Page 84 of A Tale of Two Vikings

Girding herself with resolve, she entered the hut. She brushed snowflakes off her cloak, laid it over a chair and her bundle of food on the floor, then stoked the fire to make sure it would adequately heat the small room. Only then did she turn to look at Toste. The gag was in his mouth, as it always was when he was alone, to prevent him from yelling for help, but his eyes shot blue daggers at her. Somehow the fur pelt had slipped off him, and he lay there as nude as any man could be. She tried not to look below his neck.

No one would go near Toste with a razor to shave his face, not even Lars, Bertha’s bed companion. So his face was covered with bristles. Instead of looking scruffy, he looked dangerous. Which of course he was.

Walking over, she removed the gag from his mouth. “Would you like a drink of water?”

He refused to answer, just continued to glare at her.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Release me.”

“Only if you will agree to stay till I am secure in my place at Evergreen.” Really, the man was as stubborn as a mule. She’d thought for sure he would have acquiesced by now.

“Release me,” he demanded again, refusing to agree to anything.

“I can’t,” she said.

“I’m going to kill you, Esme. You give me no choice. Once I am free, I am going to kill you.”

He said that often, every time she visited him at the hut. One of the things he objected to most was the fact that Bertha or her aged lover came several times a day to put a pan under his buttocks so he could take care of bodily functions. Bertha also bathed him daily, and took great delight in that chore. Esme knew it all must be demeaning for Toste, but what choice did she have?

Seeing that his death threats were getting him nowhere, Toste said, “If I lie here much longer without exercising my body, I will develop bedsores on my arse.”

He was probably correct. Esme had seen Mother Wilfreda treat many such sores on elderly people who were unable to walk about.

“Well, couldn’t you contract and release the various muscles in your body? You know, focus on a particular body part. That should bring blood to the surface.”

His eyes went wide. “Are you suggesting that I flex my arse cheeks?”

“Coarse clod,” she muttered under her breath.

“Better yet, mayhap it is another body part you wish me to flex.”

And while she watched, he showed her which body part he meant by making it flex and then grow, without any touching. Even the birthmark on his inner thigh seemed to move. It was probably a talent that men considered awe-inspiring. But to a woman, it was just yawn-inspiring.

“Coarse clod!” she said again, and this time she didn’t bother to keep her voice low. With a snarl of disgust, she yanked the fur pelt up to his chest…something she should have done when she first entered the hut.

He just laughed.

She unwrapped her bundle and made up a plate of cold slices of roast duck and venison, hard cheese, an apple, a circle of manchet bread still with the hole in the center, and two honey cakes. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

He nodded and she pulled a chair over, next to the bed. She fed him morsel by morsel, alternating with sips of ale from a small jug. While she fed him, she talked, never stopping to see if he would carry on his end of the conversation. He never did.

“The storm is still going strong. I don’t know if Eirik and Tykir and Bolthor have been able to leave Winchester yet. I doubt it. The roads are said to be impassable and covered with a sheet of ice.

“Alinor is teaching me to weave. What pretty cloth she makes from her own specially dyed wools. And Eadyth is showing me how to extract honey from the combs to make different grades of honey. I made these honey cakes myself.

“Methinks I will try to raise bees and sheep at Evergreen when I get back. My mother’s family only worked the land, but this might be another way to make it prosper.

“Alinor and Tykir have the most beautiful little boys. Four of them! And all of them rascals. Like their father, I imagine.

“Sarah and Sigrud have been swooning over you. All they can talk about is your broad shoulders and devilish eyes. Surely even you would not go after a seventeen-year-old at your advanced age, would you? On the other hand, many people would not raise an eyebrow over a fourteen-year difference in ages, I suppose. Ah, I can see that you consider it none of my business.

“Do you still get those pains in your abdomen—the pain that mimicks your brother’s injury? Well, you don’t have to answer. I know you do.

“Sometimes I envy you, Toste.”

For the first time, she got a reaction from the silent brute. His eyes widened with interest, and he tilted his head to the side on the pillow.