Page 12 of Viking Unchained

"Where do the SEALs get these idiots?” The woman laughed and turned away from them.

“Vanity? Does she say I am vain?” he asked his cousin. “I am not an excessively modest man, but I am not vain.”

Torolf was shaking his head, as if he were a hopeless lackwit.

“The One-God’s biggest mistake was giving Eve a tongue,” he grumbled.

“A woman’s tongue has its uses on occasion,” Torolf remarked under his breath.

He ignored Torolf’s statement, though it had merit. “That is what happens when women are let out of the keep. Attila the Wench.” He pointed at the woman who was blathering away now to a soldier on her other side. “They get uppity. Best to keep them in the scullery, stirring the stew pot, or on their backs in the bed furs, for a man’s pleasure.”

“Oh. My. God! I give you one day in America before some female castrates you with a butter knife.”

“I have to piss.”

“Shhhh.”

“Do not shhhh me. Where is the privy?”

“Down the aisle, at the back . . . never mind, I’ll take you.” Leaning over, Torolf showed him how to undo his chair restraint. Then he shoved him ahead down the narrow corridor.

“Do not push me, or you may find yourself riding a cloud.”

People were staring at them, some snickering.

“Crap! I’ll never live this down. I’m taking my little cousin, who’s as big as a grizzly, to the bathroom.”

“I do not need a bath,” Thorfinn said over his shoulder. “I need a—”

“I know, I know. Here . . .” He opened a door which opened into a small chamber, which might very well suit a dwarf, but a man his size could scarce get his leg inside. Even so, Torolf crammed both of them inside.

“Which one is the privy?” he asked, pointing to two porcelain bowls, as he struggled with the odd metal fastening on his braies.

“Oh, good Lord! Don’t piss in the sink. That’s for washing your hands.”

“How was I to know that?” When he was done, Torolf pressed a lever and water washed his piss away.

Thorfinn’s eyes bulged at this amazing phenomenon. If he had any more piss in him, he would have pissed again, just to watch it disappear in a magic waterfall.

“Wash your hands, and let’s get out of here.”

But he was not to be rushed. He turned the water lever in the sink on, dipped a forefinger in, then sniffed it.

“Now what?”

“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t piss from the privy bowl.” He proceeded to turn the water levers on and off, then used the soap dispenser several times, tasting it once to confirm it was actually soap. He had ne’er seen liquid soap afore, except for that scummy substance under a block of hard-used soap.

And none of it smelled like flowers.

When they finally began to exit the privy chamber, there were several people standing in line. One of them, a short man whose hair had been shaved nigh bald, sneered. “What the hell were you two doin’ in there so long? Didja give new meaning to the Mile-High Club?”

Without understanding the specific words, Thorfinn could tell what the man implied . . . that he was a cod-sucker. He bared his teeth and was about to lift the whore-son off his small booted feet when Torolf jumped in front of him and said, “Back off, Riley. Finn . . . I mean, Jake suffered a brain injury. He forgot how to flush a toilet.”

“Oh, yeah, and what’s he to ya, Magnusson?”

“I’m his . . . uh, babysitter.”

Chapter 3