The Pirate Bride (19 page)

“You idiot!” she replied. “I
want
you to abandon me.”

“You are under my shield now, sweetling.”

She told him what he could do with his shield and it was not a pleasant picture. Still, he was smiling as he fell asleep, his big body wrapped around her smaller one. At first, she lay stiff as a pike, but in time she relaxed.

During the night, his hand somehow strayed and lay across her flat belly. And stayed.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another . . .

The storm damage was not so bad. Mostly cleanup of debris, repairing thatch roofs, and chopping deadfall into firewood. Medana conceded, with ill grace, that the men had been a gods’ send in terms of all their help. It would have taken the women alone a sennight to accomplish what they’d done in one day with the men helping.

Fortunately, Sigrun and Salvana and their dog Bear had managed to get through the tunnel in the midst of the storm. The men would help repair the damage on Small Island after the tunnel opened tonight.

The question was: Would the men be taking
Pirate Lady
with them?

The women vastly outnumbered the men, and they could hold them off for a while, but the men were far superior fighters. In the end, the men would do what they wanted to do. Craftiness went only so far. Besides, in the end, it was the right thing to do . . . to release them willingly.
Some pirate I am!

Their fate was in the men’s hands now.

Truth to tell, some of the women were becoming way too accustomed to the men’s hands. Medana had awakened during the night to find Thork’s hand on her belly, and she’d done naught to remove it. There was much to be said about the calloused hand of a Viking man and the wicked pleasure its friction could give a woman. There was also much to be said about the gentle hand of a Viking man placed over a woman’s belly, as if in protection. Was this related to that silly shield business?

Thork was gone from the bed by daylight when Medana had awakened to find the bed furs tucked around her, like a cozy cocoon. She’d tried to avoid him today because, frankly, she was still blistering furious with him for luring her into sex with the promise of them keeping their longship . . . or the inferred promise.

But now he was approaching her at the side of the hunters’ longhouse where she’d been hanging clean clothing on the various bushes. Brokk had helped her for the past few hours to boil them in an enormous laundry kettle over an open fire. There were plenty of limbs and leaves to keep the water hot for another hour or so.

It was tedious work that she normally delegated to the mistress of laundry when down in the village. But she did not set herself so far above others that she would not do menial chores. Besides, her other choice had been to gut an enormous amount of fish that had been caught in nets at the pond entrance to the tunnels. During a storm, fish were often thrust inland, out of their usual sea environment.

Thork caught her still doing laundry around noon, and the first thing out of his fool mouth was “Are you or are you not?”

“What? Angry?”

“Nay, not angry. I already know you are angry. I meant, with child.”

Her face heated with color. “How would I know?”

His face bloomed with color, too. By the looks of him—damp tendrils escaping his hair clubbed off his face, perspiration beading his forehead, damp stains on the underarms of his tunic—he had been working hard, too. “The usual way,” he offered hesitantly.

“Thork! It has been only one day.”

He shifted from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.

She was uncomfortable, too.

“Women sense these things, don’t they?”

“I hardly think they do any sensing after one day.”

“Well . . .” More foot shifting. “When will you get your next monthly flow?”

For the love of Frigg! “I do not know. A sennight or so, I suppose.”

He nodded. “I will have to wait until then.”

“And then what?”

She could tell he wasn’t expecting that question. His brow furrowed with concentration.

“If I am breeding, what will you do?”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I have no idea. Marry you, I guess.”

“Oh really? And would I have any say in that decision?”

“Of course. I mean, would you not want to make your . . . our child legitimate?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Would you expect me to be a docile bride like that young girl in Hedeby? Stay home while you gallivant all over the world, free as a bird whilst I stayed here, or at your estate, just waiting with bated breath for you to return and grace me with your wonderful presence. Wouldst you expect me to give up pirating to become a docile bride?”

Gallivant? What the bloody hell is gallivanting? And docile? She wouldn’t recognize docility if it bit her on the nose
. That’s what he thought, but he told her, “Sarcasm ill suits you, m’lady.”

