“Nice of you to ask!” Bolthor snarled. “These nuns think I am a horse… not a warhorse, mind you, just a plain old farm horse.” He took on a decidedly feminine tone and mimicked the nuns: ” ‘Bolthor, can you lift that wagon so we can fix the wheel? Bolthor, the bull won’t come into the barn. Bolthor, that barrel of honey is too heavy for me to carry and you are so big and strong. Bolthor, could you do me a little favor… nay, ’tis not cleaning the garderobe today, just dig a little moat for me.’ ” He cocked his head at Toste, seeking sympathy, then remarked, “Hah! There is no such thing as a little moat.”
“What would you rather be doing?” Esme asked Bolthor.
“Creating sagas. I am a skald.”
“Really?”
Bolthor nodded vigorously. “Wouldst thou like to hear my latest?”
“Nay, nay, nay. Not right now,” Toste said. I think I am going to throw up.
“Of course,” Esme said, just to annoy him, he would wager.
Toste groaned.
Bolthor made that harrumphing sound he usually did before spouting his poems. Then the dream-expression came over his battle-scarred face. Too late to stop him now. “I call this one ‘The Warrior and the Nun.’ ”
“Huh?” Esme said.
“Uh-oh!” Toste said.
“Once was a maid so fair
But for beauty she had no care.
She had no use for men,
For sex she had no yen.
So she entered a nunnery
And swore she would never marry.
But along came a man like no other.
He was a Viking who gave no quarter.
What wench can resist
Being kissed
By a bedsport enthusiast?
Soon the maid will have yearnings she had not ought
To discover the famed Viking S-Spot.
And now instead of wearing a hair shert over her breast
She swoons over one man’s hairy chest.”
Esme was inhaling and exhaling rapidly like a puff fish, too stunned to speak. That was the usual reaction of people upon hearing one of Bolthor’s horrid sagas for the first time.
“Is he implying that I have sinful inclinations toward you?” Lady Esme asked him in a horrified undertone.
Toste grinned. “I hope so.”
“Oaf!” she said, referring to him, not Bolthor.
“He called me a bedsport enthusiast. I’m the one who should be insulted.”
“What did you think of my saga?” Bolthor asked Esme.
“It was fine,” Toste said before Esme could say something offensive, like “Oaf!” Bolthor meant well, and he was a good friend, and Toste would not want to hurt his feelings unnecessarily.
Bolthor smiled widely. “I was not sure about using ‘hairy chest’ instead of ‘manly chest.’ Betimes we poets are faced with these difficult word choices,” Bolthor explained.
“I think ‘hairy’ was an excellent choice,” Esme said, obviously having found her voice. She looked at Toste and muttered, “Hairy oaf!”
But Toste could have kissed her for her sensitivity toward the gentle giant. Actually, he could kiss her for any reason.
“Next methinks I might try ‘The Oldest Virgin in All Britain,’ ” Bolthor told her. He must have overheard the tail end of their conversation.
Esme just gurgled.
At that moment, Bolthor’s eyes went wide. “What in the name of Odin is that?” His grin had evaporated as his attention was snagged on something off in the distance behind Toste and Esme. At first, Toste thought the verse mood might be coming on him again, but before he could voice a protest at that prospect, Bolthor tossed his staff aside, lunged forward and knocked them both to the ground. In that instant, as he and Esme lay on their backs with Bolthor’s immense weight pressing down on them, they heard a whizzing sound pass over them.
“What was that?” Toste exclaimed, shoving Bolthor off him.
“An arrow,” Bolthor said, already standing and gazing off into the distance where not a soul was visible. “I saw a bowman take aim at us from that stand of trees over there. He is gone now.”
Thinking quickly, Toste picked up Esme by the waist and tossed her unceremoniously into the overhang of the bush. The cat screeched indignantly at the intrusion and darted out the back end of the bush, running away.