Page 56 of A Tale of Two Vikings

“He still talks to his brother on occasion,” Esme disclosed.

Is she reading my mind now? May the gods forbid! Mayhap I should think something particularly lascivious and see if she blushes. Or mayhap I should just go take a nap for ten or twenty hours and try to get my mind in order. In any case, forget about the forgiving Esme business. Why did women always have to blather everything?

“Really?” Tykir asked. “And does he talk back?”

You bet.

“Sometimes,” Esme answered for him with a twinkle in her blue eyes. Obviously, she was getting back at him for past misdeeds, like making her kiss his manpart for hours on end…well, practically kiss it.

Now, there is a fantasy to play out in my mind. Forget about Vagn and Valkyries. Forget about blood-gushing wounds. How about Esme kissing my manpart? But not in a cart. Nay, this should be on a bed with me naked, arms stacked behind my neck and he…well, she could be naked, or…wait, wait, wait…she could be wearing her nun habit, and—

“Why are you smiling?” Esme wanted to know.

You do not want to know, my lady. To the others, he said, “It’s freakish, I know, this talking with Vagn, but I still see him in my head and hear him talking, like I used to do when he was alive. And I share his physical pains, too.”

“And his thickenings,” Esme offered impudently, to everyone’s shock and delight…though not his—delight, that is.

You are getting as bold as a Viking, my Saxon lady. Too much bad company. I could think of a better use for that tongue of yours.

“Thickening is their word—Toste’s and Vagn’s—for—”

“Esme!” he exclaimed. “They know what a thickening is.”

“Oh,” she said and blushed prettily.

“Mayhap you would like to elaborate on this,” Eirik advised.

“Huh?”

“The mental thickening business,” Eirik reminded him.

“Huh?” I am beginning to sound like a blithering idiot. “Dost really want me to explain that?”

“Mayhap later,” Eadyth suggested, “when young daughters are not about.”

“Oh, Mother!” Larise and Emma said at the same time.

Much laughter followed. Then Bolthor asked him, “Wouldst mind if I tell a saga about you and Vagn?” Bolthor never asked for permission, and everyone knew that. It was a telling moment that he asked now, and Toste did not know what to say. He truly wanted to put discussion of his brother behind him, but he did not want to hurt his good friend, either. Finally he nodded with a deep sigh.

“Hear one and all, this is the death-poem, ‘Ode to Twin Brothers, May Their Ties Last Through Eternity.’”

“Very good title,” Alinor said. Alinor always did have a big mouth and little sense where Bolthor was concerned.

“Methinks the gods were smiling

the day they sent two babes squalling

from one womb, one mother, one birthing.

Some said they were really one person,

two sides of the same coin.

So how does one survive

when oneself is no longer alive?

Some say the one left behind