The Pirate Bride (3 page)

Thork shot Finn a look of disbelief.

The others complimented Bolthor as well.

The bull bellowed. Thork wasn’t sure if it liked the poem or not.

Enough was enough! Thork let loose with a loud bellow of his own. “Heeeyyyy! Open the bloody damn door, you witless wenches! Release us! At once! Lest you find yourselves at the bottom of the sea feeding the fishes.”

“I’ll lop off your barmy heads,” Bolthor added in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, “even if you are demented women.”

That’s telling them!

“I have to piss,” Brokk yelled. “You better let me out. If I wet my braies, you’ll be real sorry.”

Oh, that feeble complaint is sure to bring some action!

“I would not make a good love slave,” Bolthor added. “My wife will come after you with a meat cleaver.” To Thork, he confided, “Leastways, I think she would.”

She would. Katherine might be irritated with her husband at the moment, but that did not mean she would stand by and let another woman, or women, have him. An angry Katherine was like a ferocious lion, despite the gray-flecked nether curls. It wasn’t the first time she and Bolthor had argued and parted. She always took him back.

Thork thought of something else as the bull continued to bellow and snort. A bull of that age and size must have cost plenty of coin. A precious cargo.

“Your bull is sickening,” Thork hollered. “Best you check to see if he is dying.”

Immediately the hatch door above them swung open, and a dozen women in men’s garments stared down at them. It took him several moments of blinking to adjust his vision to the bright sunlight.

Not a one of the women could be considered comely. One was missing a front tooth. Another was as wide as she was tall. Still another was long in the tooth . . . way long in the tooth.

Just then a female voice above deck some distance away asked, “What is going on here?”

The women peering down at him glanced at the as yet unseen woman raising the question in an authoritative voice and said as one, “Uh-oh!”

Was it the Sea Scourge? And did she really have purple hair, horsey teeth, and three breasts?

“Uh-oh!” he echoed the female pirates.

There was going to be hell . . . or Muspell . . . to pay . . .

It was past noon when Medana awakened in her sleep furs, and by then the ship was well out to sea. She was still wearing her nun garments that she realized with a sniff of distaste had become odorsome from body sweat in the heat of this confined space.

How strange! Not just that she had gone to bed without removing her clothing or that she’d slept so long and deep, but that the women would set sail without waking her first.

Had she become
drukkinn
from just two cups of watered wine and a few sips of ale? She licked her dry lips and tasted something familiar. It was the sleeping herb her island healer often used to put a person to sleep while she sewed torn flesh or that one time she’d had to cut off two fingers of a women whose axe had slipped when cutting firewood. Medana herself had tasted it when one of her pounding head megrims had brought her nigh to her knees in pain.

But when . . . Ah, she realized suddenly. It must have been in the cup she’d been offered when she’d boarded last night.

But why?

There best be a really good reason.

Just then, she heard a loud bellowing noise. An unhappy bull.

But then she also heard other bellowing noises . . . ones that sounded like male voices. Unhappy male voices.

She frowned with confusion, then jumped up and rushed from her bed furs and out onto the deck. The dozen or so women who’d been gathered about the opening into the hold dropped the door and turned to stare at her with guilty innocence.

“What is going on here?” Medana demanded.

“Um,” one of them said.

“The bull is a bit restless, that is all,” another added.

Still another said, “There is naught for you to worry about. Mayhap you should go rest some more.”

“I have rested more than enough. By the by, why did you not rouse me this morn before setting sail?”

Solveig stepped away from the rudder she’d been steering, handing it off to another woman, before she explained, “You seemed exhausted, and we wanted to show that we could do the work you have taught us.”

Medana could not argue with that. Actually, Solveig was the one who’d taught all of them about shipbuilding and sailing, being the only child of a master shipwright who had been a hard and abusive taskmaster for his daughter.

“I should check on the bull. You know how much it is needed back at Thrudr. With good speed we will be there two days hence, just in time for our milch cows to be in heat. With the gods’ blessing, there will be calves aplenty by autumn.”

She was reaching for the latch on the hatch door when an angry male voice shouted from below, “Release us, you mangy excuses for women!”

Medana jerked back and turned to her crew, most of whom had suddenly become busy with other tasks. In fact, the rowers were rowing so fast their arm and shoulder muscles would be burning by nightfall.

“Is that a man down below?” Medana asked, narrowing her eyes with accusation at the women around her. Would they have dared to disobey the long-standing order to bring no men on board? Surely not!

Several male voices were shouting now. Not just one, as she’d first thought.
Oh. My. Gods! They did. This is bad. Very bad!
“Have you lost your bloody minds?” she shouted.

In the silence that suddenly overcame her crew, she could clearly hear the men speaking loudly from below.

“I’ll lop their heads off, just wait and see.”

