Rough and Ready

  A short time later, he and his buddies, to the accompaniment of Pretty Boy on his lute-guitar, were belting out drinking songs. First, Garth Brooks’s old favorite, “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places,” which the Viking men loved and asked them to repeat three times. Then, The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” a particularly apt song for him and the other SEALs. They sang that one three times, too. By the time they got to “Crazy,” a mix of Patsy Cline and Aerosmith, they were all schnockered and more than a little bit . . . yep, crazy.

  He awakened the next morning with a big head. A big head that was resting on the hall’s trestle table where it had fallen the night before. His head felt the size of a pumpkin, and he could swear an AK-47 was ripping out ammo inside. His fuzzy tongue tasted like gammelost. And he suspected he was drooling.

  Can life get any better than this? Or worse?

  Turns out, it could. Try teaching four hundred Vikings with the ale head how to jog.

  Chapter 13

  Men will be boys . . . even Viking men . . .

  Hilda stood at the top of the motte, surveying the incredible scene down below, across the wide sward that led two hectares toward the fjord.

  Dozens of tents and small fires dotted the landscape where hundreds of Viking warriors stood about, eating, sharpening weapons, and practicing warfare skills. And here, in the section closest to the motte, a large group watched Torolf and his two cousins entertain the crowds.

  “What are the fools doing?” Hilda muttered to herself.

  “It’s a trick Max and all of his family members can perform,” Cage told her, coming up behind her on the drawbridge. “They claim they can do this in the middle of a battle, but, me, I doan know ’bout that.”

  Torolf stood at one end, about twenty paces from Steven, who stood twenty paces from both him and Thorfinn. Each held deadly lances in their hands. Torolf threw his lance with accuracy toward Thorfinn, who caught the spear, and, in one deft movement, twirled it about his fingers and threw the lance back at Torolf. Torolf, in turn, caught the lance, flicked it betwixt his fingers and sent it to Steven, who also caught it. Over and over, they performed this exercise, laughing like youthlings over silly games. Even the dour Thorfinn was mirthful today.

  Stig was tied to a tree off to the side, sitting and watching Torolf with an adoring expression on his dog face.

  “Torolf told me once that he has a great uncle, King Olaf, who perfected this talent, and all the rest of his family have learned to do it, too.”

  “ ’Tis a dubious talent.”

  Cage wore that ridiculous cowboy hat and boots. Who ever heard of a boy who was a cow? But he was a wickedly handsome man, ever jestful, just like Torolf. “I doan know ’bout that, chère. It sure impresses the ladies back home.” He waggled his eyebrows at her in a lackwit manner.

  “Speaking of your home . . . this Ah-mare-eek-ah, do you share Torolf’s assertions that it is a land far away in the future?”

  Cage’s mischievous expression turned serious. “Hard to believe, but it sure seems so. Either that, or we’re all in the middle of some fantastic dream. It’s gone on too long for it to be a joke, and, me, I’ve never had a dream with such detail.”

  Hilda still thought there had to be some other explanation. “Are you anxious to get home?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Do you have family there?”

  “Just my maw maw . . . that’s Cajun for grandmother.”

  “No wife or promised one?”

  “Nope, I like to play the field. Spread myself around.”

  She had to laugh at the rascal’s merry words. “And Torolf?”

  “Why not ask him?”

  “I have, but ’tis hard to know when he teases and when he tells the truth. The man does joke overmuch.”

  “Don’t judge a book by the cover.”

  “Huh?”

  “Max gives the impression of allus bein’ cheerful, but he’s deep, like all of us. I think he feels guilty fer havin’ a more privileged life . . . fer not bein’ here to help Norstead and his sister, Madrene. And he works damn hard to defend his country. Mostly, he’s a good friend to me, and good friends are rare.”

  “I did not mean to give offense.”

  His eyes were dancing merrily again. “I know that, but Max and I are very close. We finish each other’s sentences . . . can sometimes read each other’s thoughts. So, hurt him, and you hurt me, too.”

  “What makes you think that I could hurt Torolf?”

