“Methinks it would make a good poem,” Bolthor continued. “Viking Men and Their Love of Ample Arses.”
“Don’t you dare,” Esme said as shrilly as she could, still half in and half out of the barrel. “And someone get me out of here.”
Toste grabbed her by the waist and pulled her hard so that the back of her shoulders hit his chest, and the two of them almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, his greater weight held them upright, with her legs dangling off the ground. Unfortunately, once they were upright, she found herself still wrapped in his embrace from behind, and the rogue wasn’t letting go. In fact, the very bottom she had been bemoaning minutes ago was pressed against a part of him that was rather big, too.
That was when she looked up at Bolthor, who was making a throat-clearing noise as he prepared to recite his newest saga. He wore a huge brown nun’s robe with a wimple and veil covering his head. His black eye patch was gone and his dead eye stared straight ahead in a most unsettling fashion. A crucifix hung from a thick chain onto his massive chest, and wooden prayer beads dangled from his rope belt. He’d shaved his face closely and displayed not one single whisker. He was the biggest, homeliest nun Esme had ever seen. And that’s not all. His face and hands were covered with “sores,” thanks no doubt to some creative use of dough and dyes.
“Did you fall in a patch of poison berries?” she asked.
“Leprosy,” Toste answered for his friend. He spoke from behind her, against her ear. ” ‘Tis a convenient thing that we travel to Jorvik to deliver a batch of Margaret’s Mead. We can deliver yon leper nun to the boat traveling from there to Lepros Island. Two jobs, one trip.”
Before she could express her surprise at the lackwit scheme, Bolthor started, “This is the saga ‘Viking Men and Their Love of Ample Arses.’ ”
“Uh, Sister Bolthora, I don’t think we have time for this,” Toste said, against Esme’s ear once again. His hands were still at her waist.
She felt his breath on the inner whorls of her ear. Who knew mere breath could feel so stimulating there! It was only an ear, after all. But ’twas best to confine her surprise to safer topics. “Sister Bolthora?”
“We call her Sister Thora for short,” Toste said with a chuckle… a chuckle that tickled her ear some more. Actually, tickle was too tame a word for what was happening. There appeared to be some connection between her ear and her breasts and that private place between her thighs.
Bolthor ignored them all and started reciting, with a forefinger pressed to his chin thoughtfully.
“What is it ’bout men
and their favoring arses,
especially ones
that jiggle on lasses?
Oh, ’tis not new,
this love of curves
that mark the female
and men unnerves.
Why, truth to tell,
some say Adam said to Eve
in the Garden of Eden,
‘Great arse!’ Leastways, that’s what I believe.
So, ’tis not strange
that Viking men,
who are experts in female bodily appreciation,
would home in on this greatest of the gods’ creation:
the female arse.”
Mother Wilfreda and Sister Mary Rose actually laughed, and Father Alaric, too. He must have come up behind them.
Toste chuckled. “Well said, Bolthor! You have surpassed yourself. Truly, that is the best saga you have ever created. Will you repeat it for us at Ravenshire?”
Esme shoved herself out of Toste’s embrace, about to berate him for suggesting such a thing. But the words never got past her tongue, so astounded was she by the sight she beheld when she turned around.
Toste was dressed as a nun, too. And what a nun!
Like Bolthor, he wore the traditional nun’s garb—brown robe and matching veil over white wimple, crucifix on chain, prayer beads hanging from rope belt—and he’d shaved closely. But that was where the similarity ended. Not a single blond hair was exposed on his head, and he’d darkened his eyebrows, with charred wood, no doubt. Although he was tall and had wider shoulders than the average woman, Toste’s face was beautiful. Really beautiful. He had nicely sculpted cheek and jaw bones, smoky blue eyes, and full lips. And not a sign of leprosy, either.