Two handed swords seem great to me, I don't seem to take much more of a thrashing without a shield than with one. I did have an exceptional giantsword at one point but I had to sell it because it was too heavy to carry with everything else. Speaking of which, Geoff in Rivertown has some great claymores but he won't sell them. Why?
I guess I'll just have to come back to Josephina when I'm a few levels higher. I can't hit her often enough with the sword to keep her frozen, even with 5 points of sword expertise. I've almost killed her a couple of times but eventually she gets off a blind spell which allows her to cast hellspikes etc and then it's over. Is there any way to negate or prevent a blind spell?