Page 6 of A Tale of Two Vikings

But that was neither here nor there. More important for the moment was the blond-haired Norseman who lay blessedly unconscious before them…naked as a newborn babe. Nay, that was not an accurate description. This man was no child. If he were, they wouldn’t be ogling him so. He had no apparent injuries other than a cracked skull, but they’d had to check to make sure. Mother Wilfreda had performed her healing ablutions on the man and left momentarily to get her chest of herbs.

“Well!” added Sister Mary Rose, a worldly nun who prided herself on being sharp as a sword. She used to sell fake relics on the church steps of the Pope’s own monastery in Rome and still traded in the toenails of baby Jesus or Virgin Mary eyelashes on occasion when the nunnery floundered in dire straits…which was often. “I have seen many a man in my time, and I daresay this one is surely the fairest of them all. And well-endowed, for a certainty.”

Esme had no means of comparison other than her five brothers, who were naught to brag about, but she agreed wholeheartedly. That dangly manpart appeared large as far as those things went.

All six of the nuns in the small chamber kept staring at said manpart, except Sister Hildegard, who harbored an ungodly fear of Vikings. She was saying her beads and muttering something about heathen rapers and pillagers.

“I think it moved,” observed honey-scented Sister Ursula. She was the resident beekeeper, who supplied the honey for mead and the wax for church candles. Sister Ursula was slightly dim-sighted, and she squinted at the man’s staff. The rest of them could see perfectly well, but they all leaned forward to get a better view anyway. Esme detected no movement, despite a careful scrutiny.

“Whatever you do, don’t touch it,” Sister Stefana advised.

As if any of them had been contemplating such a loathsome idea!

“I have heard that it bursts forth into huge proportions upon being touched,” Sister Hildegard remarked. “With Vikings, it is a call to rape and pillage.”

They all looked at Sister Hildegard, wondering if she knew what she spoke of. Her hatred of all things Viking colored everything she said. But ’twas best to take no chances…not that any of them contemplated touching such an ugly, wormlike appendage.

It was a wonder the Norseman hadn’t died on the battlefield, so severe was his head wound. It was an even greater wonder that he’d survived their clumsy efforts to cart him and another of his comrades back to the abbey on rutted roads. The greatest wonder of all would be if he managed to outlive the fever that racked his body. A fine, fine body, by the by, from beautifully sculpted facial features, including a cleft chin and a full, sensual mouth, to wide shoulders and narrow waist and hips down to narrow, high-arched feet…except for the repulsive manpart, of course, which was in no way fine, to Esme’s way of thinking. There was an intriguing clover-shaped birthmark on his inner thigh which drew her attention, too.

Mother Wilfreda clapped her hands sharply as she reentered the chamber and immediately threw a linen sheet over the naked body. Then she forced some herb-laden posset through the man’s parched lips. When she finished, she turned on the lot of them. “Sisters! Have you naught better to do than stand about gaping at the man? Sister Margaret and Sister Ursula, go down the hall and help Father Alaric with the other Viking we rescued. The one-eyed giant had to be tied to his pallet to keep him from tossing off the hot poultices, and what a job that was. Mary be blessed, the man must weigh as much as a warhorse. Lady Esme, you stay here and watch over the soldier. If he should awaken, or worsen, call for me at once. The rest of you, come with me to the chapel. We will pray for the souls of these two men. The Good Lord placed them in our midst for a reason.”

After that, Esme sat vigil over the handsome Viking for an hour and more, wondering why the Good Lord would send a heathen Viking to a ragtag, mostly half-brained congregation of nuns.

What’s a Viking to do when a medieval lady says, “Eat me”?…

Toste fought desperately to emerge from the ocean of unconsciousness that weighed him down. He felt as if he were drowning in pain…mostly in his head, but in his side as well. How could the cool ocean waters turn his skin so blisteringly hot?

His heavy eyelids fluttered half open, and he saw a small, sparsely decorated chamber…not the battlefield. A cozy fire burned in the hearth, and the smell of beeswax candles wafted in the air, but he saw no items of luxury. Hmmm. Had he died? Could this meager dwelling be the much-lauded golden hall of Asgard? Nay, he must have survived his injury and been moved to some other site. With great difficulty, he turned his head to the side and noticed a woman sitting on a low stool to the right of his pallet, eyes downcast as she studied some kind of beads in her lap. She was beautiful…nay, beyond beautiful…with ebony silk hair held off her face by a black veil. Her facial features were perfect. She had a straight nose, not too big, not too small, with a hint of an upward tilt. Her skin was clear and creamy, like porcelain he’d seen once in the eastern market towns. Her lips were rosebud pink…full and kiss-some.

What a thought to be having when I’m half-dead! A randy corpse. Ha ha ha! Holy Thor, my brain is splintering apart and I make jokes with myself.

He must have made a grunting sound, for she glanced up, her grayish-blue eyes wide with concern. “You’re awake,” she stated.

Well, hardly.

“I should go get Mother Superior.”

He put up a halting hand. “Wait,” he squeaked.

All things came together in Toste’s mind then, as he noticed her form, shapeless in a black robe that matched her black veil. She must be a nun, and those black crows he’d thought he dreamed back on the battlefield—they must have been nuns, too. Oddly, he felt a stab of regret that this beautiful woman had chosen the religious life…and that he was not dead.

He tried several times to speak again—he had so many questions—but he could not get the words to form in his confused brain. Finally he gasped out, “Your name?”

“Esme,” she whispered.

“Eat me?” he repeated. ’Twas not the first time a woman had asked that of him, but this woman was a nun, for the love of Frigg! Ah, well, he supposed even nuns had carnal appetites. Mayhap especially so, if his experience with the celibate life was any indication. “Mayhap later,” he offered graciously. At the moment, he doubted whether he could lift his head, let alone his tongue.

“Huh?” She gawked at him for several long moments before understanding dawned. “Oh, you foul man! Why did we even bother to rescue you?” She looked as if she might punch him, if he weren’t already incapacitated.

Rescue? They rescued me? Hmmm. I wonder…could it be possible…oh, please, Odin or God, I care not which it is…please let it be possible… “Sister?” he inquired cautiously of the nun who was now wringing her hands with distress, alternately staring at him and the open doorway, probably contemplating escape.

“You may call me Lady…Lady Esme,” she rebuked him haughtily.

Aaah, so that was the reason for her ill-temper. He had misheard her name. He tried to smile, but it was beyond the muscles of his face, which were attached to a scalp that felt as if it were torn in half, which it probably was. Vagn would get a good laugh over his thinking “Eat me” when she’d said “Esme.”

And that thought brought him up short.

“M’lady, did the good nuns of this convent rescue more than one Viking this day?”