Walking around in the bright midday sun with a wagon full of stinking animal fat was not my idea of a pleasant time.
I’d been collecting it for months, from every source I could, rendering it in small amounts so as not to be suspicious. If I suddenly accumulated a large amount of tallow, people would question what I needed so much for.
Until we were ready to reveal our plan, I had to make sure no one suspected a thing.
Which meant that some of it had soured. It was just animal fat, after all, and that stuff didn’t keep forever.
Once it was boiled down again and coating the ship, it would be fine; it’d harden and provide a nice, waterproof seal for the planks.
I just didn’t expect it to be this unpleasant before we reached that point.
When Leif stopped by and said they’d finished the construction, he had honestly impressed me.
He had a tendency to flake off, so I hadn’t really taken him at his word he’d show up and work.
Of course, he then confessed that Brenna had assisted, and then I understood. Leif had the heart of a poet, and he was just searching for a woman to write a ballad about. The light in his eyes, the excitement that radiated from him, suddenly made more sense.
I’d never been a romantic, even at his age. Before I asked a woman to devote her life to mine, I intended to have a name I’d earned, recognition, wealth I could offer her. There had been one I was interested in, but she wasn’t content to wait for me to make my name first. I refused to wed a woman and leave her and my child without comfort while I took off to seek my fortune.
This season, I was sure, would make all the difference. In Skarde’s ship, we could not shine.
Despite the accomplishments of many, he only praised himself and a single other when he had the Jarl’s ear. To his mind, his entire ship existed to make him wealthy, to help him look good in front of the Jarl. After two seasons of sending more men to Valhalla or whatever gods they worshipped than anyone else in that boat, I would no longer spill my blood for Skarde to suck up to the Jarl.
Of course, Brenna had prevented us from dispatching him, which was both infuriating and fascinating. She didn’t know what a bastard he was, so it made sense for her to intervene if her intuition took issue with the scene she found. There was no way we could explain to her in a satisfactory way what a despicable human being Skarde truly was. Then she bested Bjorn at sword, but didn’t want to kill him.
That told me two things: she was both incredibly skilled to have beaten such a large, powerful man, and she had a distinct sense of honor. Both nuggets were fascinating, and I stored them away for later use.
Then, to discover her on Bjorn’s farm seemed like quite a coincidence. Bjorn explained how she’d come to stay with them, and she certainly seemed dedicated to performing her duties while I’d observed her. She was far heartier than most women of her stature; the plow was difficult to steer, heavy, and straight rows required complete mastery of oxen who were notoriously stubborn beasts and keen to wander whichever way the wind blew.
That she’d essentially completed all three of Bjorn’s fields in three days, with little help from him, was nothing short of miraculous. She’d certainly appeared at exactly the opportune time; Bjorn was behind on his farming, behind on the boat, and didn’t want to leave his sisters without someone he could trust who could defend them properly.
This mysterious woman had appeared out of the storm and, with one broad stroke, solved all of his problems.
I was cautiously curious, but something about her felt off. Just her presence rose the hairs on the back of my neck, alerting me to something out of the ordinary. She was not some regular, unfortunate stranger that washed up on our shore looking to start a new life.
There was more to this story, secrets she was keeping.
And I intended to get answers.
*
Brenna
*
When Soren appeared with his horse pulling a wagon of tallow mixed with piles of raw fat, I honestly didn’t know what I was in for. Maybe I didn’t know, or maybe I had blocked the memories from my conscious mind.
Either way, I could definitely say now that cooking sour animal fat for sealing a boat was absolutely foul, and I hoped I never had to do it again.
The first part wasn’t too bad. Leif had shown up with two large bags of dried moss to fill the cracks between the planks on the ship, and a handful of fragrant pale purple blossoms, which he presented to me with rosy cheeks.
It took me aback at first, but I accepted the gift and his delicate attempts at flirting throughout the day. I placed the flowers in a cup and they soon filled the longhouse with their fragrance. Leif seemed determined to stay by my side, work where I worked, and tried to attend and anticipate my needs.
Which is how he ended up stirring the stinking vat of tallow with me. His shoulder length hair was half-tied today, the golden strands brushing his collarbone while his bare arms and shoulders worked. The youngest, and leanest, of the three, Leif was no lightweight. He appeared slender compared to the other two, but I could appreciate the fine musculature of his form. He’d eagerly offered to take a turn stirring the tallow for me and soon discovered it was far more difficult than expected. When sweat had soaked through patches of his shirt, he opted to dispense with the garment altogether, and I got to enjoy the view.
