The Pirate Bride (6 page)

“Never.”
But now that you bring it up, it does have a certain allure. Nay, nay, nay, it does not. I cannot fall into that trap.

“Did you see the one named Lilli? Hair like wet sand, green eyes, bosoms out to here. She has been following me around like a besotted puppy.” Henry sighed and cupped his hands out, far out, in front of his chest to demonstrate.

“Just because a wench wags her tail does not make her a docile pet. A dog is a dog. Beware of bitches. In the end, they all bite.” This jaded view was expressed by Jostein, of course. What had his wife done to turn him so sour? Thork wondered, recalling a time, not so many years ago, before his marriage, when Jostein had been merry of heart.

“I canna think of aught better than taking a woman dog style,” Jamie said.

By the runes! What has one to do with the other?

“What is dog style?” Brokk wanted to know.

Jamie proceeded to explain in detail, including an explanation of how that position allowed a man to strum a woman’s “bud of paradise” whilst tupping away.

Jostein made a snorting sound and muttered something about never having heard of such strumming.

“No wonder your wee wife left you,” Jamie concluded, ducking as Jostein attempted to punch him in his laughing mouth.

“I for one never noticed the one named Lilli. You can have her, but I get first dibs on Solveig, the rudder master,” Finn said. “There is something about her that bespeaks experience in the bed furs.” Thork couldn’t help but notice that Finn had somehow managed to trim his beard and mustache already, probably after bathing in the pond. The rest of them were clean but decidedly scruffy-looking, while Finn managed to look like he’d just prepared for a royal feast.

“You do not want a virgin?” Brokk asked Finn. “Everyone says the best sex is like guiding a sleek longship down a narrow fjord, even if a dam must be breached first.”

Everyone blinked with surprise at the obviously untried boyling.

“Brokk, Brokk, Brokk!” Finn patted his shoulders. “The best bedsport comes with a woman who knows what to do with a . . . a longship.”

“I’m saving myself for Ianthe,” Alrek said.

“Hah!” Finn snorted. “You have as much chance with her as I have with Isobel.”

Alrek and Finn had fallen head over lackwit arses in love with the two women on a recent trip to Miklagard, the golden city known by the Greeks as Byzantium. Neither had been favored with reciprocated feelings from the two women, who now lived in the Saxon lands.

“I have not given up hope,” Alrek said, raising his chin defiantly.

“Hope is the salvation of all men,” Bolthor proclaimed, about to launch into a saga, no doubt.

Luckily, or not so luckily, Jamie continued with the previous conversation. “Personally, Siobhan, the bonnie Irish lass with the lush bottom, is more to my taste. I do like something to grab on to when taking the wild ride.”

Thork had to smile. “Jamie! Forget about her buttocks. Siobhan is older than you by ten years at least. Plus she is in charge of all the outdoors, including the gardens and plough fields and animals, like pigs and cows and chickens. Do you see yourself as a farmer now?”

Jamie pretended to shiver at the prospect.

“There is naught wrong with a few gray hairs. In fact, I wrote an ode one time to my wife’s nether hair, like pepper and salt it is.”

“Thank you for reminding us about that,” Thork said. He would have that image in his head every time he met up with Lady Katherine, especially if Bolthor kept repeating it.

“I do not know why Katherine was so upset,” Bolthor went on. “My nether hairs are all white, and I would not mind if someone wrote an ode about mine.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” Thork said. Now, he would have that image, too.

“You know what I mean, Finn,” Bolthor said.

“Me? Why me? I am a young man yet. Not yet thirty and two,” Finn protested.

Bolthor gave Finn a meaningful stare with his one good eye.

“The time you saw me plucking it was only one gray hair. One. Only. One.” Finn couldn’t be more affronted if Bolthor had accused him of having a needle cock. Well, mayhap that would have been worse.

“Och! If not Siobhan, then Bergdis,” Jamie compromised.

Thork had to laugh. “Bergdis is a rower on the longship. She is mistress of buildings and woodworking. I doubt you know how to even hammer a nail straight. And chopping firewood, now that’s a job I’d like to see you do, day in and day out. By the by, did you notice her shoulders? She could pick you up and slam you down in a trice.”

