“You would be shamed.”
“I care not.”
“Your father would kill me.”
“He would not know… till you are long gone… and even then I would not have to name you.”
“You have this all worked out in your mind, don’t you?”
She did not like the hostility in his voice, but she nodded.
“What kind of man do you think I am, that I would abandon my own child?”
“I… I did not think you would care.”
“What kind of man do you think I am?” he repeated.
“Oh, please! Spare me all these offended sensibilities, Vagn. Surely you have bedded women afore… many women… without a care for any child you left behind. I would not be surprised if you had dozens of children.”
“Dozens?” A grim smile cracked his face. “I am not aware of one single child I have begotten. There are precautions men can take to prevent childbirth… not foolproof, to be sure, but I have been careful. If any babe has been born of my loins, I would have recognized that child immediately and taken him or her under my shield.”
He stood abruptly and stepped out of the pool. She could see by the condition of his manpart that he was no longer “humming” for her.
As he began to pull on his garments, she told him, “Vagn, I’m sorry if I insulted you. I did not think—”
“That is right,” he snapped. “You did not think.” He’d already pulled on his loincloth and braies and was reaching for his tunic.
“Let me make it up to you.”
He paused and looked at her. The hurt in his eyes tore at her heart, and she deeply regretted that she had put it there. “How?”
She stood, naked as the day she was born, and held out her arms to him.
Vagn said nothing, just stared at her with continuing anger. But there was a part of him humming again.
Still, he left.
* * *
Chapter Seven
« ^ »
A moveable feast…
“Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving.”
“Something’s moving.”
Toste laughed. And that part of him where Esme’s face was pressed moved some more. “Just whistle some more,” he suggested.
“I only whistle when I’m nervous.”
“You’re not nervous now?”
“I’m furious, not nervous.”
“Now, now, Esme. Just relax.”
I am going to kill the lout. I swear I am. “That’s it! I’m getting up.”
Toste pressed his hands down on his lap, forcing her to remain between his legs under his nunly robe. “Not yet. Your father’s guardsmen aren’t out of sight yet. And this last bunch looked at us with a little more suspicion than the others.”
“What’s not to be suspicious about? Two giant, troll-like nuns, one of whom has leprosy, and a giggling little nun betwixt them who appears to have drunk too much of her own mead… sounds suspicious to me.”
“Uh… would you mind not speaking quite in that direction? ” Toste said in a suffocated voice. “I can feel your lips moving there.”
“And I take offense, m’lady, at your description of me as a troll,” Bolthor said, but she could hear the mirth in his voice.
“And I am not drunk,” Sister Margaret said. “Not in the least.” A loud hiccough belied her words.
They’d all been sipping the mead to keep them warm on this second day of their cold, uncomfortable journey… especially uncomfortable for Esme, who’d had to duck under Toste’s robes every time a Blackthorne soldier approached. The fur blanket spread across all three of their laps in the seat of the wagon drew the attention of all who stopped them, and the guardsmen were quick to flip it up, fully expecting to find the errant daughter hiding there.
“If anyone should be offended, ’tis me,” Toste said. “That last soldier—the one with the missing front tooth—was eyeing me like a tasty morsel. And me a nun, at that.”
“You are not a nun,” Esme pointed out from under his robe.
“Well, he didn’t know that.”
“We nuns get accosted all the time,” Sister Margaret remarked. “Doesn’t matter if we’re young or old, comely or homely as a hog. Men seem to think we are wild for their bodies from being confined in a convent so long. They expect great things in the bedsport from nuns.”