I’d imagined him as a catwalk model when we first met, but he was far too muscular to fit that mold. Wide, powerful shoulders, keenly developed pectorals lightly dusted with fine golden hair, tapering to absolutely astounding abs that glistened with a sheen of sweat as he worked. I focused on shredding the dry moss and tried not to get caught staring, or drooling, in his direction. The image that kept popping into my mind was Michaelangelo’s David. Aside from the curls, I felt as if I were looking at a Norwegian version of the pinnacle of male perfection.
Leif glanced up from his stirring and caught me looking. His cheeks colored under the scrutiny, but held my gaze as if to say, “Do you like what you see?” And then it was my turn to blush. To be honest, I liked it very much.
Part of me felt like a dirty old woman. Here I was, thousands of earth years old, ogling a man who had barely lived twenty of those. The comparison was even more disturbing when I considered how sweet and innocent he was, truly. There was a purity to his soul that shone from his eyes, and it drew me in like a moth to a flame. I yearned for that kind of innocence.
Men I’d dated in the last few decades before Odin sent me back had seemed far more worldly, far more jaded, even at Leif’s age. They’d already had and lost their first love, grown cynical in the face of global warming and corporate greed and manipulative politicians.
In this world, at this time, Leif was of an age where he should have started a family already, or at least be working toward one.
Truthfully, it was interesting that all three of them were without wives. Life was brutal and short in the viking age, and people here were considered adults at an age when they weren’t even paying their own bills in the future I’d left behind. There was something more to these three men than just friends. The spread of their ages, clearly different backgrounds and interests, would seem to make them all unlikely to band together.
And yet, here we were.
Bjorn and Soren were busily cooking the fat that still needed to be strained, working the delicate process together. We’d set the cook fires up in the dirt patch outside the barn, as close as we dared to avoid setting the entire structure ablaze. Soren, the shortest of the three but by far the most muscular for his size, had his back to me. He held a tightly woven cloth over the pot while Bjorn poured the cooked fat over it, slowly straining out the bits of animal meat and fur that had still been attached. Bjorn had also shed his shirt; although he didn’t have an impressive display of defined abdominals, it was clear his body was solid muscle. His wide back flexed under the strain of leveraging his giant ladle to pour the liquid slowly through their straining cloth. His body was turned sideways, revealing the sheer girth of his barrel chest and solid core. A slight depression ran down the center of his body from bulging pectorals to his naval, dividing his belly into two solid walls of muscle. As I watched, a trickle of sweat dribbled down his body, appearing below his sandy tuft of chest hair and running the gauntlet of muscles until it soaked into his waistband.
My mouth watered, and I swallowed down the lust that suddenly flared up in my gut. In a different time, a different place perhaps, I would climb that man like a tree. I knew without a doubt he’d never experienced the things I could do to a man… it was easy to see in his stern expression. He hadn’t known great sex in his lifetime. Yet.
Leif either. I was almost willing to bet he was a virgin. Someone that sweet… I just couldn’t imagine him rolling in the hay with the local milkmaid for kicks. He’d be hopelessly in love with the first girl who bedded him, and devoted to her forever.
Soren… there was a depth to him, a darkness. After so many years judging men’s souls, and then a thousand years living among them, I could read him plain as day. He was a hardened man at the tender age of twenty-five. Perhaps he’d lost his first love tragically—something had made him the way he was. And yet something told me he would be a fantastic tumble in the sheets.
After the hundreds of lovers I’d had in my lifetime, I could absolutely say I’d experienced it all. Granted, there were some kinks I was simply not interested in throughout the years, but for the most part, I had an impressive list of check marks on my ‘been there, done that’ list. I enjoyed a wonderful variety, and I usually picked a lover that suited the personality I’d assumed.
My fingers were numb with shredding dried moss, and there was still so much more to do. I amused myself by imagining each of these three in bed. Leif would definitely be the sweet, attentive lover. Eager to please, begging for direction on how to satisfy his partner. Bjorn would be the more traditional ‘get the job done’ type. It would take a firm hand, but someone could definitely teach him a few things. And Soren…
A shiver ran down my spine, complimenting the clench in my belly. Soren would not be the gentle, romantic one. He’d be aggressive, commanding… absolutely a take-charge type.
Even as lovers, I imagined them all so differently. My curiosity was growing; I really wanted to know what bound these three together.
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