  “He cares about you, Hilda.”

  “Hah! He cares about what I have betwixt my legs.”

  Cage laughed and hugged her about her shoulders. “That, too, babe. But, seriously, my maw maw, she allus says, ‘The apple, she gotta fall from the tree sometime. ’ ”

  She was afraid to ask, sensing a trap. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that every man and every woman gots to bite the love bullet sometime.”

  “Love? I do not understand you by half, but one thing I do know, there is naught of love betwixt me and the lout.”

  “If you say so,” Cage replied with a grin. “Another thing my maw maw allus says, ‘Everyone gotta have a little joie de vivre in their life.’ ”

  “Jwah duh vee?”

  “Yeah, love of life. So, bit of advice here, bébé, let some of Max’s joie de vivre rub off on you. It’s a good thing.”

  Torolf saw them coming and set his spears aside. “Hey, Hildy, I have something to show you.” His eyes danced just as merrily as his friend Cage’s.

  She looked down below his belt to his zip-per and said, with a sauciness that was new to her, “I have seen all you have to show, knave.”

  Cage squeezed her shoulder and said, “Way to go, honey!”

  But Torolf got the last word in when he replied, with equal sauciness, “Wanna bet?”

  Just a little male bonding . . .

  Torolf and his buddies sat around a campfire with Thorfinn and Steven, sipping fine ale, following a day of hard military exercise.

  The two Norsemen had no knowledge of modern weapons or military maneuvers, but they were excellent warriors, just the same. All of the SEALs, himself included, had been impressed at how well they had kept up with a hard routine today. And, actually, the two men had taught them a thing or two about fighting, as well.

  “I know we believe in different types of fighting,” Torolf started off with his cousins, “but there are some basic tenets we all have to follow on this mission . . . or all bets are off.”

  “What tenets?” Thorfinn asked suspiciously.

  “First of all, we—the five of us—are U.S. Navy SEALs.”

  Steven grinned and made a barklike sound mimicking seals: “Ork, ork, ork!”

  “Not that kind of seal, lamebrain,” he remarked to Steven, not unkindly. It was hard not to like Steven. Hilda would say it was because they were cut from the same “jestsome” cloth. “SEALs is the name of an elite military group that stands for sea, air, and land.”

  Thorfinn studied him closely. “Why did you not just say so, instead of taking on that silly name?”

  Aaarrgh! “One of our integral exercises is based on CQD, or Close Quarter Defense. That’s what we insist be followed in taking Steinolf down.”

  “Insist? What gives you the right to insist?” Thorfinn again. The jerk!

  “Norstead is mine, and Amberstead belongs to Hilda. That gives me the right.”

  “You cannot win without our help,” Thorfinn pointed out. Torolf shrugged. Asshole!

  “Tell us what you have in mind,” Steven intervened, “and then we will all decide what is best.”

  “Your brother could take personality lessons from you,” Torolf told Steven.

  “Dost really think I care what you think of me?” Thorfinn gave him a superior, snoot-up-in-the-air glance of disdain.

  “That chip on your shoulder must really weigh you down.”

  “You do not even speak like a Viking anymore.”
>
  “Please!” JAM stood and raised his hands in the air like a referee or a priest. “Let’s calm down and work together.”

  Torolf and Thorfinn both grinned at each other. They’d enjoyed the verbal sparring.

  “CQD is a combination of martial arts, commando-style fighting, and spiritual focusing. It’s based on the idea of an inner warrior.” Torolf was having a hard time explaining modern military terms in eleventh-century language.

  “Speak clearly, cousin. Your words are clear as mud,” Thorfinn told him.

  “There’s one part of CQD that is important to us, and we think it has to be followed here. CQD can be explosively violent in one situation and mild in another. It’s called earned treatment. In other words, not all of the enemy deserve to be killed, and that decision has to be made on the spot. There may be people, even soldiers, in Norstead and Amberstead who do not deserve death.”

