Page 2 of Viking Unchained

“See, there is something I can teach my big brother.”

I seriously doubt that.

“I bought two of them.”

Here it comes. He lays the groundwork for one of his jests.

“Do you want one?”

Do not ask. ’Tis a trap. Still, he was curious and took one of them in his hand, amazed at the smooth heat it threw off. “Whatever for? Are you starting up a harem at Amberstead?”

“A harem? Hmmm. There is a thought.” He tapped his closed lips pensively with a forefinger.

Thorfinn could not be angry with his brother. In truth, if not for Steven, he would go insane at the bleakness of his life. “You will give Father Bart another attack of heart pains.” Vikings practiced both the Norse and Christian religions, and Father Bartholomew traveled betwixt Amberstead and Norstead, dispensing his priestly services, tut-tut-tutt ing whenever he heard references to the Viking gods.

Personally, Thorfinn thought they were one and the same. Father Bart considered Steven a libertine and told him so on every occasion, clutching his chest in exaggerated distress as he did so.

“No harem then.” Steven grinned, caressing the marble column in his palm. “They are sex-play trinkets.”

Thorfinn’s jaw dropped open. His brother never ceased to amaze him. Then, jabbing Steven with an elbow, Thorfinn laughed. “Come, let’s us walk off this camel piss. We must needs talk.”

“Should we not first express thanks to our host?”

Thorfinn glanced over to the stout Caliph reclining on a low divan with three half-nude females feeding him dates dipped in honey and fanning him with large palm leaves. “Methinks he will not miss us.”

Besides, he asked me earlier if I would rut with his second wife, who is barren. Not that Steven needs to know that.

With a silent signal to the half dozen of his shiphird, or “ship army,” in attendance to rise and follow after them, Thorfinn and Steven walked companionably out into the street and headed toward the outskirts of the city where their tents had been erected.

Despite the lateness of the hour, the streets were alive with activity. Light was provided by torches on tall spikes. Camels gr-onk, gr-onk, gr-onk ed their nasal cries. Exotic music wafted from various buildings . . .

discordant, twanging melodies. Braziers cooking lamb and vegetables on long sticks were offered to passersby, for a price, of course. Merchants, bowing low with obeisance, cajoled them to buy their wares from open and closed stalls. “Master, come smell these spices from the Orient.”

“May Allah bless you with many children . . . a certainty if you give your wife these fine silks from Miklagard. ”

“Amber from the Baltics, sweet Frankish wines, fresh dates and figs.”

“Ah, such fine virile young men! Surely, you need a female slave or two to warm your blood.” Yes, even men, women, and children were for sale. He had to drag Steven away from that one after seeing through an open curtain a nude slave girl performing a sex act on another nude slave girl.

He stopped several times to make purchases, which he ordered delivered to his campsite in the morning.

Saffron and tea. Several ells of fabric, which he would gift to his mother. Salted meats and fishes; the sailors left on his longship had been complaining about the hated old cheese known as Gammelost and roasted camel tongue, a delicacy the Norsemen failed to appreciate.

Steven bought an ointment that purported to enhance male pleasure in the bedsport.

“I would be damned afore I would put some unknown substance on my manpart. For all you know, it might shrivel it down to a nub,” he told the lackbrain.

His brother stopped, aghast, and tossed the ointment aside.

Several of his men dropped off to visit houses offering sexual favors. Of any kind! Acts were described aloud in explicit detail, along with their prices. He would not admit it to Steven, but he was not sure what some of them were.

Steven guessed his thoughts, though, and said, “I have no idea what that last one is either.”

Once they got back to the campsite, he went into his tent and brought out two mugs of mead he had brought from Norstead. Made by kinsmen of his at Ravenshire, the beverage was warm, of course, but still better than that camel piss.

Sinking down next to Steven onto a sea chest, he said right off, “I am going home on the morrow. Two months I have been gone, what with bad weather-luck and all. I cannot neglect Norstead any longer.”

Time for me to admit defeat.