Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 04] (2 page)

Madrene was still rambling on in her irritating, I-am-better-than-thou voice. He inhaled and exhaled deeply for strength, knowing that ignoring his shrew of a sister was not going to make her disappear. Ragnor lifted his head from the tabletop where he had been pressing his forehead and sat up as straight as he could under the influence of the alehead madness. Very carefully he turned his heavy head to glare at Madrene. She sat beside him on the dais of his great hall at Norstead, her efficient fingers working thread through a handheld distaff and spindle. Brooches adorned each of the straps on her long, open-sided apron. A ring of keys hung from one of the pins, marking her authority. A troll-warrior in an
apron! Well, not really a troll. Madrene was pleasing to the eye in some ways, he supposed, with her blond hair and shapely figure … till she opened her mouth.

The only things more active than her tongue were her hands. Never let it be said that Madrene succumbed to an idle moment in her over-efficient life. She’d probably already counted his bed linens, inspected his kitchens and storerooms, not to mention the cess pits. Each sweep of the rough yarn through her fingers was like the sound of fingernails scratching across a rusty shield.

The fat cat draped across her shoulders like a fur mantle irritated him, as well. Black it was, though ill-named Rose. The furry monster had shifty gray eyes that regarded him with distaste as it hissed. Ragnor was the lackwit who had given Madrene the mangy gift when he’d returned from the eastern lands two years ago. The animal used every opportunity to annoy him—scratching his arms, pissing on his boots, once even landing on his male parts as he slept.

From the light seeping through the bladder windows, he realized it was morn and he still sat at the high table of the dais of his great hall. House carls and thralls bustled about on their daily chores. He must have sat here through the night … or was it two nights? With a grimace of distaste over the fuzziness of his tongue, he declared, “Vikings … do … not … wallow.”

“Hah! Vikings wallow better than any half-brained men I’ve ever met.”

“Are you saying that I am a half-brain?”

The cat made a sound he could swear was “Yes!”

He decided in that instant to buy Madrene a dog. A big dog. One that disliked cats.

Madrene knew as well as he that intelligence ran especially high in his brain. He spoke numerous languages. Numbers and words stuck in his mind on first hearing them. Sagas, once heard, imbedded themselves in his memory. He could survey the goods in a laden ship and within seconds precisely calculate their market value.

But he supposed that having intelligence didn’t translate into acting intelligently, leastways in Madrene’s assessment of him.

Holy Thor! My head is pounding. I need a horn of mead … or a death-blow to the half of my brain still alive and throbbing … or a good knock that would teach me the sense never to drink again or engage my sister in conversation.
Further elaborating on her charge of his being half-brained, he said, “I am smarter than the average Norseman.”
But not smart enough to shut my teeth.

“Not when it comes to drinking.” She stopped her infernal spinning and stared at him for a long moment. The cat jumped off her shoulders, which was a feat in itself, considering how fat it was, and went off to annoy someone else, or catch some of the mice that abounded in the dirty rushes. “When did you get back?”

“A sennight ago.”

“A sennight?” she exclaimed. “And you have not come to see me?”

Madrene ran the family farmstead. It bordered the royal fortress—his home—though it was many hides distant, two hours by horse. The farmstead was a prosperous estate, but nothing compared to his home—the vast lands and buildings that once belonged to his grandsire, Eric Trygvasson. He loved this place, Norstead, especially the timber castle built
in the motte-and-bailey pattern with its highly carved eaves and beams, its great hall which could easily seat two hundred of his hird of soldiers, six huge center hearths, and hundreds of hectares of mountainous land dotted with fjords leading down to the sea. Outside the fortress castle were the smithy, armorer’s shed, stables, barns, kitchens, a brewery, a bakehouse, storerooms, and massive exercise fields for his soldiers … all enclosed within a wooden palisade. Yea, he loved Norstead, but apparently not enough. Why else would he stay away so much?

As for Madrene, he should have visited her. She was all the family he had left. But whenever he saw her, when he went to the farmstead, he remembered too much. That was why he kept his distance … that, and her nagging. Still, he saw the hurt in her blue eyes … the same pale blue as his own, he’d been told … though her hair was blond and his was black.

He shrugged. “I was busy.”

