"I will tell you one thing," Bolthor said. "That bull gets anywhere near my a.r.s.e, and it will be roast bull for dinner tonight."

"What?" Brokk growled with frustration.

"They are just jesting," Thork told Brokk. I hope. Then he looked at Bolthor and groaned. He knew what that dreamy expression on the older man's face meant. The verse mood was coming upon him.

"Methinks I should compose a saga about this," Bolthor said.

They all groaned.

But then Bolthor added, "I have not felt the urge to compose a saga since I last saw my Katherine. Mayhap my heart is finally healing."

How could they protest now? Bolthor had been married late in life to a Saxon lady who owned an estate that raised, of all things, chickens. Lots of chickens. And children. Lots of children. Katherine's four from a prior marriage and then one of their own. Apparently, Katherine had booted Bolthor's big a.r.s.e out the door after he had composed one too many poems about her intimate body parts, the last being an ode to her gray-flecked woman's fleece. She'd issued an ultimatum to the giant skald. No more poems, ever, on any subject, or leave their marriage bed. She wanted him to settle down as a chicken farmer.

Being a Viking, and thus stubborn to the bone, he'd taken his wife's order literally and left not just their bed furs, but their home as well. He would show her! Leastways, that's what he had thought before thinking his actions through.

Bolthor had asked Thork if he could come with him on this trading trip to get away from his troubles and to bring some chickens to market. Apparently, he'd already saturated the Saxon market towns with the pestsome birds. Fortunately, Bolthor had finally sold the last of them in Hedeby and Thork had been able to clean the holds of his longships of the foul chicken s.h.i.t.

But now they were stuck with a bull. And bull s.h.i.t.

Is this where being good leads a Viking? Thork wondered.

But wait, Bolthor was clearing his throat.

"This is the saga of Thork the Great."

That was the way Bolthor started many his poems. Thork was no greater than the next man.

"A Viking man is born to be bad.

Plundering and pillaging, and might I add, Wenching and drinking, sailing and a-Viking, Wickedness untold does a Norseman bring.

But came a day one Viking man decided to reform, To please his father and new morals form.

No more bad deeds would this sorry soul perform.

Alas and alack, the Norns of Fate stuck out their big toes To trip up the man and add to his woes.

Mayhap the G.o.ds have another life map To restore the man's spirit with one last mishap.

Or mayhap 'tis just the G.o.ds' way of saying: Only a lackwit tries to sing A hymn So prim And bitter When wild is better."

"That was wonderful," Finn said. "Methinks you are improving with age."

Thork shot Finn a look of disbelief.

The others complimented Bolthor as well.

The bull bellowed. Thork wasn't sure if it liked the poem or not.

Enough was enough! Thork let loose with a loud bellow of his own. "Heeeyyyy! Open the b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n door, you witless wenches! Release us! At once! Lest you find yourselves at the bottom of the sea feeding the fishes."

"I'll lop off your barmy heads," Bolthor added in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, "even if you are demented women."

That's telling them!

"I have to p.i.s.s," Brokk yelled. "You better let me out. If I wet my braies, you'll be real sorry."

Oh, that feeble complaint is sure to bring some action!

"I would not make a good love slave," Bolthor added. "My wife will come after you with a meat cleaver." To Thork, he confided, "Leastways, I think she would."

She would. Katherine might be irritated with her husband at the moment, but that did not mean she would stand by and let another woman, or women, have him. An angry Katherine was like a ferocious lion, despite the gray-flecked nether curls. It wasn't the first time she and Bolthor had argued and parted. She always took him back.

Thork thought of something else as the bull continued to bellow and snort. A bull of that age and size must have cost plenty of coin. A precious cargo.

"Your bull is sickening," Thork hollered. "Best you check to see if he is dying."

Immediately the hatch door above them swung open, and a dozen women in men's garments stared down at them. It took him several moments of blinking to adjust his vision to the bright sunlight.

Not a one of the women could be considered comely. One was missing a front tooth. Another was as wide as she was tall. Still another was long in the tooth . . . way long in the tooth.

Just then a female voice above deck some distance away asked, "What is going on here?"