“I’ll tell you what ill suits me, you bloody idiot. I would not marry you if I were carrying ten of your children.”

Further conversation was forestalled by Alrek rushing forward, and almost landing in the laundry kettle.

“A strange ship has arrived,” he announced as he panted for breath. “The folks aboard have alighted and they are walking about Small Island.”

Thank the gods that Sigrun and Salvana were safe here on Thrudr. Usually the ships that normally stopped for water or to deliver or pick up messages sent only one or two men to shore.

“Is there a flag on the ship?” Thork asked.

Alrek nodded vigorously, still trying to catch his breath.

“The Dragonstead flag,” Alrek finally told them.

“My father has arrived,” Thork concluded.

Medana did not look happy at all about this latest happenstance.

Chapter Eighteen

Fantasy Island, it was not . . . or was it?  . . .

T
hey had arrived on Small Island following a storm that had kept them landlocked in the market town of Kaupang. And now there was no one to be found on the island.

“This is probably another of Thork’s warped attempts at humor. My instincts were correct at the start. We have come on this wild chase for naught.” Tykir had been griping ever since his longship had left the wharves at Dragonstead. More so when they’d had to stay another day in Kaupang to avoid the storm.

“Blather, blather, blather,” was Alinor’s response, although she was disappointed, as well. Of course she was. But, unlike her husband, she didn’t immediately lay the blame on Thork’s shoulders.

She had insisted on coming ashore with Tykir and some of his seamen, along with Starri, Guthrom, and Selik. All they’d discovered was a ramshackle hut that had been damaged by the storm, remnants of a vegetable garden, and evidence that someone had been living on the small island until recently. Obviously, the inhabitants had sought refuge somewhere else until the rain abated. But where? And when would they return?

Further troubling Alinor was the question of how Thork and seven other Viking men could have been living on this small space, along with a bunch of female pirates. They would have been “elbows to arses,” as her husband was wont to say. It was a puzzle, and Alinor did love a good puzzle.

While the seamen who’d come ashore with them were piling fallen limbs and other debris to make a fire, her husband was bent over at the waist, examining some animal scat with a stick. “I think there must be a bear living on this island.”

“It’s probably bird droppings.”

“ ’Twould be one hell of a big bird. Come here, Starri, look at this shit and see what you think,” Tykir called out.

Men! They focus on the oddest things.
“Bears would not be living on an island this small, lackbrains.”

Tykir and Starri shrugged, not convinced.

“I wonder if they might be on that other island,” she remarked to no one in particular. When Tykir glanced her way, she pointed to the steeply pitched, mountainous island some distance away.

“I do not see how. There is no shore to speak of. Climbing to the top would require the skills of a mountain goat.”

“See. You should have let me bring some of my sheep. I told you it would make a good gift.”

“Alinor,” he said on a sigh, as if she were too dense to understand manly things, “you do not give gifts to pirates.” Adding under his breath, “Especially not stinksome walking blankets.”

She rolled her eyes. Tykir was not fond of her sheep, even the far-famed curly-horned ones.

Again, in that condescending voice she hated, he went on, “The Sea Scourge asked for gold, not woolly beasts.”

She bared her teeth at him, and he realized, too late, that he’d gone too far. He pretended to cringe in fright.

“No one mocks my precious lambs and gets away with it.” She wagged a forefinger at him in warning.

He pinched her bottom. “I was just teasing.”

She shook her head as if he was a hopeless case, but then she asked, “What shall we do?”

“Go home.”

“I swear, husband, if you say one more time that we never should have come to begin with, you’ll be swimming the whole way back to Dragonstead.”

He grinned at her. Her husband loved when she got “feisty” with him. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“We will just have to wait until the inhabitants of this island return,” she said.

Tykir raised his eyebrows at her. “Are we going to be staying on the ship or in that broken-down hut?”

“Neither. You are going to set up a campsite for me. You did bring tents, didn’t you?”

