"If my brother Sigurd discovers Agnis's whereabouts, a war will ensue. That, I guarantee."

"Why would your brother care about Agnis? Was she one of his wives?"

"She was a thrall that he took to his bed furs."

"Unwillingly?"

"Hah! Do thralls have any choice?"

He shrugged. Thralldom was a fact of life, and not just in Viking lands.

"He will be especially angry if he discovers that Agnis harbors his son Egil."

"h.e.l.l and Valhalla! You women really are barmy. I cannot deal with this now. We will discuss everything later. And try not to pop any more surprises on me."

Here's a surprise, lackwit. "What if I am with child?"

He released an exhale of relief. "That is a problem you need not worry over. I told you that spilling man seed outside the body is an almost foolproof method of preventing childbirth."

"But you didn't."

He c.o.c.ked his head to the side. "Didn't what?"

"Pull out. That last time."

"That's impossible. I always . . ." The horror on his face would have been mirthsome if she wasn't so horrified herself.

It was a dark and stormy night . . .

The rains finally came, and came, and came on the tail of driving winds that would leave damaged crops, fences, and trees. More deadfall for the women to cut for firewood. Hopefully, Thork would be long gone by then.

Or would he?

Everyone was asleep by now, except him and Bolthor, who sat by the hearth fire in the hunters' hut, a necessity on this chill night. After all the hard work preparing for the storm, the men had been exhausted. Their snores and sleep snuffles were background noise to the crackling fire.

He'd just told Bolthor what he had done, or not done, to Medana, seeking the old man's advice. The skald did have five children betwixt him and his wife, four of them from her previous husbands, now long gone to the Christian Heaven, or wherever their life deeds had sent him.

"Could you in good conscience leave Medana knowing she might be carrying your seed?" the skald asked.

"That is what keeps me awake this dark night."

"I can tell you this, I married at a young age, but I lost my wife and two little daughters." Thork started to ask him a question, but Bolthor raised a halting hand. "Nay, I do not discuss that dark time in my life, but that is why I never planned to wed again, or have more children. I love Katherine's children and the one of my loins. I love them all, and that is a fact. I miss them sorely." Tears filled his one eye.

Thork pressed a hand to Bolthor's shoulder. "Soon, my friend. Soon, you will be home again."

Bolthor nodded, then grinned. "The reason I am telling you is this, my boy. Having a child is a blessing. Do not miss it. Besides, your mother would kill you if she learned you had a child somewhere not under your own roof."

"I have no roof." Well, land, but no buildings. Yet.

"Dost think that matters? Believe me, I have witnessed your mother's wrath." Bolthor, being closer in age to Thork's father, had been friends to his parents for a long time. In fact, Bolthor had served with Tykir in the Battle of Ripon, where he lost an eye and his father had sustained a thigh wound that caused him to still limp on occasion. "I recall the time your mother got infuriated by Rurik's constant harping on her being a witch, which she was not, as you know." Rurik was Jamie's father. "She nigh scared the spit out of him by inserting an eel skin under her gunna trailing on the ground, because witches are said to grow tails on occasion. Then there was the time she took sword in hand and . . ." On and on, Bolthor related tales of his mother's fiery temper. He had heard them all before.

"What concerns me more than my mother's reaction is Father's."

Bolthor nodded. "He will have further disdain for his wild son."

More important, Thork realized, Can I, a man of honor, abandon my child, or the mother of my child, living hand to mouth on this G.o.dsforsaken island? He put his face in his hands and groaned. "How did this happen?"

Bolthor laughed.

"I know how it happened, but why now did I slip after all these years of practicing controlled l.u.s.t?"

"Medana," Bolthor replied.

"Nay, I cannot blame her."

"I meant that 'tis Medana herself," Bolthor explained. "She made the difference."

Just then, a wet splat of rain hit Thork's head and he shifted slightly on the bench. One thing they'd discovered right off when the rains had started was that the roof leaked. In lots of places. Those men sleeping about the room had to continually move their sleep furs to evade new leaks. One more thing to fix on the morn.

Thork stood and yawned widely. "Time to get some sleep. You too, old man. There will be much to do come daylight."

Bolthor agreed, standing, and then laying a fur along the bench they'd been sitting on. Would it be wide enough and long enough to hold the giant? Not Thork's concern.

When he entered the added room, the air was cold as a troll's a.r.s.e on an iceberg, not having a fire in there. He shivered and removed only his boots before sliding between the two furs that warmed Medana on the bed, one under and one over.

He thought she was asleep until she said, "Touch me and I will cut off your b.a.l.l.s with the knife I have under my pillow."

Chuckling, he moved closer, his one foot touching her leg.

"By the runes, you are cold," she said.

"And you are warm." He snuggled closer, despite her warning. He'd been threatened with worse weapons and survived. Soon her warmth heated him and he yawned again with the need for rest. Just before he fell asleep, he murmured, "As for the baby, Medana, you are not to worry. I will not abandon you."

"You idiot!" she replied. "I want you to abandon me."

"You are under my shield now, sweetling."

She told him what he could do with his shield and it was not a pleasant picture. Still, he was smiling as he fell asleep, his big body wrapped around her smaller one. At first, she lay stiff as a pike, but in time she relaxed.

During the night, his hand somehow strayed and lay across her flat belly. And stayed.

If it's not one thing, it's another . . .

The storm damage was not so bad. Mostly cleanup of debris, repairing thatch roofs, and chopping deadfall into firewood. Medana conceded, with ill grace, that the men had been a G.o.ds' send in terms of all their help. It would have taken the women alone a sennight to accomplish what they'd done in one day with the men helping.

