Page 14 of A Tale of Two Vikings

“I must have that particular cloth,” Saleem whined. “There is an Arab sheik who would give a caliph’s ransom for it. His favorite houri has an overfondness for white silk. Five mancuses for that fabric alone.” It was a generous amount to pay for such a small swath, and they all recognized that fact.

“I will give you six,” Vagn said. I must be mad.

Helga’s mouth dropped open. Causing a woman’s mouth to drop open was always a good thing, in Vagn’s opinion. Worth going mad over, he supposed.

“Are you demented?” Saleem wanted to know.

“Perchance,” Vagn replied with a shrug. Exactly my assessment of my mental condition, if you must know. I am beginning to think I might suffer from Herfjöttr, the battered-soldier condition that leaves grown men walking about in a daze.

“Who are you?”

“Vagn Ivarsson.”

“I thought you were killed at the Battle of Stone Valley.”

Vagn winced. “That was my brother Toste.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am sure.” Reasonably sure.

Saleem shook his head as if to clear it. Then he turned his attention back to Helga, red-faced with frustration. “Seven mancuses, and that is my final offer.”

“Ten,” Vagn piped in. Toste, are you laughing at me up in Valhalla? Are all you dead warriors placing wagers over what wooly-witted thing I will do next?

Helga gasped.

Saleem swore.

Later, after Saleem stormed out of the chamber, carrying only the green wool, Helga shook her head at him and made that tsk-ing sound women love so well. “I am not going to wed with you. So get that idea out of your head.”

He made an exaggerated moue of unconcern. Ten mancuses in coin meant naught to him. He had gambled more in one night of dice or hnefatafl, which made him think of something else: another gamble—one which he had won. “Where is Clod? Oh, good Thor, how could I have forgotten? Where is Clod?”

“Clod?” Helga said as she folded up some of the loose fabrics lying about. “The only Clod I know of is you, you clod.”

“Nay, it is my horse Clod that I refer to. He was with me at the battle. I distinctly recall him standing behind me, neighing frantically, when the sword went through me.” I have become a blithering idiot.

“Are you referring to that sway-backed horse as old as Odin that followed you here from the battlefield?”

“He is alive?” Vagn asked, no longer feeling like a blithering idiot, just a hopeful idiot.

She nodded, bemused at his concern over a decrepit, useless animal.

Vagn couldn’t help himself then. Tears welled in his eyes. He did not know why, but Clod’s escape from death seemed to have some meaning to him. Hope, that’s what it was. If that old warhorse could survive the battle, there was always hope that…well, suffice it to say, there was hope. “Thank you,” he choked out in an emotion-thick voice. Then he did the only thing any red-blooded Viking would do in the circumstances. Especially faced with a woman with the most kiss-some mouth this side of an Arab harem.

He kissed Helga the Homely.

And he kissed her good.

Really good.

Helga’s knees gave way, and she did not even have the excuse of a battle injury. He caught her as she almost swooned at his feet. He smiled against her mouth and kissed her again. There was one good thing Vagn knew how to do, and that was kiss a woman witless. Actually, there was another good thing Vagn could do equally well, and it also made a woman witless.

“What are you doing to me?” Helga asked when he gave her a moment to breathe.

“Convincing you,” he whispered against her mouth.

“To marry you?”