Page 21 of The Caged Viking

“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” the bishop pronounced. “You may kiss your new wife, Viking.”

The crowd roared and pounded the trestle tables with their fists and wooden mugs. The king was starting to look bored, which was not a good sign. Only Odin knew what a bored king would want next.

Hauk turned to Kirstin and said, “This is a new custom to me. The wedding kiss. In my land, the groom chases the bride across the courtyard, then swats her on the arse with the flat side of his broadsword, to show who will be master of his home.”

“I know. It’s called the brud-hlaup, or bride-running.”

Why was he not surprised that she would know that? In fact, she started to expound on related matters, “When my father married for the fourth, or was it the fifth time, he—” Blather, blather, blather.

Hauk yanked her into his arms by looping his bound wrists over her head and behind her lower back, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, but before she could utter another word, he laid his lips on hers.

And it was sweet.

Way sweeter than he’d expected.

Way sweeter than he’d ever experienced.

Kisses were a waste of time, in his opinion. A boring prelude to better things. Leastways, that’s what he’d thought in the past, from way back when he’d first tried his charms as a fourteen-year-old youthling on Inga, King Olaf’s chambermaid.

Now…well, now, he knew that a kiss could be a bliss in itself. A simple brush of lips, at first, like a greeting. Hallo, Inga! Nice seeing you again! Wouldst care to tup? But then lips moving of their own volition, shaping until a perfect fit was made. That’s the way, Inga. Move to the left a little. Nay, you’re hitting my nose. Yea. Like that. And there was delving, too, as the tongue sought its natural channel, creating a wet path of what some might call slobber, but was more like what the skalds poetically called “sex dew.” Inga, Inga, Inga! Naughty, naughty, naughty!

But this was not Inga. It was Kirstin. And, best of all, the woman had stopped talking. Another benefit of kissing he’d failed to appreciate until now. But wait, was that a low moan of pleasure emanating from deep in her throat? Thank you, Odin…it was, it was! He felt that moan like an echo all the way across his tongue, down his throat, downward, downward, downward, till it lodged where least expected and let out a wild, silent, vibrating yodel, a long drawn-out kulning.

Truly, this new view of kissing was something Hauk needed to examine in more detail. But not now, and not here, where hundreds of randy men, and dozens of equally randy women, chanted their approval of the spectacle he was creating.

He drew back slightly to stare at his new bride.

She was equally stunned, or aroused, if her glazed blue eyes and parted lips were any indication.

“More! More!” the raucous, laughing crowd demanded.

Hauk wasn’t sure if they wanted more kissing, or more bodily contact, like mayhap an actual consummation taking place right here in front of one and all. Either way, he had no intention of giving the bloody Saxons any more entertainment. He began to raise his hands, but the bare skin of his inner forearms brushed against her arm rings. A hot tingling sensation was his first warning. But it came too late. Instinctively, he widened his arms to avoid contact, but in the process his own arm ring seemed to weld themselves to hers, just above the elbow. Try as hard as he could, the attachment held.

Then everything happened at once. His entire body went hot and tingling. His tongue felt numb, and he could not speak. In his confusion, he felt light-headed and dizzy. He could swear that he began to rise above the crowd, Kirstin still in his embrace. And they were swirling about, like a fast country dance. Or like a tornadic waterspout he’d seen years ago on the Baltic Sea, spiraling like a funnel out of the black clouds during a thunderstorm, except in this case the air was moving them up, not down.

Higher and higher, he and Kirstin went. Faster and faster. Up through the ceiling and roof of the great hall, into the night sky, which seemed bright as day. Even the stars were dancing. Or so it seemed. And the moon was a huge golden ball dripping honey. Strange. Very strange.

That is a lot of honey! he mused, ducking his head to avoid any of the drips.

Perhaps this was his barmy new wife’s introduction to the honeymoon. In some Norse clans, family and friends of the bride and groom gifted them with enough honey mead to last a month. Since Vikings drank a lot of mead, and since it was believed that a month was the measure of time it would take for the moon to revolve around the earth, well, that period of newly wedded bliss came to be called the honeymoon. It was no coincidence that a month was enough time to conceive a child afore the man was free to go off a-Viking again.

And isn’t it ironical that I would have these thoughts whilst twirling up in the sky. Truly, this is the strangest day of my life.

But then they began to drop. Fast. His senses went blank as they landed, he flat on his back on a hard surface with Kirstin atop him. Not the way he’d imagined their wedding night to play out. Well, mayhap her manning the rudder, so to speak, but not quite in this way.

Plus, he was fairly certain it was Kirstin who was screaming, “You idiot! Look what you’ve done!”

Definitely the strangest honeymoon in the history of Vikings, Hauk decided, and wagered that there were more than a few gods up there laughing their arses off.

* * *

There are road trips, and then there are road trips…

Egil stood with Bergliot at the edge of the forest, staring, gape-mouthed, at the whirling dervish that appeared in the sky above them and came crashing down to the ground at their feet. They had been waiting, hoping, that Hauk would be able to find a way to escape the Winchester castle.

Looks like he did!

Bergliot…rather, Bjorn, still in female clothing…exclaimed, “Frigg’s foot! Wish I could do that.”