Page 24 of Truly, Madly Viking

"One week," he stipulated, wagging a forefinger at her with emphasis. "You have one week to show some real progress with this guy. That's when the advance team from Medic-All will arrive for the red-carpet treatment. I expect your assurance by then that he is no danger to anyone, including himself.

That means no more ankle restraints or straitjackets. I want to see some interaction with other patients.

Otherwise he is being sent to the state facility, whether it is in his best interests or not. Rainbows best interests are my main concern, especially now. I mean that, Maggie. I really do."

Maggie put up both hands in surrender. "I get the picture, boss."

The question, though, was how to translate that picture to her patient. Most important, would Joe the Viking cooperate?

The next day...

"I do not understand," Jorund said, pacing the room as he shook his head with incredulity. "What kind of prison is this?"

"Why kind of prison do you think it is?"

The wench was back in his chamber again, battering him with more pointless conversation, half of which he could not comprehend, when he needed to be on his journey back to his ship to rescue his brother Rolf. And—Thor's toenails!— he hated it when she never answered his questions, but instead tossed them back at him like a bloody parrot.

If he asked, "Why am I being confined?" she countered with, "How do you feel about being confined?"

Or a simple query like, "Where am I?" would garner, "Where do you think you are?" Never could he get a simple answer to a simple question.

She wore another of those short-sleeved sherts, as she had worn at the orca place—crimson red this time, made of a stretchy material that highlighted the most perfect breasts, round globes that would fit nicely into a big male hand... one the size of... oh, say, his hand. Not that he was considering the handling of her breasts. It was just an observation, he told himself. Just as he'd noticed she was wearing men's black braies that clung to her rounded hips and flat belly in a beguiling way. Then, too, there were those enticing, open-toed shoes with flame painted toenails today. He had the most alarming compulsion to suck on those deliciously appealing appendages.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Really, he had been isolated too long if he was developing a taste for toes. Magnus would love to hear of this. No doubt at the next All-Thing, the skalds would be writing praise-poems...but to ridicule, not praise him. Instead of his being known as Jorund the Warrior, people would refer to him forever after as Jorund the Toe-Taster.

He'd best be on his guard. The wench might be out to seduce him with all these dock-whore wiles. And he might just be tempted if it weren't for her annoying nature. What do you think? What do you think?

What do you think? he mocked her incessant refrain in his head. What he thought was that he was tired of thinking. It was long past the time for action.

Oh, the wench had released his ankle restraints. A guardsman was still posted outside the door, though, and Jorund still wore the torture shert. That ankle-restraint concession had been made this morn when he'd promised not to make an effort to escape or engage in any violence. Even so, it rankled that she engaged him in useless chatter when he had important business elsewhere. Besides he might as well admit it he wanted to get back to the black box and see if Josh was able to rescue Reva from those dastardly villains on that far island. He had some suggestions he'd like to offer Josh for retrieving his wayward wife.

And Odin's balls !—that Reva was a woman after a Viking's heart... or any other body organ.

"What don't you understand, Joe?"

I swear I am going to rip out your tongue if you don't stop calling me Joe. What kind of name is that? That was what he thought. What he said was, "You say this is a hospitium?"

"A hospital... yes." She craned her neck to watch him as he resumed moving restlessly about the small chamber. "Actually, we prefer to call it a clinic."

"Ne'er have I seen a hospitium—or clan-hick— like this afore," he declared with a grunt. "I should know. There is one of the finest in the world located in Jorvik, near the minster. The good monks perform the healing arts there. They've sewn up my wounds on a dozen occasions. One time I nigh lost an eye."

Scanning him quickly, the wench took note of the white scar that ran from his right eye to his ear.

A distressing idea occurred to him then. "Since this is a hospitium, are those men in white uniforms who come in here... are they perchance monks?"

She smiled. "No, they're orderlies, or attendants."

"And the women in white—and you—surely you are not nuns?"

She laughed out loud at that. "The women in white are nurses, and I'm a doctor."

He exhaled with a loud whoosh, in relief.

The wench looked at him strangely. "You do understand that? No, I guess you don't." She paused. "This is a mental hospital, Joe."

Mentall? Mentall? He rolled the word around on his tongue silently. Oh, she must mean mental, like having to do with the head. It took him a few moments to digest that news. "Your country has special hospitiums for mad people?"

She nodded.