The women peering down at him glanced at the as yet unseen woman raising the question in an authoritative voice and said as one, "Uh-oh!"

Was it the Sea Scourge? And did she really have purple hair, horsey teeth, and three b.r.e.a.s.t.s?

"Uh-oh!" he echoed the female pirates.

There was going to be h.e.l.l . . . or Muspell . . . to pay . . .

It was past noon when Medana awakened in her sleep furs, and by then the ship was well out to sea. She was still wearing her nun garments that she realized with a sniff of distaste had become odorsome from body sweat in the heat of this confined s.p.a.ce.

How strange! Not just that she had gone to bed without removing her clothing or that she'd slept so long and deep, but that the women would set sail without waking her first.

Had she become drukkinn from just two cups of watered wine and a few sips of ale? She licked her dry lips and tasted something familiar. It was the sleeping herb her island healer often used to put a person to sleep while she sewed torn flesh or that one time she'd had to cut off two fingers of a women whose axe had slipped when cutting firewood. Medana herself had tasted it when one of her pounding head megrims had brought her nigh to her knees in pain.

But when . . . Ah, she realized suddenly. It must have been in the cup she'd been offered when she'd boarded last night.

But why?

There best be a really good reason.

Just then, she heard a loud bellowing noise. An unhappy bull.

But then she also heard other bellowing noises . . . ones that sounded like male voices. Unhappy male voices.

She frowned with confusion, then jumped up and rushed from her bed furs and out onto the deck. The dozen or so women who'd been gathered about the opening into the hold dropped the door and turned to stare at her with guilty innocence.

"What is going on here?" Medana demanded.

"Um," one of them said.

"The bull is a bit restless, that is all," another added.

Still another said, "There is naught for you to worry about. Mayhap you should go rest some more."

"I have rested more than enough. By the by, why did you not rouse me this morn before setting sail?"

Solveig stepped away from the rudder she'd been steering, handing it off to another woman, before she explained, "You seemed exhausted, and we wanted to show that we could do the work you have taught us."

Medana could not argue with that. Actually, Solveig was the one who'd taught all of them about shipbuilding and sailing, being the only child of a master shipwright who had been a hard and abusive taskmaster for his daughter.

"I should check on the bull. You know how much it is needed back at Thrudr. With good speed we will be there two days hence, just in time for our milch cows to be in heat. With the G.o.ds' blessing, there will be calves aplenty by autumn."

She was reaching for the latch on the hatch door when an angry male voice shouted from below, "Release us, you mangy excuses for women!"

Medana jerked back and turned to her crew, most of whom had suddenly become busy with other tasks. In fact, the rowers were rowing so fast their arm and shoulder muscles would be burning by nightfall.

"Is that a man down below?" Medana asked, narrowing her eyes with accusation at the women around her. Would they have dared to disobey the long-standing order to bring no men on board? Surely not!

Several male voices were shouting now. Not just one, as she'd first thought. Oh. My. G.o.ds! They did. This is bad. Very bad! "Have you lost your b.l.o.o.d.y minds?" she shouted.

In the silence that suddenly overcame her crew, she could clearly hear the men speaking loudly from below.

"I'll lop their heads off, just wait and see."

"I'll lop off her b.r.e.a.s.t.s . . . all three of them."

"Do they know who we are? Simple split-tails! Are they so lackwitted they would capture Nors.e.m.e.n?"

"They have got themselves boars by the tails now," another added. "Mayhap you should write a saga about that, Bolthor. f.e.c.kless wenches and boars' tails."

"Are you saying my tail looks pig-like?" another male inquired with a laugh.

Still another man added, "Didst know that a pig's c.o.c.k is shaped into a spiral, but when extended, it is as long as a boat."

"Finn, you are an idiot," someone else said.

Medana inhaled sharply and addressed her women, "Exactly how many boars' tails do we have below?"

"Three or four or so, methinks," Bergdis offered, a rosy blush rising on her already ruddy cheeks, which matched her bright red hair.

"Exactly how many?" Medana insisted on knowing.

"Eight," Gudron revealed, raising her square chin defiantly. "We would have taken more, but these men are so big they filled the hold. No room for more, especially with the bull."