“I’ll lop off her breasts . . . all three of them.”

“Do they know who we are? Simple split-tails! Are they so lackwitted they would capture Norsemen?”

“They have got themselves boars by the tails now,” another added. “Mayhap you should write a saga about that, Bolthor. Feckless wenches and boars’ tails.”

“Are you saying my tail looks pig-like?” another male inquired with a laugh.

Still another man added, “Didst know that a pig’s cock is shaped into a spiral, but when extended, it is as long as a boat.”

“Finn, you are an idiot,” someone else said.

Medana inhaled sharply and addressed her women, “Exactly how many boars’ tails do we have below?”

“Three or four or so, methinks,” Bergdis offered, a rosy blush rising on her already ruddy cheeks, which matched her bright red hair.

“
Exactly
how many?” Medana insisted on knowing.

“Eight,” Gudron revealed, raising her square chin defiantly. “We would have taken more, but these men are so big they filled the hold. No room for more, especially with the bull.”

Eight!
“Why in the gods’ name would you do such a thing?”

Elida, usually a docile creature who directed her weavers with a gentle touch, put now-roughened hands on her hips and raised her chin high, just like Gudron, except she was much shorter and the effect not so dramatic. “We did not have near enough time with the men on this visit. We are just borrowing them for a while until some of us are breeding. Then we will let them loose.”

The others nodded, as if this was a logical explanation for their insanity.

“Bo-borrowed?” Medana sputtered. “What do you think these men—Vikings, at that—are going to think about a group of women
borrowing
them?”

“Surely they will not object once they get accustomed to the idea,” Bergdis declared with a big smile that she immediately covered with the fingers of one hand. She was ever conscious of the gap in her mouth where one front tooth should have been, thanks to her husband who liked to batter all his wives when under the ale influence. Bergdis, her redhead temper tested one too many times, had reciprocated, taking out not one but two of her husband’s rotten teeth. That’s when she’d fled to Medana’s sanctuary.

“Besides, didst ever know of a Viking man who would reject a good tupping when it’s on offer?” Solveig asked. She should know, having been a paid harlot for a short period after running away from her father.

Much laughter greeted her words.

Medana leaned down and yanked hard on the latch, pulled the door up and over to land on the deck with a loud thud. It took her several moments in the bright sunshine to make out the figures below.

There were in fact the bull and eight rather large Vikings glaring up at her.

One of them, who appeared to be the leader, dropped his jaw and exclaimed, “Good gods! Captured by barmy bitches
and
a nun!”

Another one, a giant of a man with only one eye, said to the first one, “Dost think it a sin to lop off the head of a nun, Thork? Would it be so bad under the circumstances?”

“Who cares!” Thork replied. “I am damn tired of being good.”

Chapter Three

Some women borrow a cup of sugar; others borrow men . . .

T
hork was taken out of the hold, then retied to the mast pole. The nun chieftain-ess of this barmy band was assisted in the task by five of her burly crew members. Thork had not seen so many well-muscled women in one place in all his life. The one who wore war braids on either side of her scowling face looked as if she could heft an acorn-stuffed, pregnant boar with little trouble, much less a Viking man.

There were only females aboard this ship, doing all the jobs traditionally reserved for men. And judging by the cloth bags overflowing with gold and silver objects over there, the swords that were placed by each of the sea chests, and the scurvy appearance of some of the women, who wore colorful cloths about their heads, tied at the nape, he could only surmise that they’d been a-Viking.

Or pirating.

He was the only one who’d been brought out thus far after his men gave him up as the
Sea Serpent
’s owner. The traitors! Bolthor was composing sagas as fast as his thick brain could work. “When Pirates Grow Breasts.” “Three Teats in a Row.” “Row, Row, Row Your Cradle.” “She Pumped the Waves, Not a Butter Churn.” “Have You Ever Swived a Pirate?” “Ahoy, Sweet Mateys!” And his men, instead of being outraged at their predicament, were laughing like hyenas.

“You should be pleased,” Bolthor had advised when Thork had snarled at the women trying to drag him upward. “Your boredom is surely gone now.”

Thork had advised Bolthor on what he could do with his unruly tongue.

“Pirates!” he’d stormed at the nun leader when he was secured. “Women are not made to do men’s work.” He glanced pointedly at the oarswomen panting as they moved the heavy oars. “Least of all pirating.” He could not be too critical of pirating itself since he’d engaged in the enterprise himself for a time . . . for a good purpose. But women as pirates? Pfff! “ ’Tis against nature.”

She’d just arched her brows at him as if to say,
Oh really?

