Page 19 of A Tale of Two Vikings

He was a Viking who gave no quarter.

What wench can resist

Being kissed

By a bedsport enthusiast?

Soon the maid will have yearnings she had not ought

To discover the famed Viking S-Spot.

And now instead of wearing a hair shert over her breast

She swoons over one man’s hairy chest.”

Esme was inhaling and exhaling rapidly like a puff fish, too stunned to speak. That was the usual reaction of people upon hearing one of Bolthor’s horrid sagas for the first time.

“Is he implying that I have sinful inclinations toward you?” Lady Esme asked him in a horrified undertone.

Toste grinned. “I hope so.”

“Oaf!” she said, referring to him, not Bolthor.

“He called me a bedsport enthusiast. I’m the one who should be insulted.”

“What did you think of my saga?” Bolthor asked Esme.

“It was fine,” Toste said before Esme could say something offensive, like “Oaf!” Bolthor meant well, and he was a good friend, and Toste would not want to hurt his feelings unnecessarily.

Bolthor smiled widely. “I was not sure about using ‘hairy chest’ instead of ‘manly chest.’ Betimes we poets are faced with these difficult word choices,” Bolthor explained.

“I think ‘hairy’ was an excellent choice,” Esme said, obviously having found her voice. She looked at Toste and muttered, “Hairy oaf!”

But Toste could have kissed her for her sensitivity toward the gentle giant. Actually, he could kiss her for any reason.

“Next methinks I might try ‘The Oldest Virgin in All Britain,’” Bolthor told her. He must have overheard the tail end of their conversation.

Esme just gurgled.

At that moment, Bolthor’s eyes went wide. “What in the name of Odin is that?” His grin had evaporated as his attention was snagged on something off in the distance behind Toste and Esme. At first, Toste thought the verse mood might be coming on him again, but before he could voice a protest at that prospect, Bolthor tossed his staff aside, lunged forward and knocked them both to the ground. In that instant, as he and Esme lay on their backs with Bolthor’s immense weight pressing down on them, they heard a whizzing sound pass over them.

“What was that?” Toste exclaimed, shoving Bolthor off him.

“An arrow,” Bolthor said, already standing and gazing off into the distance where not a soul was visible. “I saw a bowman take aim at us from that stand of trees over there. He is gone now.”

Thinking quickly, Toste picked up Esme by the waist and tossed her unceremoniously into the overhang of the bush. The cat screeched indignantly at the intrusion and darted out the back end of the bush, running away.

“Stay put!” he ordered Esme.

Fortunately, she burrowed farther inside the foliage and said not one word.

Toste and Bolthor rushed off to investigate, their pace slowed by Bolthor’s crippled gait and Toste’s throbbing head. By the time they reached the trees, the villain…or villains…were gone. They walked back slowly, discussing the happenstance. Attacked in a nunnery, of all things!

When they returned to the garden, Toste helped Esme out of the bush. She appeared shaken, but lifted her chin bravely as she whisked evergreen needles off her robe. Her veil was half on, half off. She threw it to the ground, where it nestled next to the discarded peacock feather.

“Dost think it was some Saxon warrior come to finish us off?” Toste asked Bolthor, even as he watched Esme compose herself.

“The arrow was meant for me,” Esme said matter-of-factly.