Page 40 of A Tale of Two Vikings

Esme tilted her head, confused. “And where will I be in this religious troop?”

“On the floor of the wagon, under our feet, covered by a large lap robe.”

“Whaaaat?”

“Come see. It could work.” He walked her over to the large open wagon. The bench seat had been lowered so that Toste and Bolthor’s height would not be so apparent, and a cloth sack of oats sat in the middle—Sister Margaret’s perch, Esme presumed.

Esme peered into the seating area and shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t see how I could fit under the bench, or how I could stay in that position for an extensive length of time.”

“We’ll stop often, and, besides, you won’t be on the floor precisely.” He grinned mischievously as he spoke.

“Enough foolishness, Toste. My father means to kill you and me and possibly all of us. I will do anything to make this work.”

“Good. Do not stand in a place of danger and wait for miracles, that is my philosophy,” he said, slapping her on the back with far too much enthusiasm. And she soon learned why.

As they drove out of the abbey courtyard, Esme knelt on the floor of the wagon, facing Toste, between his spread legs under his robe, with her face resting on his lap. It was the most humiliating day of her life.

But worse was yet to come.

Chapter Six

Beware of women with plans…

It was probably the worst plan Helga had ever concocted.

Or the most clever.

Either way, Helga would have to scrap every inhibition she’d ever held, scrap her morals, scrap her pride and probably scrap her intelligence, or what she had left of it. But it would be worth it, wouldn’t it, if the end result was a child…a precious little being to satisfy her father’s dream of a grandchild?

Oh, she wasn’t in any way contemplating marriage, as her father kept insisting and Vagn kept pretending he might accept. Hah! As if she would ever wed under the best of circumstances, giving up her hard-earned independence, and certainly never to a man who might be talked into accepting her. She was better than that.

All she needed was a man to bed her once and plant his seed in her, then ride off into the horizon. It sounded simple to her. Wasn’t that what every man wanted anyway? Swive a woman to his heart’s content, with no obligations?

And what better man than Vagn, who, truth to tell, knew how to kiss a woman boneless. If he could turn her breathless with his mouth parts—lips, tongue, teeth—what might he be able to do with his other part? Helga knew instinctively that making love with that rogue would not be a hardship.

But in order to accomplish her plan, Helga suspected that she would have to make the first move…be the seductress. Mother of Thor! How was she going to seduce a born seducer, without being too apparent? Of course she could wait for him to continue making advances toward her, at his convenience, but then he would feel guilty when she became pregnant, and he would feel obligated to marry her, or else her father would force him to wed her with a sword at his neck…none of which she wanted. It was essential that she be the instigator, the one to control the outcome.

First steps first. She needed help in becoming an enticing siren. Helga the Homely becomes Helga the Temptress? Yeech! The thought boggles even my mind. And what better person to give her advice than Rona the Nimble-Fingered, so-called because of her embroidery skills, but she was also known as Rona Roundheels, for obvious reasons.

Helga approached Rona in the downstairs solar where all the weaving and embroidering took place now that the weaving shed had become too cold. There were a dozen women and girls working, but luckily Rona sat off to the side under a wide bladder window which let in some light.

“Rona, I need your advice,” Helga said right off.

“Oh?” Rona arched her brows in question, even as she continued working on the varicolored threads which embodied the peacock-feather border of a jade-green man’s cloak. Her work was excellent—the best of all Helga’s seamstresses. “About that new cloth you brought back from the Norse lands? I already told you it is not the usual quality…too coarsely woven. The sheep that produced that wool must have been starvelings.”

Helga shook her head. “Nay, ’tis not cloth I need advice on. ’Tis a personal matter.”

Rona stilled her needle and gazed at Helga directly, no doubt noticing her flushed cheeks and the way she twisted the end of her chain-link belt back and forth between her nervous fingers.

“I need advice on how to seduce a man to my bed furs.” No hemming and hawing for Helga. Get right to the point.

Rona smiled. “’Tis my experience that all a woman has to do is blink at a man and he is ready and willing.”

“Mayhap for you. That hasn’t been my experience.” Perchance it was Helga’s standoffish demeanor, or her Helga the Homely name-fame, or a mere unattractiveness to the opposite sex, but in all her twenty-eight years she couldn’t recall any man actively pursuing her…except Vagn, and he just teased her. Rona, on the other hand, at twenty and two, had been attracting men like bees to a flower for the past ten years, and all she’d had to do was look pretty or wag her petals a bit. But it wasn’t just her dark exotic beauty—Rona came from the Eastlands, born of an Arab father and an Irish slave mother. Rona carried an aura of sensuality about her, like an erotic cloud.

“Is there one man in particular you want to attract?” Rona asked. “Never mind. ’Tis the blond god from the battlefield, is it not?”

Helga nodded reluctantly.