“I always have tents on board,” he replied, grumbling again. But then he brightened.

“I know what you are thinking, you scoundrel.”

Her husband of almost thirty years was practically a graybeard, but inside, and down low, he still had the desires of a young man. In fact, he looked particularly handsome today in his black leather braies and rust-colored wool tunic with the amber pendant on a gold chain hanging to the middle of his still wide chest. He’d woven amber beads in the gray-threaded war braids framing his face. His golden eyes crinkled with mischief. He might be more than fifty, but there was still a spark in the old man.

He winked at her. “Remember the time we pitched a tent on that Baltic Island where I was harvesting amber. I swear, Starri was started in your belly that night.”

“I can hear you,” Starri reminded them of his presence nearby.

“Did we make love three or four times?”

“I think I’ll go hurl the contents of my stomach,” Starri said, and walked away.

She smiled. “Four, if you count that thing you do . . . you know.”

They exchanged a knowing glance.

“The Viking S-spot,” they said at the same time.

Immediately, Tykir gave orders to the men, “Go back to the ship and bring the tents. Guthrom and Selik, take care of food supplies and the trunk with our clothing. Starri, check out the inside of the hut and see if it’s habitable.”

“It smells like old woman,” Starri complained.

Alinor turned slowly on her heels to glare at him.

Realizing his mistake, Starri said, “You are not old, Mother.” He had the good sense then to do as he’d been told.

Turning back to Alinor, Tykir said with mock sternness, “You will owe me for this favor, Alinor.”

She put a fingertip to her chin, as if pondering. “There is this thing I heard about involving bedsport. An unusual . . . um, position.”

“What?” he asked, immediately interested.

She whispered in his ear, then stepped back. “Are you shocked?”

“Alinor, Alinor, Alinor, when will you learn? You cannot shock a Viking, especially when it comes to sex.” Then he yelled loud enough to wake the dead, “Where is that bloody tent?”

Time to face the (Viking) music . . .

It was past midnight and the tide was getting low. Thork was preparing to go through the tunnel to meet with his parents for the first time in five years. Nervousness had him pacing back and forth. He didn’t know what to expect.

The fact that they came must mean they planned to rescue him. Not that he needed rescuing, but they didn’t know that. So, yea, he was pleased. Still, he was unsure exactly what reaction there would be.

From their lookout atop the mountain earlier that day, they watched as tents were erected on Small Island, and a campfire built. Good thing Sigrun and Salvana weren’t out there. From all the trunks and barrels brought ashore, you’d think they were planning a long stay.
Medana will have a screaming fit.
In fact, there was an air of festivity below.
Hope they brought some of Aunt Eadyth’s famous mead.
Truly, he should not be surprised. That was his parents. They never did anything in a small way.

It was hard to tell from the distance between the mountaintop and the island exactly who had accompanied his parents, but Thork was fairly certain that he could pick out Starri, Guthrom, and Selik.
Oh joy! A family reunion!

Thork had argued with Medana throughout the day and early evening. They must go out and greet his parents. He knew his mother and father. They would not just retreat. His mother, especially, loved a puzzle, and she would consider Medana’s ransom letter and an empty Small Island a personal challenge to solve.

In the end, Medana, with a woeful resignation, gave her consent. In her mind, all was lost, now that others would know about Thrudr. While Thork would do his best to maintain her secrets, she was correct in saying he could not guarantee what others might do.

To her credit, Medana was going with him through the tunnel. Reluctantly. Along with his seven men (
Bolthor was composing sagas faster than his thick brain could retain them
), unarmed (
yea, Medana was apparently aware that the men had been pilfering weapons one at a time; how else would Bolthor have been able to chop wood?
), and seven of Medana’s women (
fair is fair, she’d contended, a warped pirate logic, Thork supposed
), with weapons
(pirate ladies must keep up their image
). She’d insisted on those equal numbers, and, Thor’s hammer, they really were dressed for war, each one carrying a short sword, battle-axe, and shield. Some, like Gudron, even wore a leather helmet. One of them, Elida, carried a bow and quiver of arrows. Demented, that’s what they were. One sweep of his father’s arm and they would be on their way to Valhalla or Asgard or wherever fallen female warriors went.

