Page 47 of Truly, Madly Viking

"No, no," she said. "I wouldn't want Joe and Steve to think I didn't trust them." Still, she glanced back toward the parking lot at the unmarked bus. Then she glanced again. "Oh, boy!"

Jorund was striding across the lawn, carrying a cursing, squirming Steve on his shoulder. He did so with ease, even though Steve was at least six feet tall and a hundred and seventy pounds.

She started to step up and chastise Jorund for creating a scene. Tourists right and left were gaping at them. In fact, Maggie saw a local newspaper photographer, who hung around the traveling wall in hopes of catching a human-interest story, sit up alertly on the park bench where he'd been waiting.

His van with the Galveston Daily News logo was parked at a nearby curb.

But Harry put a hand on her arm. "Wait, Maggie. Let's see how this plays out."

"But—"

"Think about it. Maybe, just maybe, Joe will be the one to jolt Steve out of his self-pity. Maybe this is the breakthrough you've been waiting for."

Jorund, on the other hand, felt like breaking something. Ever since he'd landed in this world, he'd had nothing but problems. Now he, who prided himself on his aloofness, was involving himself in other people's problems as well. With a snort of disgust, he planted Steve on his feet in front of the wall, and glared at several people, who stepped away, not wanting to be in the proximity of flying fists.

"You have no right," Steve stormed, his green eyes flashing angrily. He shoved Jorund in the chest.

"Yea, I have every right. You are my friend," Jorund retorted, and pushed him back in the chest. Like two scrappy youthlings we are behaving , Jorund thought. To the side, he heard Mag-he make a tsking sound. Jorund gave Steve an extra shove in the chest and demanded, "Stop creating such a spectacle and tell me, which of these names mark your herd?"

"Herd? What the hell did you think I was in 'Nam—a cow?" Steve jeered.

"Nay, you have already told me you were a seal, and a herd is a troop, my friend... a troop of soldiers.

Tell me, which of these fallen men were your comrades?"

For the first time, Steve faced the wall, and his face went ashen as he walked slowly along till he found the names he wanted. Tears filled his eyes, and Jorund noticed that Mag-he's eyes misted over as well.

She and Dock-whore Hairy exchanged a look. Was it worry, self-congratulation, or compassion?

A visible shudder rippled through Steve's body as he moved closer and traced some letters with a forefinger. This had to be a deeply moving experience for him. One name after another he recited aloud in a choked voice. Then, in a deadened monotone, he said to Jorund, and to Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy, who had stepped up to form a half-circle in front of the wall, "During Vietnam, SEAL teams One and Two amassed a combined kill ratio of two hundred to one, with only forty six deaths, and those were mostly due to accidents, not enemy direct fire. It seems obscene, doesn't it, to quote that statistic now, with all the antiwar sentiment, but damn, we were good at what we did."

"So you have reason to be proud of your work... despite the grief of war," Jorund told him softly, putting an arm around his shoulder. Truly, he understood the man's conflicted emotions: Steve had been trained to be a soldier—in one of the best units of the fighting men—but was horrified by all the bloodletting, some of it needless. Life was not so different between his world and Steve's.

There were wars that had to be fought for noble reasons, but some wars, in retrospect, were obviously the political games of greedy kings and chieftains.

Maggie was regarding him as if he were some kind of hero, when all he'd done was comfort a man in need. How little she must think of him if she considered this to be extraordinary behavior on his part.

Dock-whore Hairy was nodding repeatedly. No doubt he thought the two of them were well on their way to being cured. Well, mayhap Steve was, but Jorund had never been demented to begin with.

"You have no idea how hard this is," Steve told him in a cracking voice. "Those men depended on me. If I'd done a better job, they might still be alive. The guilt, even after all these years, just tears me apart."

Appropriately, Not-a-lie started to croon, "I fall to pieces.... "

Rosalyn offered gently, "Maybe you'd like to go on a date sometime, Steve." Obviously she had another type of therapy in mind for him. They had a vulgar name for it in this new world. It was comparable to a pity-coupling in his world.

Steve appeared horrified at Rosalyn's offer. Jorund ignored them all and continued speaking to Steve of a soldier's guilt. "Betimes you feel as if it should have been you, do you not? In truth, you question whether this life you lead isn't really your hell on earth... a punishment for some past wrong—though in our land we do not call it hell. It is Niflheim, land of eternal ice, ruled by the queen of the dead, Hel."

Jorund shivered violently, as if actually feeling the icy atmosphere of the underworld.

Steve was staring at Jorund. "How do you know so well how I feel? How come you can put my exact feelings into words?"

"Because they reflect my own," Jorund answered with a huge sigh. "I lost my wife and two twin daughters to famine a short year ago. And 'twas my fault for not being there to protect them." All the muscles in his body sagged, and he seemed bleak with misery as he saw the empathy on Steve's face....

"Sweet Lord! I'm sorry for opening healed wounds."

"Healed? Nay, never healed," Jorund corrected. "Know this, you dunderhead: I make it a practice never to speak of my past. It is a sign of my comradeship with you that I share it now. Let us not broach the subject again."

Steve inclined his head in agreement.