. A few more weeks won't matter. You don't have to have them inside the keep."

She looked at him and back to the scrawny group, the most nonthreatening bunch he'd ever seen. She moaned and looked at him again. "How can I deny them?

These

are my… our people." There were tears in her eyes as she stepped forth. "Good tidings, Hervor. I see you have brought us good men to aid in our cause.

Welcome."

Hervor straightened his body, raising his chin with a dignity he probably hadn't felt in years. "Good tidings, milady," he said in a choked voice. The men behind him, many of them sick and crippled from torture and malnutrition, did likewise.

Hilda walked among them, touching a shoulder here, a hand there, asking soft questions, uncaring that they reeked of long-unbathed bodies and oozing sores.

Some she even recognized with small cries, and they her.

Torolf was so proud of her that he could barely speak.

They do WHAT to increase their virility?…

Hilda heard some women giggling in the scullery as they helped to prepare the largest meal The Sanctuary had seen in the five years since it had been established.

She had just come from the weaving shed, which had been cleared to be used as a hospitium of sorts for the injured men. Still others were in her own bedchamber, which she had gladly given up for their comfort. For the most part, what they needed was good food and rest before they prepared to go forth and unseat Steinolf.

"What are you twittering about?" Hilda asked, coming into the scullery.

"We are talking about bedsport, of course," Inge said, grinning.

"Of course." After five years manless, you would think that the subject of these women's conversation would have changed. 'Twas an ageless subject, though. In truth, that biblical Eve had no doubt been discussing sex when she gathered with her women friends after being sent forth from the Garden of Eden.

"These men… these SEALs… have the most unusual custom when making love."

Dagne

put a hand over her mouth as she tittered.

Hilda cocked her head in question, surprised not just by the subject but that it was sweet Dagne who mentioned it. "Unusual? Methought there was only so much a man could do with that dangly part of his."

"They put these things over their manparts," Dissa explained and burst out laughing.

"Things?"

"Yea, cone-dumbs. They looks like sausage casings," Dissa's sister Dotta said with a snort of laughter.

Well, that is certainly… dumb. "They put sausage casings over their manparts?

Why?"

Several of the women shrugged.

"I know men are vain about their manly staffs, but really, dressing one up—in a sausage casing, of all things—that does press the bounds between sensible and laughable. 'Twould be like putting a tunic on a dog or a gunna on a chicken."

"Methinks it is to increase their virility," Inge said, and the others nodded.

"'Tis unbelievable! The things a man will do in the name of his prowess!"

"I knew a man once who used to slather lard on his cock so it would glisten,"

Rakel said. "And another who claimed eating onions increased a man's virility.

Little did he know that he reeked so bad, it mattered not a whit how large his lance was."

"There was a Viking man my sister knew who combed and trimmed his man hairs,"

Elise told them.

Several jaws dropped at that news, followed by more giggles.

"I have noticed that men are sensitive about the size of it." Inge rolled her eyes for emphasis. "Women worry about clean bed linens, lice in the hair, whether there will be enough boar for the morrow, while men worry about how impressed their bedmates will be when they pull it out of their braies."

"And does it—this sausage casing—increase virility?" Hilda asked.

They all started giggling again, which presumably meant that it did. Hilda wanted to ask if Torolf had lain with any of them, but she could not. They already thought she had opened her legs for the lout. Why else would he have been in her bed furs?

"Dost your man not use the cone-dumbs?"

"He is not my man."

" 'Tis the oddest thing," Astrid began, speaking with the slight lisp caused by her imperfect tongue. "That evil thing that Steinolf's men made me do—putting their horrid manparts in my mouth—well, I did not know that normal men did the same thing. Cunning-ling-us, they call it." Her young face flamed with embarrassment, as several of the others nodded.

Hilda frowned her confusion. "I do not understand. Men can suck on their own man parts?"

The women burst out laughing, even Frida who was stirring a sweet-smelling custard of eggs, goat milk, honey, and dried bilberries over the fire.

"Believe

me, they would if they could."

"Noooo! I meant with women… men using their mouth on women's female parts."

Astrid's face flushed with embarrassment at Hilda's misunderstanding.

Hilda's face bloomed with heat, too. "I have ne'er heard of such, and I have been wed three times."

"Mayhap your husbands did not care about your pleasure in the bedsport," Inge remarked, not unkindly. Inge had been with Hilda a long time and knew of the sad state of her various marriages.

"Hilda!" Speaking of the devil! There came Torolf into the kitchen, calling her name. "Hilda! I need to talk to you about…" His words trailed off as he noticed all the women gawking at him. "What? What did I do now?"

Laughter erupted all around him, even from Hilda.

After that, she and Torolf helped the women carry tray after tray of food into the hall, where Dagne was already playing her lute. She was being accompanied on the flute by a young man who had arrived that day. Everywhere people, including some of the recent arrivals, were talking and smiling, as if none of the horrors of the past five years had taken place. If the mead kept flowing as it was now, they would soon ran out of a supply that would normally last them through the winter. And there were always lines at the privy, which was not intended for such a large number of mead-drinking people.

"What did you need to discuss with me?" she asked after they set the trays down.

"Let's walk back here," he suggested, pointing to one of the storerooms behind the high table. "More privacy."

She followed him, both of them carrying torches, which they'd picked from the wall. She watched as he examined the various wares on the shelves. Of a sudden, she noticed the sparkle of something on the front of his blue braies, reflected from the torch in his hands.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing.

He looked down, then up at her with surprise. "Uh, my genitals."

"Genny-tails?"

"My cock."

"Dolt! I meant that shiny thing. What manner of country do you come from that you wear an ornament against your belly?"