“Busy!” she snorted. “Doing what?” She glanced pointedly at the empty goblet sitting on the table before him. “And, by the by, I hear that King Svein has a bone to pick with you.”

“Pffff! Six months ago he tried to trap me into marrying his daughter. He did not succeed.”

Madrene raised her eyebrows at him. “The way I hear it, he almost succeeded.” As always, the Norse gossip vine had stretched its tendrils all the way from Denmark to Norway. Not surprising. “That third leg of yours will get you into trouble yet.”

Third leg?
“Madrene! You may have seen twenty-eight winters, but that gives you no excuse for unseemliness. Tsk-tsk.” He grinned as he spoke.

It was Madrene’s turn to say, “Pffff!” She shook
her head at him. “Men always let their dangly parts lead them down the wrong path. Methinks it started with the Christians’ Adam, whose lustsome nature caused him to eat the forbidden apple.”

He and Madrene had been raised in both the Norse and Christian religions, but still he found amusement in her quoting of the Scriptures. Neither of them was very religious.

“Do not smirk at me, brother. You know I am right. And whilst we are on the subject …”

He groaned and put his face in his hands.

“… would it be such a bad thing for you to marry Inga? She is pretty enough. And biddable. And apparently wanton to some extent.”

“All good qualities in a wife, I presume?” he asked with a laugh, raising his head once again. “Biddable! Hah! What would I do with a biddable wife? There is one thing I would discuss with you, though … something, uh, personal?”

She arched her eyebrows in question.

“When I was with Inga, and we were engaged in … you know …”

She arched her eyebrows higher.

“… I did what I was supposed to do, but I had no … um, ‘enthusiasm’ to speak of.”

Madrene’s lips trembled with a half smile. “That was six months ago. Libertine that you are, how has your ‘enthusiasm’ held up with
other women?” She choked on her own stifled laughter.

I knew I should not have discussed this with Madrene. She does not take me seriously, not by half.
Still, he blundered on, “There have been no others. Dost think something is wrong with me?”

“I don’t know. Have you truly not lain with any other woman in all that time? I mean, ’tis unremarkable for me—I have not known a man in five years. But you? By thunder, ’tis a miracle.”

He could not tell for certain whether she made jest with him. He felt himself blush, and he never blushed.

“None? Well, well, well.” The expression on her face was marked by equal parts disbelief and amusement.

Rose, who sat a short distance away licking her fur, hissed out what could only be a snicker.

“ ’Tis not that I can’t. I just don’t want to. I seem to be yearning for something more. And you misspeak in calling me a libertine, truly you do. I do not fornicate any more than the average Norseman.”

“Which is an excessive amount.”

I cannot believe I am having this conversation with my sister.

She squeezed his arm and said, “Ragnor, methinks you are finally growing up. At the ripe old age of twenty and seven! Praise the gods! You need a soulmate, not just a bedmate.”

“I take exception to that conclusion. Why is it that women always think the answer to every man’s problem is marriage? Soulmate? There is no such thing.”

He had no chance to discuss the matter further because Madrene motioned over a house carl, who carried a tray with a large metal cup on it. When Ragnor recognized the contents, he protested, “Oh, nay. I could not … please … stop shoving it in my face, Madrene.” His sister forced to his lips her usual concoction for curing the aftereffects of the mead madness. It was warm and green and slimy. The fact that it usually worked was beside the point.

“Stop being such a whineling.”

“Yech!” he said as he swallowed the horrid mess all in one gulp. It landed in his stomach with a thud, and soon thereafter he began to feel better … once he stopped gagging.

“About your marriage,” Madrene persisted.

“You overstep yourself, sister,” he cautioned. “I am the jarl here.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Well, nay, but you should treat me with more respect … and stop bringing up marriage.”

“You are the last male in the line. You must have sons … legitimate sons … if our father’s bloodline is to continue.”

Ragnor would have asked why Madrene did not do the job herself, but he knew better. Her husband, Karl, had put her aside five years ago for failure to breed. Pronounced barren, she had vowed never to wed again. Personally, Ragnor suspected Karl was not that great a husband or lover, and that the fault might have lain in him … at least partially. But he decided not to broach that subject with Madrene. She would no doubt bring up her “dangly male parts” theory again.

“I will consider marriage someday,” he promised. “But it will be on my own terms. With a bride of my choosing.”

