Page 25 of Truly, Madly Viking

"Well, I can see where that might be a good idea." I have ne'er heard of such a ludicrous idea in all my days. Next she will tell me there are separate hospitiums for battle veterans or breeding women. Not wanting to give offense, but needing to know if he faced additional dangers from a berserk society, he asked casually, "Dost have so very many mad people here?"

She shrugged. "No more than any other country."

"We lock them up in my country... in dungeons, if they are available." Actually he'd seen only a few dungeons in his time, though he supposed some folks did lock up their infamous family members. They were probably Saxons, who were known to have no heart, even for their own kin. Even then, it was more likely to be a root cellar or woodshed, rather than a dungeon. She gaped.

"Or just kill them." His third cousin Halfdan had killed his half-witted brother, Helvid, many summers ago because he'd slobbered in Half dan's mead. "I have heard of some clans where less-than-perfect babes are left outdoors to die soon after birth. Life is harsh in the northlands, and sometimes 'tis merciful to spare the child with death when life would mean endless torture."

She gulped.

"In truth, I have heard of madhouses on occasion, but those were mostly in leper colonies."

She gasped.

But then, the implications of her words struck him on a personal level: he was being held captive in a madhouse. "You think I, Jorund the Warrior, am demented?"

"Well, I wouldn't use the word demented," she answered, but the flush on her cheeks told another story.

"What word would you use?" He narrowed his eyes at her and gritted his teeth.

"Troubled."

He released the breath he had not realized he was holding. "Of course I am troubled. I already told you I am lost and must needs get back to my ship in order to rescue my brother Rolf."

"I mean troubled in a more serious, clinical way. Joe, you need help to correct your disorders before you can be released back into society."

"If by disorders you mean mental ones, then you are sorely mistaken," he informed her haughtily. "I am as sane as the next person... as you, for example. Or that Dock-whore Hairy with the hair swag."

He saw her lips twitch with suppressed mirth at his description of her colleague.

"Tell me exactly what I am accused of so that I may convince you of my innocence, and leave this place."

"No, no, no. You aren't being accused of any crime. This is a low-security mental facility. If police thought you were truly dangerous, or a criminal, you'd be in jail, not here."

"Then why am I not free to leave?"

"For starters, you showed up stark naked in a public place."

"Pfff!" He blew air out in a dismissive manner. "I did not choose to arrive without garments, but I needed ease of movement when I dove into the waters off Iceland to disentangle my ship's anchor."

"See, that's another thing," she said with excitement, as if she'd made some great discovery. "Surely you're aware of the frigid nature of waters in that region. Your body never could have withstood that temperature for more than a few minutes."

He was trying his best to concentrate on her words and not notice that her nipples had pearled with her excitement and pressed outward from the stretchy material of her shert. He made a mental note to take a length or two of that fabric back to Vestfold with him. He knew a trader who could make a fortune selling it to the Eastern potentates. For a certainty, the nether portion of his body was developing a liking for all that the fabric disclosed on the dock whore. He forced himself to think of other things before he embarrassed himself.

"Well, you may have a point there," he managed to get out finally. "Mayhap my boat did go off course a mite. Mayhap it was not really Iceland, but some other country. Mayhap I was a trifle... well, lost."

"Oh, Joe"—she sighed—"that would be more than lost. From Galveston, Texas, to Iceland is more than two thousand miles, as the bird flies."

It was his turn to gasp now. "As the bird flies, hmmm? And how many sea miles would that be by longship?"

"I haven't a clue. Possibly four thousand miles." She laughed. "Why do you keep mentioning such archaic words as longship?"

"Huh?" Then, "What is archaic about a long ship? 'Tis the way we Vikings travel."

"There you go again, referring to yourself as a Viking. I've got to tell you that I've had patients in the past who thought they were aliens from another planet. One even believed he was the emperor Nero. Vikings, Romans, aliens... those are delusions, my friend."

He stared at her, slack-jawed with incomprehension.

"Vikings do not exist as a separate culture today," she explained slowly. "They were assimilated into the various countries where they raped and pillaged, or just plain settled."