She gritted her teeth at his remarks. "Pretty earring you are wearing. Are you not fearful that some might question your . . . um, manliness?"

As the heat on his cheeks rose, so did his anger. "The earring belonged to my father, and his father before him. Say what you want about me, but do not dare question the manliness of my sire and grandsire."

She shrugged. "How do you know we are pirates?"

Dumb as dirt! "If it looks like a snake, and slithers like a snake, must be it is a snake."

He could tell she did not like the comparison to snakes. "And a nun! What kind of nun does such devil's work?"

"I am not really a nun."

"Oh really?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you the one known as the Sea Scourge?"

Noticing the blush coloring her cheeks, he observed, "No purple hair that I can see. Open your mouth so that I can see your teeth."

She pressed her lips firmly together.

He stared at her chest then. "Hard to tell if you have three b.r.e.a.s.t.s under that loose garment, but it appears rather flat. I suspect you have none."

Her brow furrowed with confusion. "Three b.r.e.a.s.t.s?" She waved a hand airily then. "Never mind. This is a pointless conversation."

He told her, anyhow. "The Sea Scourge needs three b.r.e.a.s.t.s to suckle her three black cats."

"Are you demented?"

"Mayhap a little bit." He grinned. Despite his circ.u.mstances-as in, tied to a mast pole in the hot sun-he was enjoying himself. No, I am not. I am a captive. If anyone hears about this, I will be laughed out of every Norse port in the world. He forced the grin down and scowled at her.

"Let us start over on a more civil note," she said, smiling tentatively at him.

No horse teeth, he noted, and returned her smile with a continuing scowl before replying with fake sweetness. "Yea, let us do that."

She ignored his sarcasm. "My name is . . ." She paused. " . . . Medana."

"I have ne'er heard of any Christian saint named Medana. Nay, that is a Norse name. Therefore, you b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n h.e.l.l are not Sister Medana, lest you be one of Satan's mistresses."

"I already told you I'm not a nun. Your insistence otherwise is becoming tiresome."

So much for her polite approach!

"I must go change out of these stifling hot garments. Then we will have a little talk."

"Forget 'little talk,' you demented daughter of Loki," he told her. Loki, the jester G.o.d, was the closest the Norse religion got to demons. "You'd best talk quick and big if you value your life."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Her amused clucking sound and pointed gaze at his bindings were meant to emphasize that he was in no position to make threats. "Blather, blather, blather," she observed, but he saw the fearful twitch beside her mouth. A mouth that was sinfully full and pouty. Demonic, if you asked him. Which n.o.body did, least of all Sister Pirate.

Glancing around after she left, he took stock of his surroundings.

The sleek dragonship with a swan neck was clinker built with overlapping planks of oak. The women sat not on rowing benches, but on their sea chests, as was the pattern on most longboats, their oars moving nimbly through the placid waves now that there was a breeze lifting the sails. Primitive battle shields hung over the side. With good winds, a well-built Viking vessel could make a hundred miles in one day. He figured that they'd traveled more than that already.

Seabirds flew overhead, looking for food. Their presence was a clear sign that the ship traveled close to land, though he could see none from his position.

He had to admire the way the female crew worked together. It was a small longship with only twenty oars on each side, but the women rowers managed to weave the light craft smoothly over the waves with the aid of a square black and red sail that unfurled to catch the wind. The helmsman-rather helmswoman-steered the side-mounted rudder fastened to the starboard. Others worked diligently at their ch.o.r.es, tasks they'd been well trained to perform. Heaving buckets of water up to swab the deck. Repairing sailcloth. Honing small swords and lances. Keeping an eye on the horizon . . . for pirates? Thork smiled at his own silent jest.

A tall, slim woman emerged from the doorway of a makeshift chieftain's quarters wearing a red brushed wool tunic belted at the waist over black braies and tall boots. Her sun-lightened blonde hair was pulled off her face and lay in one long braid down her back. Her violet eyes, under thick, dark blonde lashes, studied him as she stepped closer.

He studied her right back.

The nun?

"I know you!" he declared suddenly.

Fear flickered in her eyes but only momentarily. "Nay, you do not," she a.s.serted.

He frowned with uncertainty. "Are you sure? As I recall, it was at King Haakon's court nigh on fourteen years ago. You were flirting with me, even though you were only a girling of twelve then, and I a virile fourteen."

"I ne'er did!" She did not smile, not even a little. No sense of mirth.

Well, his appreciation for mirth was running out, too. The humor in this captivity nonsense was wearing thin. "I strongly suspect who you are, and Medana was not the name you were given at birth. Nay, 'twas Geira, daughter of Jarl Edam of Stormgard."

"You have me confused with someone else," she insisted, suddenly engaged in pulling a loose thread from the hem of her tunic.

Was he wrong? Mayhap. But wait, unbidden, an old memory came to mind. "Lady Geira of Stormgard murdered a cousin of the king on the eve of her wedding, or so the story goes. Then she disappeared. Could that perchance be you?"

Rosy tints bloomed on the woman's sun-bronzed cheeks. "I have ne'er murdered anyone, and my name is Medana. I know who you are, though. Your reputation precedes you."

He arched his brows.

"Thork Tykirsson, the baddest Viking in the Norselands."

"Me?" He pretended affront. "I am no longer bad. I am on a quest to be good."

A small laugh escaped her lush lips before she caught herself. "How long have you been on this . . . quest?"

"Since last year."

"A whole year of being good? You must be suffering sorely."

"You have no idea." He rolled his eyes meaningfully. "You do know that I am going to have to kill you for this crime."