If there was anything Thork disliked, it was a woman with a snide attitude. “Aren’t you a little long in the tooth for such nonsense?” he asked, guessing she had to have seen more than twenty winters, possibly more than twenty-five. “At your advanced age, you should be home tending babes and caring for a husband, not roaming the seas like lunkhead sailors. Or praying your beads back at the convent. Surely it is a mortal sin for a sister of God to steal, is it not? Or, gods forbid, kidnap men.”

She gritted her teeth at his remarks. “Pretty earring you are wearing. Are you not fearful that some might question your . . . um, manliness?”

As the heat on his cheeks rose, so did his anger. “The earring belonged to my father, and his father before him. Say what you want about me, but do not dare question the manliness of my sire and grandsire.”

She shrugged. “How do you know we are pirates?”

Dumb as dirt! “If it looks like a snake, and slithers like a snake, must be it is a snake.”

He could tell she did not like the comparison to snakes. “And a nun! What kind of nun does such devil’s work?”

“I am not really a nun.”

“Oh really?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you the one known as the Sea Scourge?”

Noticing the blush coloring her cheeks, he observed, “No purple hair that I can see. Open your mouth so that I can see your teeth.”

She pressed her lips firmly together.

He stared at her chest then. “Hard to tell if you have three breasts under that loose garment, but it appears rather flat. I suspect you have none.”

Her brow furrowed with confusion. “Three breasts?” She waved a hand airily then. “Never mind. This is a pointless conversation.”

He told her, anyhow. “The Sea Scourge needs three breasts to suckle her three black cats.”

“Are you demented?”

“Mayhap a little bit.” He grinned. Despite his circumstances—as in, tied to a mast pole in the hot sun—he was enjoying himself.
No, I am not. I am a captive. If anyone hears about this, I will be laughed out of every Norse port in the world.
He forced the grin down and scowled at her.

“Let us start over on a more civil note,” she said, smiling tentatively at him.

No horse teeth
, he noted, and returned her smile with a continuing scowl before replying with fake sweetness. “Yea, let us do that.”

She ignored his sarcasm. “My name is . . .” She paused. “ . . . Medana.”

“I have ne’er heard of any Christian saint named Medana. Nay, that is a Norse name. Therefore, you bloody damn hell are not Sister Medana, lest you be one of Satan’s mistresses.”

“I already told you I’m not a nun. Your insistence otherwise is becoming tiresome.”

So much for her polite approach!

“I must go change out of these stifling hot garments. Then we will have a little talk.”

“Forget ‘little talk,’ you demented daughter of Loki,” he told her. Loki, the jester god, was the closest the Norse religion got to demons. “You’d best talk quick and big if you value your life.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Her amused clucking sound and pointed gaze at his bindings were meant to emphasize that he was in no position to make threats. “Blather, blather, blather,” she observed, but he saw the fearful twitch beside her mouth. A mouth that was sinfully full and pouty. Demonic, if you asked him. Which nobody did, least of all Sister Pirate.

Glancing around after she left, he took stock of his surroundings.

The sleek dragonship with a swan neck was clinker built with overlapping planks of oak. The women sat not on rowing benches, but on their sea chests, as was the pattern on most longboats, their oars moving nimbly through the placid waves now that there was a breeze lifting the sails. Primitive battle shields hung over the side. With good winds, a well-built Viking vessel could make a hundred miles in one day. He figured that they’d traveled more than that already.

Seabirds flew overhead, looking for food. Their presence was a clear sign that the ship traveled close to land, though he could see none from his position.

He had to admire the way the female crew worked together. It was a small longship with only twenty oars on each side, but the women rowers managed to weave the light craft smoothly over the waves with the aid of a square black and red sail that unfurled to catch the wind. The helmsman—rather helmswoman—steered the side-mounted rudder fastened to the starboard. Others worked diligently at their chores, tasks they’d been well trained to perform. Heaving buckets of water up to swab the deck. Repairing sailcloth. Honing small swords and lances. Keeping an eye on the horizon . . . for pirates? Thork smiled at his own silent jest.

A tall, slim woman emerged from the doorway of a makeshift chieftain’s quarters wearing a red brushed wool tunic belted at the waist over black braies and tall boots. Her sun-lightened blonde hair was pulled off her face and lay in one long braid down her back. Her violet eyes, under thick, dark blonde lashes, studied him as she stepped closer.

He studied her right back.

The nun?

“I know you!” he declared suddenly.

Fear flickered in her eyes but only momentarily. “Nay, you do not,” she asserted.

He frowned with uncertainty. “Are you sure? As I recall, it was at King Haakon’s court nigh on fourteen years ago. You were flirting with me, even though you were only a girling of twelve then, and I a virile fourteen.”

“I ne’er did!” She did not smile, not even a little. No sense of mirth.

Well, his appreciation for mirth was running out, too. The humor in this captivity nonsense was wearing thin. “I strongly suspect who you are, and Medana was not the name you were given at birth. Nay, ’twas Geira, daughter of Jarl Edam of Stormgard.”