"Oh, that! It's a zipper… a type of fastening used in my, uh, country… and this here is a button." He demonstrated.

She gasped with wonder. "Let me." Kneeling, she proceeded to open and close the button, then run the zipper up and down and up and down. She leaned in very close to study the workings.

"Whoa, Hildy. That will be enough of that. Unless you've developed this sudden attraction to me."

"What?" she said, glancing up at him, then at the zipper again. Only then did she notice the bulge behind the zipper, which had not been there before.

Red-faced, she stood.

"Maybe our talking in private isn't such a good idea," he said and led her out of the storage room and back to the high table.

While he ate, Torolf grew serious. "You need to understand where I come from."

"You have told me afore. Ah-mare-eek-ah."

"Yeah, but I've also told you that America is a thousand and more years in the future. Really. I know you think I'm the world's biggest clown, but this is no joke. Really." He put up a hand to halt her when she was about to voice an opinion. "Let me get it all out. You have heard of Leif Eriksson, haven't you?

Well, he discovered a country he called Vinland that eventually would be called America… beyond Iceland and Greenland. When my father took his longship there with me and eight of my brothers and sisters, it was the year 1000. Somehow, in the middle of some storm or weird event out on the seas, we ended up in Hollywood, a city in America, and it was the year 2003."

Hilda put her hand on his arm. "I believe you may have landed in some other land, like the old legends, but the future? Nay, it has to be impossible."

"I thought so, too. But let me tell you what it's like there. They have cars, which people drive down roads… horseless carriages is the only way to describe them. Then there are airplanes, which transport people in the skies.

Electricity

that provides instant lighting and heat in homes. Stoves and microwaves that cook food without flames. Ships and boats that require no rowers to move.

Telephones that allow a person to talk to someone in another land. Hot and cold running water inside the house. And that's just a few modern inventions."

With each of Torolf's revelations, Hilda shook her head. She could see that he believed all that he said, and who was she to say him nay? "Mayhap it is a land of magic, and not the future after all."

"No. It's the future, all right."

"And people can travel back and forth in time on a whim."

"As far as I know, my family members are the only ones who've time-traveled into the future, and I'm the only one who came back. For sure, this is the first time a group of men have traveled back in time. Maybe there are others. Who knows?"

"How do you time-travel?"

"Each person has been different. Some have been involved in shipwrecks and thought they died. Uncle Jorund encountered a whale with a sense of humor.

Madrene was caught in a strange lightning storm. In all cases, though, one second the person was in one time and then in another."

" Tis hard for me to credit what you say, but I accept that you believe it to be so, that you are not teasing me this time."

"My men don't believe it either."

"And still they would agree to fight Steinolf in this make-believe world."

"SEALs are a brotherhood of sorts. They do it for me. Besides, there are terrorists in any time, Hilda. Ones as bad or worse than Steinolf, believe it or not. For example, Hitler was… well, suffice it to say that evil men never die out."

"I know Steinolf did great harm to your family, but why risk danger when your family has found safe haven and prosperity elsewhere? I live here in the Norselands, so Steinolf's reign of terror continues to be a threat. But you…

?"

He shrugged. "Someone has to stop him."

"Why is it important to you that I accept your story?"

"Because I want you to know why I must leave here eventually. Norstead is my heritage, but it isn't relevant to me anymore. I've made a new life."

She nodded, feeling oddly hurt that he could put aside so easily this time and people… her. "So, you want me to understand that you come from the future and you are not going to stay behind once Steinolf is dead."

"Bingo!"

"I told you afore, and I will repeat it again: What makes you think I would want you to stay?"

"C'mon, Hildy, be honest. You and I have so much chemistry going on between us we practically make sparks."

"Huh?"

"Sexual attraction."

She gasped. "You think I want you as a bed partner? Oh, you are by far the most arrogant man I have ever met."

The look he gave her called her liar, but what he said was, "Okay, let's say it's one-sided then. I want you so bad my teeth hurt, and my toes curl just looking at you."

"Why do you say such things to me?"

"On the chance you might want to fool around a little, I guess." He winked at her.

That wink went right down to her toes which, surprisingly, felt as if they'd curled. And the way he was studying her body so intently, well… "You are thinking to cunning-tingle me, are you not? Well, forget that notion right now."

He repeated the word several times in confusion, "Cunning-tingle, cunning-tingle, cunning-tingle? Oh, my God! You mean cunnilingus." He pronounced it as kunna-ling-us. "Where did you hear that word?"

Her face was no doubt bright red.

"My guys have been busy beavers."

"Let us change the subject."

"Does that mean we're not going to hit the sack together?"

"Not till our agreement night."

"Even if I can make you tingle?"

"Dost think I want to tingle, you idiot?"

"There's a lot to be said for tingling," he said with a laugh. "About that deal, Hildy, I was just kidding."

"Make up your mind, you loathsome lout. Either you want me or you do not."

"I want you, but I don't want you if you don't want me."

"Oh, that makes as much sense as… as cunning-tingles."

He grinned. "I could show you how much sense it makes… and tingles."

"I could show you how it feels to have a horn of mead dumped over your head."

"You know, Hildy, I just discovered something. You and I bickering together has become a sort of foreplay with us. Turns me on. How about you?"

She was about to tell him what she thought of that notion but held her tongue lest he think she was engaging in foresport with him. Besides, her nipples had hardened into aching buds. It was a sad state of affairs when a lady could no longer argue for fear of appearing wanton. And the way he continued to grin, he knew it, too.

Well, two could play at this game. She knew how to shut the lout up. Yea, she did.