Eight! "Why in the G.o.ds' name would you do such a thing?"

Elida, usually a docile creature who directed her weavers with a gentle touch, put now-roughened hands on her hips and raised her chin high, just like Gudron, except she was much shorter and the effect not so dramatic. "We did not have near enough time with the men on this visit. We are just borrowing them for a while until some of us are breeding. Then we will let them loose."

The others nodded, as if this was a logical explanation for their insanity.

"Bo-borrowed?" Medana sputtered. "What do you think these men-Vikings, at that-are going to think about a group of women borrowing them?"

"Surely they will not object once they get accustomed to the idea," Bergdis declared with a big smile that she immediately covered with the fingers of one hand. She was ever conscious of the gap in her mouth where one front tooth should have been, thanks to her husband who liked to batter all his wives when under the ale influence. Bergdis, her redhead temper tested one too many times, had reciprocated, taking out not one but two of her husband's rotten teeth. That's when she'd fled to Medana's sanctuary.

"Besides, didst ever know of a Viking man who would reject a good tupping when it's on offer?" Solveig asked. She should know, having been a paid harlot for a short period after running away from her father.

Much laughter greeted her words.

Medana leaned down and yanked hard on the latch, pulled the door up and over to land on the deck with a loud thud. It took her several moments in the bright sunshine to make out the figures below.

There were in fact the bull and eight rather large Vikings glaring up at her.

One of them, who appeared to be the leader, dropped his jaw and exclaimed, "Good G.o.ds! Captured by barmy b.i.t.c.hes and a nun!"

Another one, a giant of a man with only one eye, said to the first one, "Dost think it a sin to lop off the head of a nun, Thork? Would it be so bad under the circ.u.mstances?"

"Who cares!" Thork replied. "I am d.a.m.n tired of being good."

Chapter Three.

Some women borrow a cup of sugar; others borrow men . . .

Thork was taken out of the hold, then retied to the mast pole. The nun chieftain-ess of this barmy band was a.s.sisted in the task by five of her burly crew members. Thork had not seen so many well-muscled women in one place in all his life. The one who wore war braids on either side of her scowling face looked as if she could heft an acorn-stuffed, pregnant boar with little trouble, much less a Viking man.

There were only females aboard this ship, doing all the jobs traditionally reserved for men. And judging by the cloth bags overflowing with gold and silver objects over there, the swords that were placed by each of the sea chests, and the scurvy appearance of some of the women, who wore colorful cloths about their heads, tied at the nape, he could only surmise that they'd been a-Viking.

Or pirating.

He was the only one who'd been brought out thus far after his men gave him up as the Sea Serpent's owner. The traitors! Bolthor was composing sagas as fast as his thick brain could work. "When Pirates Grow b.r.e.a.s.t.s." "Three Teats in a Row." "Row, Row, Row Your Cradle." "She Pumped the Waves, Not a b.u.t.ter Churn." "Have You Ever Swived a Pirate?" "Ahoy, Sweet Mateys!" And his men, instead of being outraged at their predicament, were laughing like hyenas.

"You should be pleased," Bolthor had advised when Thork had snarled at the women trying to drag him upward. "Your boredom is surely gone now."

Thork had advised Bolthor on what he could do with his unruly tongue.

"Pirates!" he'd stormed at the nun leader when he was secured. "Women are not made to do men's work." He glanced pointedly at the oarswomen panting as they moved the heavy oars. "Least of all pirating." He could not be too critical of pirating itself since he'd engaged in the enterprise himself for a time . . . for a good purpose. But women as pirates? Pfff! " 'Tis against nature."

She'd just arched her brows at him as if to say, Oh really?

If there was anything Thork disliked, it was a woman with a snide att.i.tude. "Aren't you a little long in the tooth for such nonsense?" he asked, guessing she had to have seen more than twenty winters, possibly more than twenty-five. "At your advanced age, you should be home tending babes and caring for a husband, not roaming the seas like lunkhead sailors. Or praying your beads back at the convent. Surely it is a mortal sin for a sister of G.o.d to steal, is it not? Or, G.o.ds forbid, kidnap men."