“Shhh! He’s a stranger,” the mother answered in a voice that he recognized, even in his foggy, limp condition, as husky and deliciously sensual.
“No! No, he’s not a stranger!” one of the twins wailed. “He’s the one.”
“He is not the one,” the mother said indignantly.
“Which one?” he tried to ask, but, though his lips appeared to move, no words came out.
“Don’t let them hurt him,” the other twin cried. “He’s not dangerous, Mommy. He’s just mixed-up.”
Mixed-up? That’s an understatement.
They were all standing about, peering down at him as he lay ignominiously on the ground—the twins, the mother, and several guardsmen.
Finally he heard the woman with the man-hair tell the guardsmen in an authoritative voice, “I’m a doctor. I work at the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital.”
She’s a dock whore? And she works in a hospitium? Amazing!
“This man is clearly under mental duress. He’s my…uh, patient.”
Man-tail door-ass? Pay-shun? I do not think I care to be described thus. He wasn’t sure of the meaning of those words she’d used to describe him, but they must not be good, since the two girls gasped and the guardsmen growled with displeasure. But then, maybe not, he thought, when the girls turned to their mother as if she’d granted them some great favor…like his life.
He tried to speak up in protest, but his lips would not move. However, he was able to raise his eyelids to half-mast and assess his surroundings.
“Release him to my custody,” the dock whore demanded.
That he understood. How ferocious she sounded! She really must be his personal Valkyrie. He had to smile at that, or at least try to smile.
That was when another man emerged into his line of vision—the strangest creature in this strangest of lands. The man wore braies that reached only as far as his thighs and a patterned and colored shert, but most unusual was his hairstyle. Bald he was on the top—like Jorund’s cousin, Arnaud No-Hair—but this fellow chose to grow his side hairs excessively long on one side and fling them over his pate like a drape. No doubt it was the custom of some minor tribe in this land.
The man with the hair drape spoke to the woman with man-hair. It appeared as if he was arguing with Jorund’s Valkyrie. How dared he! But when Jorund tried to rise to her defense, his brain spun woozily, and he dropped back, weak as a blood-drained warrior after a fierce battle.
The dock whore and the man with the hair drape stared down at him, still debating some issues that sounded like unethical, illogical, and emotional. The woman began to drop down on her knees at his side, but a burly guardsman held her back. “He needs my help. You didn’t have to hurt him,” she accused in a loud voice. “He was just…confused.”
“Confused? The psycho had a sword,” the guardsman yelled back at her. “And he’s not hurt, just temporarily stunned.”
He could hear a loud, high-pitched noise in the distance, like a violent tornado at its most destructive peak—but no, this was no storm approaching. Instead, white-clothed men rushed forward and lifted him onto a canvas pallet. To his satisfaction, it took four of the white-dressed men to lift him.
“Take him to the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital,” she told one of the newcomers.
The leader of the white-dressed men glanced at the head guardsman, who shrugged as if Jorund were a problem the guardsmen would just as soon not handle. “You’d better put him in a straitjacket, though,” the chieftain said. “When the effects of the stun gun wear off, he’s going to be really pissed.”
Jorund tried to focus on these foreign words, as the orca had instructed him, but his brain was too muddled right now.
“Maggie, do you think this is wise?” the hair-drape man whispered to Jorund’s Valkyrie.
“Yes, I do. My instincts tell me that he’s not dangerous, just disoriented. And you know my instincts are good, Harry. You’ve told me so dozens of times.”
Her name is Mag-he. A woman with man-hair, whose name is Mag-he?
“But, Maggie…” Hair-drape pleaded. “He’s clearly disturbed. Don’t you think the state hospital would be a better place for him?”
“No, Harry,” Mag-he asserted. “As mental-health professionals, we have a responsibility to assume care for a disturbed individual, especially since we’re the caregivers on-site. After all, he hasn’t hurt anyone.”
