“If I say you are Toste, then you are Toste,” Gorm said with stubborn illogic. “Your father promised you for my daughter when you were a babe, and you will not escape a wedding yet again. Not this time.”
“I… am… not… Toste.”
“She has no breasts to speak of, and she is skinny as a broom, but you can fatten her up,” Gorm continued, as if Vagn hadn’t spoken. “Plus, she has a shrewish disposition, I must admit that to you aforehand, but that is probably due to her being a rejected wench. No doubt her female parts have withered like dried raisins. She is as independent as a man… acts as her own textile merchant, she does… but a strong Norseman could put her in her place. And she does have all her teeth.”
Aaarrgh! Helga had been gone the entire time Vagn had been confined here… off on a buying expedition to the Norselands where her maternal grandsire still lived. Gorm had outlived several wives, including Helga’s mother and his latest spouse, a Saxon lady. Helga was expected to return this eventide with a shipload of embroidered cloth for her trading stall in Jorvik. That’s all I need—a woman in trade—and not of the bodily kind, either. And what was that about withered female parts? Raisins? Yeech! “What makes you think she would even want me?”
“Her opinion matters not. I want you for her.”
Just then, Vagn noticed an odd expression on Gorm’s face. Vagn narrowed his eyes as he studied the old man, suddenly suspicious. “She doesn’t know that you’ve kidnapped me, does she?”
“I didn’t kidnap you. I rescued you.” Gorm’s rheumy old eyes shifted here and there, but never lighted on Vagn.
“Hah!” Talk about splitting hairs!
“She’ll accept you once she gets accustomed to the idea.”
“Hah!” You don’t know women, if you think that.
“A man has a right to have grandchildren,” Gorm said sulkily.
So that’s what this is all about. “Thank you for the honor, but find yourself another breeding bull.”
“Three wives and Odin only knows how many other wenches I’ve tupped, and only one living child do I have to show for my efforts… and her a split tail, besides. I want grandchildren… preferably grandsons.”
Vagn had to grin, which caused his dry lips to crack and seep blood. Turned out the mean old bastard was just a mean old pudding heart. That didn’t mean Gorm wouldn’t skin him, though… or geld him.
” ‘Tis not funny.”
“On the contrary, ’tis very funny. But I’m not going to marry your daughter, even if you have made me smile. Now, pass that jug over here. And untie these ropes afore I piss my braies.”
“Father!” a female voice shouted from downstairs… a female voice that sounded a mite angry. “Father! Where are you? I swear, I am going to whack you over the head with the flat side of a broadsword if the rumors are true.” Immediately there was the sound of someone running up the stone steps.
“Uh-oh!” Vagn and Gorm said at the same time.
“There best not be a man in that room with you, tied to a bed, like Rona said there is,” she shouted, closer now.
“You allow your daughter to speak to you like that?” Vagn asked Gorm.
“Hah! You obviously have never had a daughter or you would not ask that question. She gainsays me at every turn.”
Within seconds a woman stood in the doorway, but she was like no other woman Vagn had ever seen.
Vagn remembered meeting the child Helga, whom his brother had later dubbed “Homely.” And she had surely been that, and more. With a big mouth and teeth too big for her small, pale face, she had resembled a horse more than a sweet maid. Plus, her hair had recently been cut and deloused and stood up in spikes about her head. Smitten, she had followed Toste about like a lovesick cow… or, more aptly, a pony.
This was a far different Helga than that earlier version.
She stood tall, with masses of typically Norse blond hair spilling out of a knot atop her head. No wimple or head rail for this creature. She wore a gunna of sky-blue-colored wool, with intricate, multicolored embroidery outlining the hem and neckline and wrists, belted at the waist with a gold-link chain. Gorm hadn’t lied—she was thin and flat-chested—but other assets made up for those deficits. She was no longer young, but her cheekbones were high, her eyes wide and as brilliant a blue as her garment, and her lips… ah, her lips were exceedingly large and carnal; as a child, that big mouth had been a disadvantage; as an adult female, it was beyond seductive. All the components of her being were feminine, but her stance—feet widespread, shoulders thrown back, and the posture of hands on hips—gave an entirely different picture. This was no meek maid, about to do any man’s bidding.