“You have me confused with someone else,” she insisted, suddenly engaged in pulling a loose thread from the hem of her tunic.

Was he wrong? Mayhap. But wait, unbidden, an old memory came to mind. “Lady Geira of Stormgard murdered a cousin of the king on the eve of her wedding, or so the story goes. Then she disappeared. Could that perchance be you?”

Rosy tints bloomed on the woman’s sun-bronzed cheeks. “I have ne’er murdered anyone, and my name is Medana. I know who you are, though. Your reputation precedes you.”

He arched his brows.

“Thork Tykirsson, the baddest Viking in the Norselands.”

“Me?” He pretended affront. “I am no longer bad. I am on a quest to be good.”

A small laugh escaped her lush lips before she caught herself. “How long have you been on this . . . quest?”

“Since last year.”

“A whole year of being good? You must be suffering sorely.”

“You have no idea.” He rolled his eyes meaningfully. “You do know that I am going to have to kill you for this crime.”

“What makes you think you will have the opportunity?” She stared at his restraints with an expression on her face that said clearly:
You are in no position to make threats, Viking.
“Do not mistake us for the weak females you have known in the past.”

“No chance of that!” he scoffed, giving her an insulting head-to-toe survey, though, truth to tell, he did not find her body all that unappealing, even in men’s braies. Especially in braies.

The rose in her cheeks deepened even more. “If you must know, your presence here is all a mistake.”

“Oh?”
This ought to be good.

“My women were disheartened over our shortened visit to the trading town, and so they decided to . . . to . . . to . . .”

“Have a stuttering problem, do you?”

She bared her teeth at him, then visibly made an effort to calm her temper. “They meant only to borrow you.”

Surely she did not say what I think she said.
“Borrow? Is that a new word for captivity?”

“Captivity? How silly! Ha, ha, ha!” She emitted a false, nervous laugh. “Truly, they only intended to keep you for a short time.”

“How short?”

She waved a hand airily. “A few sennights.”

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped before he managed to ask, “For what purpose?”

She looked away and appeared to be trying to find the right words. Finally, her gaze met his and he was struck by the violet beauty of her eyes, like a field of lavender he’d seen one time in the Highlands. “Um . . . harvesting.”

“Um . . . harvesting what?”

He could tell she did not like his mimicking her, but she resisted the urge to make some snide remark. Instead, she revealed, “Man seed.”

“I beg your pardon. You want us to plant seeds. We are not farmers.”

“Not harvesting so much as breeding.”

“Breeding what?”

“Babes.”

“Aaarrgh!” If his hands were free, he would be pulling at his own hair. Getting a clear answer from her was like pulling a boar out of quicksand.

“If you must know, we live on an isla—on a mount—we live someplace where there are only women, and occasionally the women wish to bear children. Thus, they need men to plant the seeds. But they do not want them to be around after that.”

There is an insult in that statement, I suspect.
“Studs? You want men to do stud service? Like yon bull?” He glanced downward for emphasis.

The hatch door was open, and as if it heard him, the beast in the hold let out a loud bellow. One at a time, his men were being brought up on deck and tied to whatever stationary item the women could find. It took three women to bring up each man, five for Bolthor.

Jamie, the first one out, exclaimed, “Bloo-dy hell! That cow’s breath stinks like old haggis. Or gammelost.” Gammelost was the loathsome cheese many Viking warriors often took on long treks. So repulsive was it that some said it turned men into berserkers.

“ ’Tis not a cow, you dumb Scot,” Finn replied, the next one out of the hold. Even as he scanned his surroundings, his eyes going wide with astonishment at the all-female crew, he continued sniping at Jamie. “Do you not know the difference betwixt a bull and a cow?”

“Cow or bull matters not a whit,” Alrek inserted. He fell on his face before being helped to his feet by the women. “If we stay down here much longer, we will smell just as bad. Whoa! I ne’er saw so many muscles on women in all my life.”

“We already do smell like shit . . . shitty animals,” Bolthor remarked with his usual honesty. If the men were free, someone would have probably boxed his ears, if they could, which they probably couldn’t, he being as big as a grizzly bear and all that. The five women dragging him out of the hold appeared to appreciate his size, however, if their murmured compliments were any indication. Assuming that “I wonder if all his body parts are as big as his feet” was a compliment.

Meanwhile his men were fighting their restraints, to no avail. He wasn’t the only one growing more and more frustrated with this ridiculous captivity. He stared at the witch who was the cause of their discomfort and, recalling her comment about wanting them for their seed only, Thork repeated, “Stud service? You women want to be swived?”

If her cheeks got any redder, she might burst aflame. “Not me, but, yea, some of my women do.”

“Without the men’s permission?”