Although he somehow understood the language, Jorund failed to understand everything that the woman was saying. Still, he liked when she grew assertive in that sexy voice of hers, especially when it was on his behalf. With an irrelevance totally out of place in this bizarre situation, he couldn’t help wondering how that voice would sound when she was being assertive in other situations, like bedplay.
Now, where did that thought come from? I haven’t been interested in a woman in that way in a long, long time.
Hair-drape took charge then, to Jorund’s surprise. He addressed the guardsman in an unexpectedly imposing voice. “I’m Dr. Harry Seabold, director of the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital.” He took a small square of parchment from a leather object that must have been hidden in a flap of his short braies “Officers, I’m assuming responsibility for this man.”
Who? Me? Well, then, this is a new turn of events. Jorund concluded that he must have been assigned two Valkyries—a male and a female one—and both of them dock whores. He had never heard of such before, but he supposed it was possible.
Even as he was succumbing to the weight of unconsciousness, he thought he heard the twins whisper as one to their mother, “Thank you, Mommy.”
He amended his earlier thought then. He must have four Valkyries: a man, a woman, and two children. Maybe he was a more favored warrior with the gods than even he had imagined.
“And you won’t be sorry, Mommy,” one of the twins said with childish earnestness, “because we’ve decided”—she paused for dramatic effect, as young girls often did—“he really is the one.”
The woman with the man-hair and the sex-voice groaned in the most beguiling way.
And Jorund decided he was going to like being “the one.”
Chapter Four
Two days later…
“How was school today?” Maggie asked her girls as they sat down at the kitchen table to eat a late dinner.
It was a nightly ritual that Maggie insisted upon, even though their eating habits were divergent, to say the least. Rita, their ten-year-old, twenty-pound, white Persian cat, sat queenlike on the floor between Suzy and Beth, just waiting for a scrap to fall her way.
“Great,” they both answered through mouthfuls of food.
“Didn’t you have a math test today?” she asked Suzy.
It was Beth who responded. “I got a ninety-five.”
Maggie sent Suzy a motherly glower, and Suzy sent Beth a sisterly glower.
Suzy colored and tried to change the subject. “How is he today?”
Maggie didn’t need a name to know who Suzy was referring to.
“You know I can’t talk about my patients,” Maggie replied firmly, but she wasn’t about to let Suzy escape so easily. “How did you do on the math test, Susan Marie?” Her daughter knew she meant business when Maggie used her full name.
“I got a seventy-two,” Suzy admitted. “Sheesh, who cares about percentages anyhow?” Then the little imp added, “Maybe we need a new bet to make me study harder.”
“Yeah, the house has been looking a little dingy since Suz and I stopped helping out,” Beth contributed. “Yep, another bet would do the trick.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows skeptically. “What? So I can be forced to get tatoos—or something worse—this time?” Maggie asked with a little laugh.
“Nah, we had something else in mind,” Suzy said, exchanging a meaningful look with her sister.
Something else?
“There are some things in life worth getting dishpan hands over,” Beth pointed out woefully.
Some things? Like
what?
“Or homework fatigue,” Suz added with an exaggerated woe-is-me expression.
Suzy didn’t have to tell her what that “something else” entailed. Maggie already knew. The “something else” was roughly six-foot-four and bone-meltingly gorgeous.
“Nurse Hatcher said he hasn’t talked at all in the two days he’s been at the hospital. She calls him a stud muffin.” Beth giggled as she relayed this information.
Gladys Hatcher…our head nurse…calls him a stud muffin? Maggie gasped. “Nurse Hatcher has been talking to you about a hospital patient?” As good a nurse as Gladys was, this constituted cause for dismissal.
“Oh, she didn’t tell me,” Beth was quick to correct. “Suz and I overheard her talking to another nurse this afternoon when we were waiting for you to leave work. The bench we were sitting on was right outside the nurse’s lounge, and the window was open, and, well…” Beth shrugged as if she’d been helpless not to eavesdrop in such a situation.
