Page 26 of Truly, Madly Viking

"Oh! There you go," he said, mimicking her expression. "Why do so many people accept as truth this portrayal of Vikings as bloodthirsty marauders? Do you not recognize the bias of those bloody Saxon clerics who call themselves historians? Rumormongers, they are, one and...

She gazed softly at him, as if she were a parent, and he a simple child.

For a brief moment, he entertained the possibility of slicing off her tongue afore he left this chamber.

Once he regained his sword, that was.

"Perhaps this is a starting point for us to begin therapy." She inhaled deeply, as if to fortify herself. "I believe that your name is Joe Rand, as you told me originally. And I think I know what your biggest problem is."

"You do?" Now, why did I ask her that? It's just prolonging this ridiculous conversation.

"Yes. You have a T-type personality... you're an extreme risk taker. That was evident at the orca park when you made a grand entrance riding atop a killer whale. I'm not judging you, but some people might equate that with a death wish."

"I was not riding Thora by choice," he pointed out.

She waved a hand in the air as if his observation counted for naught. "Man is the only species that deliberately takes risks, did you know that, Joe? And I'm speaking of everything from finances to our very lives. Think about it. Stock speculation. Gambling. Skydiving. Car racing. Whatever. The safer our environment becomes, the more risks people intentionally take on."

The woman is barmy as a bat.

"You are a thrill-seeker," she concluded with a wide smile, as if inviting him to agree.

Barmy as two bats. "Are you a... what did you call it... a type-tea, also?"

"Oh, good heavens, no! I've got inhibitions coming out the wazoo." She squirmed on her chair, practically jumping with glee at the expectation of solving one of his so-called disorders.

"Really?" he asked with more interest than her comment evoked. What he'd really like to know, though, was where her cause-oooh was? Could it be anywhere in the vicinity of those nicely rounded buttocks that perched on the edge of her chair?

And he had to wonder, if she got this aroused at the prospect of his being a thrill seeker, how aroused would she get when it was her he targeted for his thrills?

"But, more important, you must accept this fact, Joe: you are not a Viking."

"I'm not?" For a moment there, she had him questioning himself. If he was not already mad, she would make him so. "What am I?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

"Why do you always throw my questions back at me?"

She sighed, but then seemed to take his criticism to heart. "I suspect you are an ordinary man with an ordinary job, who took on this fantasy in order to bring excitement to his life. There's nothing wrong with that, except that it's an illusion. And overindulgence in fantasies can interfere with reality."

If Jorund's arms weren't confined in the torture jacket, he would have pulled at his own hair with frustration. "I most certainly am a Viking... just as you are a dock whore. And I assure you, I am not, nor ever have been, ordinary."

She smiled at him in a patronizing manner he did not find one bit complimentary.

"Of course you're special. I just meant that there's no need to attach fancy labels to yourself. Who you are is enough."

"Aaarrgh!" he growled, then forced himself to control his temper when he noticed the flash of alarm on her face and the darting of her eyes toward the guardsman just outside in the corridor. "Let me make myself clear: I do not consider Viking a 'fancy label.' I am a Norseman... a Viking born and bred. That, m'lady, is no fantasy."

"I see," she remarked in a tone he could tell was intended to placate. She did not believe him.

He decided to change the subject. "What is this why-two-key I see mentioned on the black box all the time?"

At first the wench did not seem to understand his words. "Why-two-key, why-two-key," she repeated several times, then laughed. "Oh, you mean Y2K."

"That's what I said, didn't I?"

She ignored his grumpiness and explained. "Even though the turn of the century has passed, lots of people are still patting themselves on the backs over having escaped unscathed."

"Well, that is as clear as fjord fog on a frosty Friggsday." But something else she'd said tugged at his brain. "What do you mean about the turn of the century having passed? It was the year 998 when I left Vestfold. There is a year and more till the turn of the century." He was beginning to think that perchance it was the wench who was mad, not the other inhabitants of this madhouse, and definitely not him.