Jamie shrugged and winked at him. “Dinna fash yourself, laddie. A little pain ne’er hurt a Scotsman, especially when the gain is so sweet.”

“What pain? What gain?” Brokk asked.

“Boyling, you need to learn a few facts of life,” Jostein said to Brokk, but not unkindly, to Thork’s surprise.

“Men in eastern lands often favor women with a little extra fat on the bone,” Henry proclaimed with a slight slur to his words. He must have imbibed too much ale. Already? “A cushion for the ballocks, or some such thing. Plus their bellies make good cushions for sleeping.”

Yea, definitely
drukkinn
.

“Besides, Jamie, did you not notice that Bergdis has a front tooth missing?” Thork asked.

“Weel,” Jamie drawled out with a chuckle, “ ’tis nae so bad a thing if a woman is missing teeth,” Jamie replied with a chuckle. “The better to blow a man’s horn, mind ye.”

“Hah! You have a very slim horn if it can fit in the space of one missing tooth,” he countered.

“Pay no mind to Thork, Jamie. Everyone knows ’tis best for a man to find an ugly woman,” Bolthor said before belching loudly. “They are more appreciative of any male attention they can garner that they will do anything.”

Now, that would make a good saga. One Bolthor best not ever recite in front of his wife.

“Like ugly women being more likely to take a manroot down the throat?” Jamie inquired with a decided mischievous gleam in his Scottish eyes.

“That and other things,” Bolthor said, surprising Thork. Usually, Bolthor was not so inclined to lewd talk, lest it be accidentally so. Like his not realizing it was lewd to talk about his woman’s parts in front of one and all.

Brokk’s jaw had dropped nigh to his navel.

Thork decided the conversation had gone way too far off track. “Take care, all of you. There are consequences to spilling your seed in any handy vessel. Do you want your sons . . . or daughters . . . raised by a
hird
of barmy women?”

“Barmy, for sure,” Jostein interjected. “Do you know they’ve given themselves titles for everything? Each and every one of them is a mistress of something or other.”

Jamie’s eyes lit up. “I like the idea of that. Mistress of kissing. Mistress of fondling. Mistress of the tup. Mistress of the mouth swiving. Mistress of the best sex this side of the Highlands.”

“Lackwit!” Jostein replied. “Not that kind of mistress. They are mistress of weapons. Mistress of the hunt. Mistress of gardening. Mistress of hog swilling. Mistress of the scullery. Dozens and dozens of titles. Every one of these women has a specific job and title, and they each claim to be equal. As if feeding chickens and swordplay require the same measure of talent!”

“Good gods!” Thork said.

“Now that you mention it, Lilli said something about being mistress of indoor stewardship, whatever that means.”

“Just so I do not get seduced by mistress of the privy,” Alrek said as he slapped a hand on his knee with glee at his rare venture into the land of mirth. He missed his knee and spilled ale all over the crotch and thighs of his braies.

Several of the men shivered with distaste at the idea of a privy mistress. Some even held their noses with distaste.

“I still say one of the titles might be mistress of sex, especially mistress of sexual perversions,” Jamie insisted.

Jostein reached over and swatted him on the side of the head. “Dreamer!”

Jamie just grinned, taking no offense.

“Back to the subject of our being studs for their wicked ends.” Thork tried to get back on track. “Will you risk never knowing if you have a child, let alone never seeing him or her?” Thork couldn’t believe that he of the wild reputation was giving lectures on proper behavior.

Alrek, who had been responsible for his younger orphaned brothers and sisters from the time he was a mere twelve years old, clearly valued family. “They will not get my seed.”

“What will you do when one of the wenches has your cock in her hands and her thighs spread wide?” Thork asked.

Alrek’s face bloomed with color under his sun-bronzed skin. “I will think of a winter storm on the high seas with ice crusting the oars and wind whipping at the sails. That should cause any cock to wilt.”

They all laughed.

“I realize that many men fornicate freely without regard for any children they might beget, but my father always taught me to take care that I do not spill my seed in fertile fields, lest I plan on caring for the harvest for many years thereafter.”
Forget lectures. Now I am quoting my father . . . after all these years of trying to put distance betwixt us.

“What makes you think we would be unable to return for any child of ours?” Finn asked Thork distractedly while cleaning under his fingernails with the point of his small knife.

