“He would take us back,” Vagn said softly.
“Mayhap, if we would agree to his never-ending demands: Stop being so frivolous. Fight in his army, which is always at war with one minor Norse king or another, or one Saxon thegn or another. Bend knee to our two scurrilous older brothers, who are heirs to the jarldom… not that I would want to take on that mantle. Wed a noble wench of Father’s choke. Make public apology for past misdeeds. Need I remind you of the Helga the Homely incident? Or Ingrid Hairy Chin?”
“Groveling would be required, of a certainty. And much kissing of arse,” Vagn pointed out with a wince. Neither of them were ever much good at groveling. “But we are older now, Toste. Being landless knights no longer holds appeal. Perchance settling down with a wife and family would not be the worst thing in the world. Our friend Rurik seems happy enough in that role. And, of a certainty, there is not much attraction anymore in raiding greedy clerics of their gold crucifixes and ruby-encrusted chalices. We have wealth enough, both of us.”
His brother’s words surprised Toste, mainly because they mirrored his own thinking of late. But that had been the pattern their entire lives. They always thought alike, having the same tastes and dislikes, even feeling each other’s pain and joy on occasion.
Toste shifted the halberd—a long-handled spear/battle-ax—in his right hand to its leather shoulder strap and used his free arm to wrap his brother’s shoulder and squeeze tightly. In a voice choked with deep sentiment, he said, “This will be our last battle, then. We will go home to make peace with our father and establish our own families and estates.”
“Can our estates border one another?” Vagn asked.
“I would have it no other way.”
They smiled warmly at each other, glad to have made a long-overdue decision.
“That reminds me of a saga I have been writing,” Bolthor the Skald—also known as Bolthor the World’s Worst Skald—said as he huffed up behind them. Bolthor was a giant of a man, still well muscled from fighting, even at forty and more years, but he had lost one eye at the Battle of Brunanburh some twenty years ago. It was a liability for a soldier. Still, he’d insisted on coming with them to join the Jomsvikings. Or more likely, his former leaders, Tykir in the Norse lands, and Rurik in the land of the Scots, had sicced him on them, having endured more than enough sorry sagas relating the intimacies and foibles of their lives. Either way, they were stuck with the good-hearted behemoth poet. “The saga could be called ‘The Lost Vikings.'”
“Uh, mayhap later,” Toste said quickly, noticing a dreamy look passing over Bolthor’s face which usually portended a vile poem about to spew forth.
“We are not lost, Bolthor,” Vagn pointed out. The fool! Did he not know that it was unwise to encourage the skald in any way? Vagn waved a hand to indicate the vast number of Jomsviking warriors traveling with them. “Surely, we cannot all be lost.”
“I did not mean the entire bird of soldiers was lost. Just you two.”
“Oh,” Vagn said, still clearly confused.
But then Toste made a mistake as foolish as his brother’s. He remarked to Bolthor, “I thought you always started your sagas with ‘good’ in the introduction. Like ‘This is the saga of Tykir the Good.’ Or, ‘This is the saga of ‘Rurik the Greater.’ ”
“Hmmm. You are right, Toste,” Bolthor said, biting his bottom lip with worry. Well, leastways they had time to escape his presence whilst he pondered the dilemma.
Toste and Vagn began to walk faster, but Bolthor yelled at their backs, “Wait! I have the solution.” With a groan, Toste and Vagn were forced by politeness to stand and listen. “This is the saga of Toste and Vagn, the best Viking twin warriors in all the Norse lands.”
“That limits our area of greatness, does it not?” Vagn whispered for Toste’s ears only. “How many Viking twin warriors do you think there are?”
“I pray thee, Bragi, god of eloquence, to bless me this day,” Bolthor continued, his one good eye raised skyward. Then to Toste and Vagn he said, “Methinks a good title would be ‘Twin Vikings Who Lost Their Way.’ “