Maggie was going to have a talk with Gladys about this breach, even if it was unintentional. Anyone could have been passing by, including representatives of the Medic-All Corporation, which was currently in negotiations to purchase Rainbow.
“Mom, we’ve been talking, and, well…” Beth glanced at Suzy, then took a deep breath before continuing. “We think you should let us talk to him.”
Maggie went slack-jawed with incredulity. But only for a second. “Absolutely not! No way! Don’t either of you even think of approaching this man.”
“But Mom,” Suzy pleaded. “You already told the police he’s not dangerous…just a little mixed-up.”
“That’s beside the point,” she declared indignantly. “In fact, you girls stay away from the hospital until further notice. If I’m late picking you up at school, you stay in the after-school day-care program till I arrive.”
“Day care!” they cried simultaneously. “We’re not children.”
“You’re not adults, either. And while we’re on the subject, there will be no more fixating on this stranger as…as…”
“A dad?” Beth offered.
Maggie put her face in both hands and groaned.
“Or a husband?” Beth added with a dramatic sigh.
Maggie groaned a little louder. She knew her little girls like a book, and she had to put a stop to this nonsense—now. “He is not ‘the one,’” she told them emphatically.
She didn’t have to look up to see they weren’t buying it…not one bit.
Five days later…
“How are you feeling today? Hmmm? Are you ready to talk?” a female voice inquired sweetly. “Now don’t be afraid. We just want to help you.”
Afraid? Who’s afraid? A soldier’s fear is his doom…I need no—
Jorund cracked his eyes open to mere slits.
The wench with the man-hair and sex-voice was back. Again. The one responsible for his current dilemma. And she was speaking to him in the same slow-paced manner he’d become accustomed to this past sennight, as if he were a child…or a lackbrain.
He had thought for one insane moment back at the whale place that she might be his personal Valkyrie. Ha! He’d soon rid himself of that foolish notion. It was more likely he’d landed in Niflheim, and this was the beginning of his eternal damnation.
He’d spoken a few words on first setting foot in this foreign land, but not once since. They could question him till all the warriors went home to Valhalla, but his lips were sealed. A fighting man knew to hold his silence in the enemy camp…leastways till he assessed his foe’s strengths and weaknesses. Thus far—for seven whole days and nights—he’d managed to remain mute under the torment of their endless questions.
He was waiting till they removed his ankle restraints and the peculiar shert that forced his arms to wrap around his body. They put the restraints on him when anyone entered his cell only because he was deemed dangerous. Sharp thinking there. And it took four good-size men to hold him down every time they put that binding shert on him…a sadistic torture device, if he’d ever seen one.
He had learned much in the prolonged period of quiet, but there were still so many questions. He supposed he would have to talk soon.
“What’s your name?” she persisted in the husky voice that could turn a man’s bones to butter and his thoughts to…well, certainly not butter.
The wench pulled a short stick from her pocket, which she used to write on a stack of parchment on her lap. Glancing sideways, he was able to discern some of the letters she formed, thanks to this mystical capacity he seemed to have developed for understanding her language. Silence syndrome.
It was hard to concentrate on the meaning of the words or the magic stick, however, when his eyes were drawn to her crossed knees, where sheer hose covered nicely formed legs, exposed from thigh to oddly enticing, high-heeled shoes. Vikings had long held a tradition of attaching descriptive words to a name, like Gustov Tree-Feller, or Sigurd the Beautiful, or Halfdan of the Wide Embrace. So, to his mind, she was the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, and comely legs.
A shoe dangled from the toes of one foot, which swung up and down rhythmically as she wrote. Was she nervous? Or deliberately trying to disconcert him? Or—and he felt a jolt in his lower belly—was she excited by him?
When he failed to answer, she tried a new approach…one he’d heard dozens of times from her. “My name is Dr. Maggie McBride.”
