“A woman who is so doggedly determined to get her home back at any cost might be tempted to use her body as a bargaining chip.”
“Like a prostitute? That is what you think of me?”
“Absolutely.”
He saw tears well in her eyes at his insult, but he did not care. The woman had unmanned him with her trickery. She was a whore, if not in actuality, then in spirit.
They had no chance to pursue the subject further because there was a commotion outdoors. Then all hell broke loose. His own personal hell, that is.
Eirik, Tykir, Bolthor, Eadyth and Alinor crashed into the small room. The men’s heads touched the low ceiling. All of them were bunched close together gaping at the outrageous sight of him tied to a bed with only a fur pelt across his middle to cover his nudity.
All five of them just gawked for a long moment. Then slow smiles crossed all their faces.
Without his usual introduction, Bolthor burst forth:
“Once was a maid
who tricked a lad.
Tied him to a bed,
bent him to her will,
with a smile and a wink.
But how did a Viking
get himself in this position?
Methinks he was thinking
not with his head brain,
but with his “other” brain.
That is the downfall
of many a Viking.”
“Good poem!” Alinor said.
“So, how are things going, Toste?” Eirik asked, sitting at the bottom of the bed. “Anything new happen whilst we’ve been gone?”
“Dost think we can play this game when we get back to the keep?” Alinor asked Tykir.
“We’ve already played this game afore,” Tykir reminded her.
Alinor didn’t even blush as she replied, “Oh, that is right. Now I recall.”
“Sarah and Sigrud would like for you to dance with them at the yule feast, Toste. Dost think you will be up by then?” Eadyth inquired sweetly as she batted her lashes at him.
“He is too old for the girls,” Eirik told his wife.
“That is what I told them,” Eadyth said.
“Does anyone want to hear another saga?” Bolthor asked
“No!” they all exclaimed.
“Do not dare to go through that door,” Toste ordered as he saw Esme edging toward escape. “Bolthor, block her way.”
Of Eirik he demanded, “Cut my ties.”
When he was standing free, uncaring of his nudity, he ordered all of them, “Out! Except for you, Esme. You will stay.”
“Now, Toste, do not be too hard on her—” Eadyth began.
“You will not interfere in this, Eadyth,” he told her. “Nor you, Alinor. This is betwixt me and her. Begone!”
Both Eirik and Tykir led their protesting wives away, and Bolthor followed, chuckling and no doubt composing a dozen verse poems, all at Toste’s expense.
Within seconds, he was alone with Esme in the hut.
He could have put his braies on at this point. He should have put them on. He did not. He wanted to intimidate her with his nudity, or anything else, for that matter.
To give her credit, she did not cower in fright. Instead, she raised her chin defiantly, ready to take whatever punishment he would deliver. She was either very brave or very dumb.
He moved toward her.
She sidled away from the door, closer to the fire.
He leaned back against the door, folded his arms over his chest and crossed his ankles. Then he just stared at her.
She did her best to look back at him, but only above the waist.
What to do with the wench? Well, actually, he had ideas aplenty. The question more accurately was: What to do with her first?
“Take off your clothes, Esme,” he said so softly that the ice in his voice could barely be discerned.
“What?” she squawked.
“You heard me. Take off your clothes. I would even the battlefield here—for the first time in ten days, I might point out.”
“You can kill me with my clothes on,” the obstinate witch said. “I do not mind if you bloody my gunna.”
“Take… off… the… damn… clothes.”
“You don’t have to yell,” she muttered as she began to disrobe.
Yell? The gall of the woman. He would say she had a death wish if she hadn’t depleted her lifetime supply of death wishes by her vile treatment of him these past ten days.