But Sister Margaret was the only normal member of the frozen tableau they beheld. The first to jump down from the cart was the leper nun. God’s teeth! What a big nun she was! And, yeech! The nun’s face was covered with oozing sores.
Or were they sores?
Eirik had suffered a lifelong weakness in his eyes which made it difficult to see things up close. Mayhap they were not sores at all. In fact…
With a wide smile, the big nun looked at them directly, or as directly as she could with her one blind eye, then tore off her veil and wimple. It was Bolthor.
“Thank the gods!” exclaimed Tykir, who was already down the stone steps and hugging his old friend, who had jumped off the wagon and lifted Sister Margaret to the ground. Then Tykir lifted the giant and twirled him about with exhilaration.
“Put him down, you fool,” Alinor chastised her husband. “I want to hug him, too.” Tears were flowing freely down Alinor’s freckled face as she reached up and touched Bolthor’s leprous face adoringly. “I am soooo happy to see you, good friend.”
“Likewise,” Bolthor said and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on her cheek.
Eirik and Eadyth welcomed Bolthor with equal enthusiasm.
Then they all turned their eyes to the cart, where a grinning Sister Tostina beamed at them.
“Good Lord! You are the best-looking nun I have ever seen,” Alinor said.
Sister Tostina winked at her, then whipped off his veil and wimple. It was Toste, of course.
“I hope you have no Saxon nobles about, other than yourself,” Toste said to Eirik. “Otherwise, this two-day disguise of ours may be for naught.”
Eirik shook his head. “None but us here… for now.”
Tykir reached up to help Toste get down, but he waved his hand away. “First, I would like you to meet Sister Esme.”
“Huh?” they all said. It was becoming a common refrain this day.
Toste lifted the bottom half of his robe with a flourish and out crawled a woman… a nun, actually, who had been kneeling between his thighs. A beautiful nun with head rail askew and face flushed with humiliation stood and moved to the right so she was not directly in front of Toste, who stood, as well.
“Oh, now you have gone too far, Toste,” Alinor said.
“You have done some outrageous things in the past, but tupping a nun… in public?”
“This is as bad as the time he tried to seduce the caliph’s daughter atop a camel,” Tykir said, but it was obvious from the gleam in his eye he was not offended… either by the camel seduction or the nun tupping.
“What do you suppose she was doing under his robes?” Eirik asked Eadyth, and she smacked him on the arm.
“There is tupping, and then there is tupping,” Tykir answered for her.
It was Tykir’s turn to get smacked… by his own wife.
Sister Esme looked up at Toste. She looked at all of them standing in the courtyard with Bolthor. Then she looked at Toste again and said, “If you even blink at me in the future, let alone speak, I am going to cut off your manpart with a dull knife.”
The men in the courtyard winced.
But the ladies gave little cheers of encouragement. The women of the family ever did encourage independence of spirit in their females.
“Welcome to Ravenshire,” Eadyth said, stepping forth.
“Thank you,” Sister Esme said, jumping down off the cart after brushing off Toste’s offer of help. “I am Lady Esme of Evergreen. Please get me away from this oaf afore I kill him.”
“Hey, I am your champion. I am the one who saved you from your father. I am the brave knight who wore this ignominious disguise for you” Toste yelled to her back.
Lady Esme said a very vulgar thing then—not at all the kind of thing a nun should be saying. But of course the ladies clapped and the men grinned, including Toste.
Eirik decided then and there that this was going to be a very interesting yule season at Ravenshire.
Everything’s turning up roses. Thank God!…