Muck-bride? Did that mean she was a soiled bride? Soiled in what way? Well, of course she was soiled. She proudly proclaimed herself a dock whore. He smiled to himself. Some men might be put off by that, but Jorund preferred women with a bit of tarnish on the gilt.
He was still confused by the bride name, though. Was she a recent bride, or hoping to become one? Ha! Aroused or not, soiled or not, she would not snare him into the bonds of matrimony. He’d made that mistake once already.
And there was another curious thing. While this wench called herself a dock whore, the other women who came into his cell, big as you please, without even knocking, called themselves Norse. There was Norse John-son, Norse Fill-ups. Some men also took on that Norse appellation. Oddly, none of them had any of the characteristics he would usually associate with the Norse race—blond hair, height, or exceptional appearance. Even stranger, they were all dressed in white, right down to white shoes that squished when they walked. No true Norseman would wear foot coverings that announced his arrival. It would be like shouting, “Here I am. Lop off my head.”
But then, there was the wench’s reference on the parchment to silence sin-drone. He had no idea what a sin-drone was, precisely, but he was fairly certain it was not a desirable trait. Everyone knew a drone was a male bee. And he’d noticed a flower garden below his window one day, teeming with honey bees. Mayhap this was a land of bees, just as there were said to be god-lands of bears and wolves—and, yes, even killer whales. The gods of this land must favor the buzzing insects. But sin-drone…sinful bees? That was hard to comprehend. How did one know when a male bee had erred? When it pricked the wrong queen bee?
There was much to puzzle over in this new land.
He pressed his lips together more tightly and cast the wench his fiercest glare.
She just smiled.
She must be simple. Or exceptionally daring. Either way, Jorund was contemplating the best way to kill her…assuming that he was not already dead. He was still uncertain whether he had landed in some new mortal land, or the otherworld.
He had narrowed his mental list to some particularly creative extermination methods after a full seven days of being held prisoner in her dungeon. At least, he assumed it was a dungeon with its barred window and locked door, though its white walls and metal fixtures resembled no torture chamber he’d ever seen. No actual physical tribulations had been levied yet, except for the Norse people pricking him on occasion with a needle and taking his blood in a little glass vessel, but there had been indignities aplenty. The most outrageous of these involved a metal trencher slipped
under his bare buttocks on a regular basis for the relief of certain bodily functions. The white-uniformed dragon who performed this function had the face of a battle-ax. Her name was Norse Hatch-her, not Hatch-it; still, an appropriate name.
What was not appropriate was her other name…Glad-ass. Norse Glad-ass Hatch-her. Now, he had met a few women in his time for which the appellation would fit—like that high-priced strumpet from Cordova with the pretty heart-shaped arse. But Norse Hatch-her had a backside the size of a warhorse. He could not fathom anyone giving her the glad-ass description.
Every time Norse Hatch-her came into his chamber, she asked with a snide grin, “Does the stud muffin have to tinkle today?” After hearing the din of his piss in the metal trencher, he could pretty well guess what a tinkle was. But the other…What was a stud muffin? On occasion people referred to horse droppings as horse muffins, and for a certainty, some horses were put out to stud. Was the dragon calling him a horse’s arse?
At first he felt a rise of anger at the insult. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been called such.
Norse Hatch-her may have been the one to shove down the loose braies that covered his lower half, forcing the cold metal object under him, but a good warrior knew that, in the end, the leader was responsible for his soldiers’ actions. It was this brassy female sitting before him now who would bear the brunt of his anger…in good time. It was she who had instructed the guardsmen at the whale place to bring him here.
“Can’t you at least tell me your name?” the wench urged.
Jorund refused to answer.
“Well, can you tell me why you were nude in a public amusement park? I really don’t think you came there with violence in mind, despite your sword, but there has to be a reason for your…well, exhibiting yourself before a crowd at Orcaland. If you’d only talk with me about your nude display, perhaps we can…”
On and on the dimwit female blathered, with most of her words unfathomable to him. Still, one message came through to him: She thinks I’m a pervert.
Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 02] Page 5
