“You’ve already told me that the Norsemen have offered to help you. What bothers you?” Mother Wilfreda asked, putting aside a lace altar cloth which she was attempting to repair along the edges.
“I want naught to do with them or any other of the male sex. What have men done for me but make my life miserable?”
“Oh, child, not all men are alike. Remember, our beloved Christ was a man. It is un-Christian of you to speak so.”
Esme grinned. “Does that mean I will have to go to confession again?”
Mother Superior nodded. Then she grinned, too. “How many times did you go to confession today?”
“Just twice. It was a good day.”
The elderly abbess shook her head at the hopelessness of trying to turn Esme into a holy nun. “Back to our discussion and why you distrust all men, including these Vikings.”
“You have been my only family for a long time… and a good and faithful sister to my mother. But even when Mother was still alive, my brothers tormented me to the point of crying, and my father was more likely to swat me than hug me.” Actually, she could not recall one single instance of affection from the Lord of Blackthorne. “I have survived thus far on my own, with your help. With a little extra effort, I might be able to make it to my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“And attain freedom and independence from your father?”
Esme nodded. “Might is the key word, of course. I do not doubt that I could hide from my father and his men for another three months. You and I have discussed several possibilities. But the problem will be getting into King Edgar’s court. I must present my petition for the return of the dower lands which my father has been holding for me. Father will be watching every road to Winchester, where Edgar is expected to keep Easter, three days past my twenty-fifth birthday. What nags me lately is whether I can leave my fate to chance.”
“Not chance, child. God. You must pray for His help.”
“I don’t discount the power of prayer, Mother, but God helps those who help themselves.”
“Or those who are not so prideful that they cannot ask others to help them,” the abbess offered. “Like two strong Viking nobles with the ability to garner a bird of soldiers?”
“Precisely,” Esme said.
“Then what is stopping you?”
“I do not know. These two Vikings are not at all like any men I’ve met afore. Not my father and brothers, who care only for their own welfare, or the few men, including priests, that I’ve met over the years here at the convent. Oh, do not glower at me so, Mother. I know that Father Alaric is not bad, but he is the exception. Toste and Bolthor are bloodthirsty warriors… well, leastways, they are warriors for hire, Jomsvikings.”
“But that could mean they are good fighters for the right cause.”
“Hmmmm.” Did she dare trust them? What would she have to give up in order to hire them and a troop of their followers? Control, for one thing. Esme did not like the idea of putting her future in the hands of others. Somehow, deep down inside, Esme suspected that she would have to relinquish more than control of her life path… especially to the one Viking, Toste.
And that prospect worried Esme the most. She was attracted to the man. Unbelievably, after years of cloistered virtue, suddenly her stomach fluttered whenever this man came near. Not that she would ever let him know of his effect on her. Hah! He already thought too much of himself.
He was more than pleasing to the eye… tall and well-built and clean, now that he was recovering from his injuries, with a shaven, well-sculpted face and an enticing cleft chin, dancing blue eyes and long, dark blond hair, which he vainly braided on the sides with amber beads. Not that I noticed all that much. When he grinned at her, which he did much too often, she felt her insides melt a tiny bit.
But the thing that drew her to him most was the affection he could not hide for his dead brother and for that horrid poet, Bolthor. How could she not be drawn to a man who loved his brother so, and who showed such loyalty to his friend, even praising his awful sagas?