Madrene nodded.

“In the meantime, I will be departing in a sennight or two.”

“A-Viking?”

“Mayhap.” Most men of his acquaintance went raiding in the spring, after planting, or in the fall, after harvest. It was midsummer now, but the land did
not bind him as it did others. “Or I will join forces with other Norsemen to assault the Saxons.”

“Come, brother, let me help you to your bed furs. You need to sleep for a good long time. Then we will discuss your future plans.”

Leave it to Madrene. She did not berate him for his plans to go a-Viking or soldiering. She was a good Norsewoman. A strong female. And handsome, too, when she was not nagging. He only wished she’d been able to find a husband who pleased her, in hearth and heart, but most especially in the bed furs. Forget that nonsense about soulmates, a good bedmate would do.

He looped his arm around her shoulders, though he did not need her to lean upon, and she wrapped her arm around his waist. As they walked through the great hall, heading toward the staircase leading to the upper chambers, she said, “I know what this is all about, Ragnor.”

“What
this
?”

“Your mood. ’Tis that time of year. Midsummer. That was when our father left with nine of our brothers and sisters on his sea voyage.”

“And never returned,” he finished for her.

“Yea, never returned. Dost think there is any chance they are still alive?”

He shook his head at her, sad that she would even ask the question. “Nay. You know
Faöir
would have sent us word. He would not disappear for eleven years without telling us, if he were still alive.”

“I know,” she said on a sigh. “Still, we have no proof. Just news of their longship having been in Greenland and beyond. Then nothing.”

“They are dead, Madrene,” he said gently.
“Betimes, though, I wish that we had gone with him on that fateful trip.”

“Then we would be dead, too.”

He shrugged as if that might not matter so much. Odin’s breath! This kind of talk would put him in an even darker mood. He tried to brighten up Madrene, at least, if not himself. “Well, we still have each other. And I will not be leaving for a good many days yet. Shall I challenge you to a game of
hnefatafl
this evening?” He leered at her like some crafty gambler.

She smiled back and nudged him in the ribs with her elbow for his teasing. “I always win, you rogue, unless you cheat. Methinks ’tis time you brought me a few more baubles back from your adventuring. Yea, that is what I will take for my prize this time. A woman can never have too much amber … or gold.”

Ragnor laughed and hugged her to his side as they walked up the stairs. Inside, though, he thought,
What a sad and lonely pair we are!

A thousand or so years later. … Are we having fun yet? …

“Magnusson! Get your hairy ass up here and give me fifty. You are one sorry sonofabitch! You run like a girl. You breathe like a girl. Pff-pff-pff! Are you a girl? Are you, Viking?”

Ensign Torolf Magnusson, the object of that tirade, looked up at his instructor, Master Chief Petty Officer Ian MacLean, and wondered idly if that bulging vein in his tormentor’s forehead might just blow. One could only hope.

“Haul ass, boy,” the Master Chief continued to yell. “Remember, winners never quit. Are you ready to quit? We haven’t had a quitter today. Yet. You ready to give it up, loser? Huh? I’d love to have
you
ring the bell.”

Oh, shit! Here we go again. Like I would ever quit over
a dickhead like you. Like I can’t handle a measly spill into a mud pit. You’re not going to break me. I survived Hell Week. I can survive you.
Torolf, one of the eight members of Team Five in SEAL Class 500, crawled out of the ditch where he had fallen during the obstacle course known in BUD/S training as the Devil’s Spawn. BUD/S was the acronym for the SEAL training program Basic Underwater Demolition/Seals. Training was done here in Coronado at the Naval Special Warfare Center. Sometimes, like today, Torolf wondered why it had always been his dream to be here.

He spat a wad of crud out of his mouth, wiped the mud out of his eyes with the back of his dirty hand, then levered himself up and out by muscle-strained arms. Standing to attention, he said, “Yes, Master Chief, sir.”

Master Chief MacLean stood glaring at him through dark Matrix sunglasses, hands on hips. On his shirt shone the coveted trident pin that all SEAL wannabees aimed for. Better known as the Budweiser, the trident pin, featuring an eagle grasping Neptune’s pitchfork in one claw and a weapon in the other, was granted only to men who had gained SEAL status.