“Do
you
know where we are?” Thork addressed his question first to Finn, then to the rest of the men.

They all shook their heads, as understanding came to them.

“There isn’t a chance in Muspell that they won’t do everything in their power to keep this location secret,” Jostein concluded for them all.

“That is our first goal then. To discover exactly where we are,” Thork directed. “We need a plan. As fighting men, we were taught from the time we got our first swords not to rush into battle. Study the enemy. Their strengths and weaknesses. What we can gain . . . or lose. What weapons we need to breach their fortifications. How to infiltrate their ranks.” Thork knew that planning was not always a possibility, but it would seem they had more than enough time here to take care in how to proceed. “And what are our goals once we pinpoint where we are?”

“Escape, of course,” Alrek said.

“Revenge,” Finn added.

“Plunder,” Henry further added.

“I think we should take them all captive and sell them in the slave marts,” Jostein suggested.

“Wise words and worth considering,” Thork said.

“Why not just lop off all their heads?” This from Bolthor, who had at one time been known as Bolthor the Berserker. The old man claimed to have long lost count of the number of enemy heads he’d lopped off with his far-famed battle-axe, Head Splitter.

“A bit messy,” Finn remarked. As vain and prissy as Finn could be at times, he’d shed more than his share of sword dew in battle, but he preferred clean kills.

“That would be a lot of heads,” Jamie also observed, though not with distaste.

“Eeew!” Brokk said, before catching himself. The youthling, whose skin had paled at the mention of beheading, was not blooded enough in warfare to become inured to the gross aspects of fighting.

“The eight of us might be able to overtake the women,” Jamie said. “Make them the captives.”

Not a bad idea, and they all pondered the possibilities.

“But would they then reveal all their secrets, once they are our thralls?” Thork asked.

“They will if we lop off a few heads,” Bolthor said.

“Women!” Jostein exclaimed. “They are stubborn enough to resist, even with that threat. They appear excessively proud of this bond betwixt them. Besides, if a woman does not want to tell you something, she will not.”

Once again, Thork wondered about the history between Jostein and his wife.

“We are not lopping off any heads,” Thork declared then.
Unless we absolutely have to.

“People in my homeland are adept at various torture methods.” This from Henry, who hadn’t been in his Asian “homeland” ever, as far as Thork knew. “Tickling the bottom of the feet. Water dunking. Hanging face first over a cliff.”

Everyone stared at Henry. Then Jamie laughed. “The only time I am tickling some lassie’s feet is if I am flat on my back and she is bare-arsed naked on all fours facing
my
feet whilst tickling my balls with her tongue.”

They all had to think a moment to see the picture in their fool heads.

“Did you ever really do
that
?” Finn asked Jamie.

“Yea, except for my tickling her feet part,” Jamie replied with a grin. “When a wench is licking your balls, ’tis hard to think of anything, least of all whether she wants her toes diddled.”

Thork shook his head at Jamie. ’Twas hard betimes to know when he spoke the truth or jested. As Vikings, they preferred to believe outrageous claims when it came to bedsport.

“Speaking of licking . . . have you ever heard of self-licking?” Alrek asked. “Boris the Braggart says he can lick his own cock.”

The others hooted with laughter.

“ ’Tis true.” Alrek’s face was high with color at being doubted. “I saw him demonstrate it once at a Yule feast in Holgaland.”

“You must have been
drukkinn
,” Bolthor said.

Alrek ducked his head sheepishly.

But then Henry told them, “I can do it.”

They all turned to stare with incredulity at the Asian Viking.

“Must be because you are so short,” Jostein observed, though there was disbelief in his voice.

“Or my staff is so long.” Henry waggled his eyebrows at Jostein.

“Good gods!” Thork muttered. How had their conversation gone so far astray? Again! Time to get more organized in their planning. “Forget licking. We need the women to get us out of this place. Even if we discern our whereabouts, we cannot row a longship ourselves, and I doubt they would be willing to do the job for us, even under the lash. What we will do with them afterwards can be decided later. First of all, we must be careful and study our surroundings, discover any escape routes. Mayhap we can flag down a ship.”

“But we must be sly in our explorations,” Jostein advised.