  Thorfinn drew his lips in thoughtfully. “It has always been my policy to spare women and bairns.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “How do you tell the good enemy from the bad?” Steven asked.

  At least Steven was allowing that there might be both.

  “If a man is coming at you with a weapon, of course, you kill him,” Geek interjected. “But what if some dumb fuck is shivering in a corner, wetting his pants? What if some men surrender, hands up? What if there are just too damn many of them to kill them on the spot?”

  “There has to be a difference. There has to be humanity,” JAM added.

  Thorfinn looked at JAM as if he’d sprouted two heads. “That is the most demented thing I have ever heard. Are you a priest or a warrior?”

  “Actually, JAM was a priest at one time, but that’s beside the point,” Torolf said.

  “Almost a priest,” JAM corrected.

  “As my maw maw allus says—” Cage began.

  And four SEALs groaned.

  Cage flashed them a fake glower. “As my maw maw allus says, ‘Ya cain’t tell the chipmunk from the squirrel till you got ’em in your crosshairs.’ ”

  “What in bloody hell did he just say?” Steven asked Torolf.

  “The same thing I just said. On-the-spot decisions need to be made about who deserves to be killed and who doesn’t.”

  “I am not going to put my men in danger,” Thorfinn insisted.

  “I’m not asking you to. Just be careful, and let us teach you how to make that split-second decision.”

  “Why should we do what you ask?” Thorfinn asked him.

  “In return, I give you Norstead.”

  “Whaaat?” Thorfinn was poleaxed by that generous offer. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I intend to leave here after the battle. If possible, me and my buddies are going back to America. It would be a favor to me, actually, if I knew Norstead was in good hands . . . in family hands.”

  “And Amberstead?” Steven asked.

  “I’m pretty sure Hilda would rather stay here, but that can be decided later.”

  Steven waved a hand in the air dismissively. “I will have Amberstead, one way or another. Either by gift or wedlock.”

  You overconfident dickhead! “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

  “I have wordfame with women,” Steven bragged. “Seduction is one of the gifts the gods have favored me with. In truth, there are ways to turn a woman lustsome for a man’s touch.”

  No kidding!

  Torolf heard his buddies snicker, but he barely restrained himself from belting his cousin.

  “If you are worried about Hilda, do not be,” Steven continued. “I would treat her well. And if she chooses to stay here at The Sanctuary, that is all well and good. I intend to bring my mistress from Norsemandy anyhow.”

  Torolf clenched his fists.

  “I need to visit the bathhouse,” JAM said, and the other guys stood up with him. Torolf remained sitting.

  As they were walking off, he heard Pretty Boy ask the others, “Do you think Britta would take a bath with me?”

  Laughter was his answer.

  Once his buddies were gone, Torolf took a deep breath. “There is something important I have to tell you. It’s about where I’ve been all these years . . . where my entire family has been. They are not dead.”

  Thorfinn and Steven gave him their full attention.

  “I have time-traveled to the twenty-first century to a land called America . . .” When he was done, a long silence followed as Thorfinn and Steven stared at him with a mixture of pity and disbelief.

  “Is this a jest, or have you gone barmy?” Steven inquired as he took a long, final draw on his horn of ale.

  As Torolf walked off then, he heard Steven say to Thorfinn, “Methinks we arrived just in time. Our cousin is destined for the barmy farm.”

  All bad things must come to an end . . .

  This was the day.

  Hilda could hardly contain her excitement as they approached Norstead with only the light of a half moon. Norstead was designed over many years in the hill fort style: concentric rings of walls and ditches around a central enclosure, all surrounded at the edges by moat and drawbridge. In front, there was a grassy sward used for military exercises.

  She, Torolf, Cage, a dozen women, and one hundred men moved silently through the forest in a series of trains. That was where a person carried a weapon in their right hand and kept the left hand on the shoulder in front of them, snaking their way forward. Torolf was the point man in front of her train and Cage the tail man in back. Cage had made jokes, which she did not understand, when first told he would be the tail man. They all watched for hand signals, which they had learned this past week to indicate silence, man up ahead, number of men up ahead, stop, spread out, ready weapons, those kinds of things.