Medana, too, was attired like the pirate she was with leather tunic and braies, high boots cross-gartered up to the knees, and a red scarf wrapped around her head and tied in a knot to one side of her neck. Even in the male attire, she appeared beautiful to Thork with those amazing violet eyes and sensuously full lips. And other body parts.

His mother would love her on sight. His father would fall over laughing.

“Why are you smirking?” she asked as movable stairs were being carried over to the almost empty pond for ease of descent and ascent. They would have only two hours before the steep-sided pond started filling again, so no time could be wasted.

“I am not smirking. I was smiling.”

“You are happy to be seeing your parents, then?”

“Of course.”
Actually, I was picturing you lying on a blanket, minus all those garments, with your blonde hair billowing out like skeins of silk, your thighs spread, your breasts arched up—

“But nervous also,” she remarked.

“Huh?”

“Nervous about your parents.” At the questioning tilt of his head, she explained, “You are wearing a path around the pond with your pacing, and you have developed a twitch in your jaw.”

He clenched his jaw tightly. “And you . . . are you nervous, Medana?”

“As a cat on hot coals.”

“My father and his men would not hurt you, unless they were attacked first. Even then, they would avoid physical violence with women. Even pirate women.” He waggled his eyebrows at that last part of his comment.

“Do not make mock of me.”

“I was not. You are the one who named yourself Sea Scourge.”

“I did not! Some miscreant monk who did not want to give up his sack of gold coins is the one who did that. All I did was kick him in the shin and knock him to the ground afore making off with the unholy hoard of treasure.”

He shook his head with amazement. The possible mother of his child off a-pirating and attacking priests! Lady Alinor would probably not be too happy about the priest business, being a Christian and having been raised in a Saxon household. Thork never told people that he was half Saxon because he considered himself all Viking.

But on to other matters. “Do you know if—”

“Do not ask me again,” she warned. “I already told you, at least a dozen times, that I will not know for a sennight or more.”

“I just thought . . . well, do these things not come early betimes?”

She crossed her eyes with frustration, and looked damn adorable when she did. “ ‘These things’ do not come early for me. Now, stop asking.”

He glanced down to her stomach.

“And stop looking at me there.”

He went down the ladder first and waited for Medana at the bottom. And enjoyed watching her descent as the fabric of her braies tautened over her buttocks. Which reminded him that he hadn’t taken her from behind yet, dog style, one of his favorite sexual positions. He wondered if he’d get the chance now.

“You better not be ogling my arse,” she warned.

“Of course not,” he replied, and continued to ogle. Mayhap he would still get an opportunity to try other positions. There must be dozens. Mayhap even hundreds. Nay, he could not think of that. Not now. Not when he was about to face his mother. She would know what he was thinking. Mothers, leastways his mother, could practically read the minds of their naughty sons.
Gods! You would think I am eight years old and not twenty and eight
.

He took her hand, but she pulled it away. “We are not greeting your parents hand in hand.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would imply we are lovers, which we are not.”

“Right,” he agreed.
Although, you must admit, we
were
lovers already, and we might be again, please gods. It is in the hands of the Norns of Fate now. Or my mother’s, if she finds out what I have been up to.

Torches were being carried by some of his men, and a full moon had just emerged from behind a cloud cover. So there was reasonable nighttime visibility, more so when they emerged on the other side where the moon and stars reflected off the water.

As they walked across the narrow landmass connecting the two islands, he could see that everyone was abed for the night in the three tents and on the ground. Torches on tall poles set at intervals gave some additional light. Two guardsmen were up and on duty but they studied the seas, not expecting to see anyone coming from this direction.

“Hail! We come as friends!” Thork shouted out.