Dream of Me/Believe in Me

torture at the direction of his sister-in-law. He'd been stretched, kneaded, pummeled, twisted, and goaded through a battery of exercises that made him speak longingly of the cheerful carnage of battle and the relative mercy of a swift death.
    Even Wolf, inured though he was to the harshness of life, had to wonder at the devilish torments devised by his lovely wife. And yet, though it would choke Dragon to admit it, his leg was stronger. Wolf had confirmed that for himself in just the last few hours.
    He scratched his chest lazily and stretched out farther on the bench. The wood was cool against his back and buttocks, at least in comparison to the intense heat of the sweat lodge. “You'd have more strength if you refrained from bedding a wench every night.”
    Dragon scowled through the pine-scented mist. “I'm just making sure, that's all.”
    “Sure?” Wolf peered at his brother and laughed. “You're joking. Since when have you needed to make sure?”
    “Since your darling wife told me I'd be impotent if I didn't do as she said.”
    Wolf sat bolt upright, staring at Dragon in disbelief. “She didn't!”
    “She damn well did. Smiled as sweetly as you please, and suggested I cared more about prowess on the training field than prowess in bed.”
    “Cymbra said that?” He was incredulous. Surely his brother had misunderstood. Cymbra, who was still shy about telling him what she liked, who would only whisper it to him, her lovely face flaming and her eyes unable to meet his. Cymbra, speak so bluntly and not to him but to another man?
Cymbra?
    Dragon grinned, pleased to have gotten back a bit of his own. “You tell her I said so and I'll come after you with an ax, but the fact is she's at least as smart as she is beautiful.”
    “That's a truly frightening thought,” Wolf said and meant it.
    There was nothing much to do after that except beat each other with birch branches and run naked into the icy river. In that same spirit of male conviviality, it was only sensible then to retire to the timbered hall, summon the skald and a vat of ale, and while the night away in drink and song.
    “How long has it been since we got drunk together?” Wolf wondered aloud some unknowable time later. They were sitting on the ground in front of the hall, although he couldn't quite remember when they'd moved out there. The moon had set and the sky was a sea of stars, split almost in half by the vast silver river along which the gods rode to glorious battle.
    “Too damn long,” Dragon replied. “Ought to do thisregularly. Good Vikings get drunk.” He thought for a moment, then added, “And pillage. We're supposed to do a lot of pillaging. People expect it.”
    Wolf nodded, pondering that as he might a childhood memory. “Times are changing.”
    “Perish the thought!”
    “No, it's true, they are. Look right here with us.” He waved an arm to encompass the hill fort and the town beyond. “How much pillaging do we actually do? I mean really? We fight when we have to—and we do it too damn much thanks to the bloody Danes and Saxons. But we're traders, brother. We make an honest profit—”
    Dragon laughed. “A damn big honest profit.”
    “Nothing wrong with that but it's still trading. And there are other changes, too. You think Brother Joseph stays here because he likes the climate?”
    “What's wrong with the climate?”
    “Nothing, I'm just using it as an example. He's here 'cause people are listening to him. Hell, sometimes
I
listen to him.”
    “You do? Really? What's he say?”
    Wolf frowned, wanting to get it right even if it didn't make much sense. “He says we're supposed to love each other.”
    Dragon mulled that over. He was silent for a while, drinking, then remembered what they'd been talking about. “He doesn't mean everybody, does he? Couldn't mean that.”
    Wolf started to shake his head, decided that wasn't a good idea, and shrugged. “I think he does.”
    His brother blinked at him owlishly. “Why?”
    More thinking, then, “Something 'bout being the children of God and him sending his son to die for us.”
    “Sacrifice.” Dragon nodded. This was something he could understand. “You don't allow those here anymore, do you?”
    Wolf hesitated. Images slipped through his mind, stories his father had told him of men and sometimes even women and children sacrificed to the Aesir, the great gods. Nine times nine, they were hanged from the branches of trees, their blood soaking the ground for