Free The Pirate Bride by Sandra Hill Page B

they each claim to be equal. As if feeding chickens and swordplay require the same measure of talent!”
    “Good gods!” Thork said.
    “Now that you mention it, Lilli said something about being mistress of indoor stewardship, whatever that means.”
    “Just so I do not get seduced by mistress of the privy,” Alrek said as he slapped a hand on his knee with glee at his rare venture into the land of mirth. He missed his knee and spilled ale all over the crotch and thighs of his braies.
    Several of the men shivered with distaste at the idea of a privy mistress. Some even held their noses with distaste.
    “I still say one of the titles might be mistress of sex, especially mistress of sexual perversions,” Jamie insisted.
    Jostein reached over and swatted him on the side of the head. “Dreamer!”
    Jamie just grinned, taking no offense.
    “Back to the subject of our being studs for their wicked ends.” Thork tried to get back on track. “Will you risk never knowing if you have a child, let alone never seeing him or her?” Thork couldn’t believe that he of the wild reputation was giving lectures on proper behavior.
    Alrek, who had been responsible for his younger orphaned brothers and sisters from the time he was a mere twelve years old, clearly valued family. “They will not get my seed.”
    “What will you do when one of the wenches has your cock in her hands and her thighs spread wide?” Thork asked.
    Alrek’s face bloomed with color under his sun-bronzed skin. “I will think of a winter storm on the high seas with ice crusting the oars and wind whipping at the sails. That should cause any cock to wilt.”
    They all laughed.
    “I realize that many men fornicate freely without regard for any children they might beget, but my father always taught me to take care that I do not spill my seed in fertile fields, lest I plan on caring for the harvest for many years thereafter.” Forget lectures. Now I am quoting my father . . . after all these years of trying to put distance betwixt us.
    “What makes you think we would be unable to return for any child of ours?” Finn asked Thork distractedly while cleaning under his fingernails with the point of his small knife.
    “Do you know where we are?” Thork addressed his question first to Finn, then to the rest of the men.
    They all shook their heads, as understanding came to them.
    “There isn’t a chance in Muspell that they won’t do everything in their power to keep this location secret,” Jostein concluded for them all.
    “That is our first goal then. To discover exactly where we are,” Thork directed. “We need a plan. As fighting men, we were taught from the time we got our first swords not to rush into battle. Study the enemy. Their strengths and weaknesses. What we can gain . . . or lose. What weapons we need to breach their fortifications. How to infiltrate their ranks.” Thork knew that planning was not always a possibility, but it would seem they had more than enough time here to take care in how to proceed. “And what are our goals once we pinpoint where we are?”
    “Escape, of course,” Alrek said.
    “Revenge,” Finn added.
    “Plunder,” Henry further added.
    “I think we should take them all captive and sell them in the slave marts,” Jostein suggested.
    “Wise words and worth considering,” Thork said.
    “Why not just lop off all their heads?” This from Bolthor, who had at one time been known as Bolthor the Berserker. The old man claimed to have long lost count of the number of enemy heads he’d lopped off with his far-famed battle-axe, Head Splitter.
    “A bit messy,” Finn remarked. As vain and prissy as Finn could be at times, he’d shed more than his share of sword dew in battle, but he preferred clean kills.
    “That would be a lot of heads,” Jamie also observed, though not with distaste.
    “Eeew!” Brokk said, before catching himself. The youthling, whose skin had paled at the mention of beheading, was not blooded