Fortunately, Sigrun and Salvana and their dog Bear had managed to get through the tunnel in the midst of the storm. The men would help repair the damage on Small Island after the tunnel opened tonight.

The question was: Would the men be taking Pirate Lady with them?

The women vastly outnumbered the men, and they could hold them off for a while, but the men were far superior fighters. In the end, the men would do what they wanted to do. Craftiness went only so far. Besides, in the end, it was the right thing to do . . . to release them willingly. Some pirate I am!

Their fate was in the men's hands now.

Truth to tell, some of the women were becoming way too accustomed to the men's hands. Medana had awakened during the night to find Thork's hand on her belly, and she'd done naught to remove it. There was much to be said about the calloused hand of a Viking man and the wicked pleasure its friction could give a woman. There was also much to be said about the gentle hand of a Viking man placed over a woman's belly, as if in protection. Was this related to that silly shield business?

Thork was gone from the bed by daylight when Medana had awakened to find the bed furs tucked around her, like a cozy coc.o.o.n. She'd tried to avoid him today because, frankly, she was still blistering furious with him for luring her into s.e.x with the promise of them keeping their longship . . . or the inferred promise.

But now he was approaching her at the side of the hunters' longhouse where she'd been hanging clean clothing on the various bushes. Brokk had helped her for the past few hours to boil them in an enormous laundry kettle over an open fire. There were plenty of limbs and leaves to keep the water hot for another hour or so.

It was tedious work that she normally delegated to the mistress of laundry when down in the village. But she did not set herself so far above others that she would not do menial ch.o.r.es. Besides, her other choice had been to gut an enormous amount of fish that had been caught in nets at the pond entrance to the tunnels. During a storm, fish were often thrust inland, out of their usual sea environment.

Thork caught her still doing laundry around noon, and the first thing out of his fool mouth was "Are you or are you not?"

"What? Angry?"

"Nay, not angry. I already know you are angry. I meant, with child."

Her face heated with color. "How would I know?"

His face bloomed with color, too. By the looks of him-damp tendrils escaping his hair clubbed off his face, perspiration beading his forehead, damp stains on the underarms of his tunic-he had been working hard, too. "The usual way," he offered hesitantly.

"Thork! It has been only one day."

He shifted from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.

She was uncomfortable, too.

"Women sense these things, don't they?"

"I hardly think they do any sensing after one day."

"Well . . ." More foot shifting. "When will you get your next monthly flow?"

For the love of Frigg! "I do not know. A sennight or so, I suppose."

He nodded. "I will have to wait until then."

"And then what?"

She could tell he wasn't expecting that question. His brow furrowed with concentration.

"If I am breeding, what will you do?"

He stared at her for a long moment. "I have no idea. Marry you, I guess."

"Oh really? And would I have any say in that decision?"

"Of course. I mean, would you not want to make your . . . our child legitimate?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"Would you expect me to be a docile bride like that young girl in Hedeby? Stay home while you gallivant all over the world, free as a bird whilst I stayed here, or at your estate, just waiting with bated breath for you to return and grace me with your wonderful presence. Wouldst you expect me to give up pirating to become a docile bride?"

Gallivant? What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is gallivanting? And docile? She wouldn't recognize docility if it bit her on the nose. That's what he thought, but he told her, "Sarcasm ill suits you, m'lady."

"I'll tell you what ill suits me, you b.l.o.o.d.y idiot. I would not marry you if I were carrying ten of your children."

Further conversation was forestalled by Alrek rushing forward, and almost landing in the laundry kettle.

"A strange ship has arrived," he announced as he panted for breath. "The folks aboard have alighted and they are walking about Small Island."

Thank the G.o.ds that Sigrun and Salvana were safe here on Thrudr. Usually the ships that normally stopped for water or to deliver or pick up messages sent only one or two men to sh.o.r.e.

"Is there a flag on the ship?" Thork asked.

Alrek nodded vigorously, still trying to catch his breath.

"The Dragonstead flag," Alrek finally told them.

"My father has arrived," Thork concluded.

Medana did not look happy at all about this latest happenstance.

Chapter Eighteen.

Fantasy Island, it was not . . . or was it? . . .

They had arrived on Small Island following a storm that had kept them landlocked in the market town of Kaupang. And now there was no one to be found on the island.

"This is probably another of Thork's warped attempts at humor. My instincts were correct at the start. We have come on this wild chase for naught." Tykir had been griping ever since his longship had left the wharves at Dragonstead. More so when they'd had to stay another day in Kaupang to avoid the storm.

"Blather, blather, blather," was Alinor's response, although she was disappointed, as well. Of course she was. But, unlike her husband, she didn't immediately lay the blame on Thork's shoulders.

She had insisted on coming ash.o.r.e with Tykir and some of his seamen, along with Starri, Guthrom, and Selik. All they'd discovered was a ramshackle hut that had been damaged by the storm, remnants of a vegetable garden, and evidence that someone had been living on the small island until recently. Obviously, the inhabitants had sought refuge somewhere else until the rain abated. But where? And when would they return?

Further troubling Alinor was the question of how Thork and seven other Viking men could have been living on this small s.p.a.ce, along with a bunch of female pirates. They would have been "elbows to a.r.s.es," as her husband was wont to say. It was a puzzle, and Alinor did love a good puzzle.

While the seamen who'd come ash.o.r.e with them were piling fallen limbs and other debris to make a fire, her husband was bent over at the waist, examining some animal scat with a stick. "I think there must be a bear living on this island."

"It's probably bird droppings."