  With silent signals to Torolf, Cage made his way, like a black shadow along the edges of the forest, then ran in a crouch to the moat on the side of the keep, which he crossed. Then he climbed up the timber sides with the agility of a cat. When he was at the top, he waved to Torolf, then disappeared. Another and another and another followed suit on both sides of the keep, moving stealthily. Dozens of the cousins’ hirdsmen had trained over and over for this part of the battle.

  The rest of them hid at the edge of the sward, following Torolf ’s signal to spread out two strides apart all around the semicircle of forest. A perimeter, it was called. Torolf looked at the ornament on his wrist and indicated it was not yet time. He then held up ten fingers, to show that it would be ten minutes till Thorfinn and his hird were at their appointed place near the rock wall, behind the keep. Steven would be at the ready, as well, at Amberstead.

  Their initial assault would be a combination of SEAL and Viking military methods. The leapfrog maneuver of Torolf’s special forces would get them in position of the Norse svinfylkja, or swine wedge, with its triangular tactical assault formation, its point facing the enemy.

  The drawbridge was already down . . . thank the gods . . . due to Steinolf ’s overconfidence. They needed to draw the sentries forward, away from their shields and guard wall. That would be her and Rakel’s job, along with a small band of Torolf ’s hird, which would pretend to be the assault soldiers, leading Norstead’s invaders in the wrong direction.

  They hoped.

  All of the men and the other women, except for her and Rakel, had their faces cammied up with mud and dirt to blend in with the forest. Blond hair was covered with hoods or scarves on male and female.

  Torolf raised a hand for her and Rakel to come forth. He was still angry with her for insisting on participation in this part of the battle. Well, there was naught new in that. He was ever fuming over one thing or another. She and Rakel dropped their fur mantles. Their hair lay loose over bare shoulders of deliberately indecent gowns. Torolf’s eyes took in her appearance, and despite the danger of their situation and the coldness betwixt them, she could see appreciation there. Or mayhap he was appreciating her suddenly buxom chest, which she had stuffed wit
h two balls of yarn. Yea, he noticed, all right. His lips were twitching with a grin.

  She and Rakel began to stagger drunkenly across the clearing, up to the moat, laughing and singing a bawdy song, with their arms over each other’s shoulders as if for support. The night air was cold, and they shivered with the chill, or more likely they shivered because they were frightened to the bone.

  “Who goes there?” a guard leaning over the parapet asked.

  Rakel looked up, pretended to sway, then fell on her rump, pulling Hilda with her. “Two merry maids,” she called up, ending with a very believable and loud hiccup. “Be there any merry men up there?”

  There was laughter and several more men joined the first, leaning over the parapet. “Are ye drukkinn?” one asked.

  “Nay, jist a bit tipsy from me uncle’s ale,” Hilda slurred.

  “Can we come in?” Rakel asked, also slurring her words.

  “Well, that depends,” the first guard said. “There are four of us and only two of you.”

  Rakel said something so vulgar that Hilda could scarce comprehend its meaning, something about what she could do with three men at one time.

  Much hooting laughter greeted her words.

  Rakel must have sensed her stare, because she turned to wink at her. “Men! They will believe anything when it comes to their precious manparts.”

  “Come in then, lassies. We have somethin’ fer you in here. Somethin’ big and hard. Ha, ha, ha!”

  “How disgusting!” Hilda muttered.

  Rakel pretended to try to stand, then fell back down. “Methinks I might need a bit of help here. First one here, gets me specialty.”

  Five sets of feet could be heard scuffling away, then pounding down some steps.

  “What exactly is your specialty?” Hilda asked.

  “Shhh. Later,” Rakel said.

  The men were rushing across the drawbridge, pushing at each other to be first. Just then, Hilda and Rakel heard a short bird whistle, the signal for the diversionary hird to come forth on the far side of the field. When they became visible, shooting arrows at first, then lances, she and Rakel rushed back away from the fighting, running toward Torolf and his hird.