"What makes you think you will have the opportunity?" She stared at his restraints with an expression on her face that said clearly: You are in no position to make threats, Viking. "Do not mistake us for the weak females you have known in the past."

"No chance of that!" he scoffed, giving her an insulting head-to-toe survey, though, truth to tell, he did not find her body all that unappealing, even in men's braies. Especially in braies.

The rose in her cheeks deepened even more. "If you must know, your presence here is all a mistake."

"Oh?" This ought to be good.

"My women were disheartened over our shortened visit to the trading town, and so they decided to . . . to . . . to . . ."

"Have a stuttering problem, do you?"

She bared her teeth at him, then visibly made an effort to calm her temper. "They meant only to borrow you."

Surely she did not say what I think she said. "Borrow? Is that a new word for captivity?"

"Captivity? How silly! Ha, ha, ha!" She emitted a false, nervous laugh. "Truly, they only intended to keep you for a short time."

"How short?"

She waved a hand airily. "A few sennights."

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped before he managed to ask, "For what purpose?"

She looked away and appeared to be trying to find the right words. Finally, her gaze met his and he was struck by the violet beauty of her eyes, like a field of lavender he'd seen one time in the Highlands. "Um . . . harvesting."

"Um . . . harvesting what?"

He could tell she did not like his mimicking her, but she resisted the urge to make some snide remark. Instead, she revealed, "Man seed."

"I beg your pardon. You want us to plant seeds. We are not farmers."

"Not harvesting so much as breeding."

"Breeding what?"

"Babes."

"Aaarrgh!" If his hands were free, he would be pulling at his own hair. Getting a clear answer from her was like pulling a boar out of quicksand.

"If you must know, we live on an isla-on a mount-we live someplace where there are only women, and occasionally the women wish to bear children. Thus, they need men to plant the seeds. But they do not want them to be around after that."

There is an insult in that statement, I suspect. "Studs? You want men to do stud service? Like yon bull?" He glanced downward for emphasis.

The hatch door was open, and as if it heard him, the beast in the hold let out a loud bellow. One at a time, his men were being brought up on deck and tied to whatever stationary item the women could find. It took three women to bring up each man, five for Bolthor.

Jamie, the first one out, exclaimed, "Bloo-dy h.e.l.l! That cow's breath stinks like old haggis. Or gammelost." Gammelost was the loathsome cheese many Viking warriors often took on long treks. So repulsive was it that some said it turned men into berserkers.

" 'Tis not a cow, you dumb Scot," Finn replied, the next one out of the hold. Even as he scanned his surroundings, his eyes going wide with astonishment at the all-female crew, he continued sniping at Jamie. "Do you not know the difference betwixt a bull and a cow?"

"Cow or bull matters not a whit," Alrek inserted. He fell on his face before being helped to his feet by the women. "If we stay down here much longer, we will smell just as bad. Whoa! I ne'er saw so many muscles on women in all my life."

"We already do smell like s.h.i.t . . . s.h.i.tty animals," Bolthor remarked with his usual honesty. If the men were free, someone would have probably boxed his ears, if they could, which they probably couldn't, he being as big as a grizzly bear and all that. The five women dragging him out of the hold appeared to appreciate his size, however, if their murmured compliments were any indication. a.s.suming that "I wonder if all his body parts are as big as his feet" was a compliment.

Meanwhile his men were fighting their restraints, to no avail. He wasn't the only one growing more and more frustrated with this ridiculous captivity. He stared at the witch who was the cause of their discomfort and, recalling her comment about wanting them for their seed only, Thork repeated, "Stud service? You women want to be swived?"

If her cheeks got any redder, she might burst aflame. "Not me, but, yea, some of my women do."

"Without the men's permission?"

"Come now, when have men ever been so discriminating as to care whether they spill their seed hither or yon?"

"I care." And that was the truth. As wild and careless as he might have been in the past, there was one lesson his father had taught him well. Do not breed b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Or, leastways, a real Viking man takes care of his own.

She shrugged. "Then you are the exception."

"And you sanction this halfbrained idea?"

"Of course not."

He crossed his eyes. "Then release us. At once."

She shook her head. "I cannot do that."

Crossing his eyes had accomplished nothing; so he tried glowering. "Why not?"

"You will kill us, or take us captive."

"There is that," he agreed. After a pause, he asked, "So what is your plan?"

"Plan?" She shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

"Pfff! You have no plan," he guessed. "Listen, unless you want us to die in captivity, you must give us food and water. And an immediate concern is the need to p.i.s.s."

"You do not need to be so crude."

" 'Tis a fact of life, M'Lady Pirate. What goes in must come out, and we men were drinking last night. Some more than others."

She pondered his words, tapping those lush lips thoughtfully. "Well, we could bring you, one at a time, to the rail to relieve yourselves."

"What . . . you plan to tug down our braies and take our c.o.c.ks in hand, aiming seaward?" He had to laugh at the look of horror on her face.

"What would you suggest?"

"I would suggest that you release us and let us take care of the matter ourselves."

She shook her head.

In the end, four women were a.s.signed to each man, and they did in fact help the men take care of business, even down to the shaking of their staffs to remove any excess drops. It would have been undignified if it weren't so funny, especially when half of them got thickenings on being handled thus, causing the women to be more embarra.s.sed than the men. And Brokk developed a shy bladder, requiring some coaxing, which mortified the boyling.

A short time later, after being fed chunks of manchet bread and dried lutefisk, the eight men were left alone while the women went about their ch.o.r.es.

It was then that Bolthor decided the occasion called for a saga. "The Lady Was a Pirate," he announced.

"She was a lady, Or should I say matey?

Arrr! Ahoy! Thar she blows!

Shiver me timbers, and by jingos!