Page 11 of The Very Virile Viking

"Are they all asleep?" he asked Torolf.

"Yea. Finally," his son answered, clearly disgusted. The younger children—all eight of them—were strung out between them on bed furs spread on the ship's cold planking. Most important, a long rope tied one ankle of each to that of the next, with Magnus and Torolf on either end. He would take no chance that one of them might sleepwalk over the side into the frigid water. Then there was Jogeir, who had developed a passion for fishing over the side of the boat and was becoming quite successful in his efforts.

His lameness mattered not when casting a net or pulling in a heavy cod. Jogeir might decide to go night fishing and fall overboard. Or, in Hamr's case, he might just get it into his reckless head to go whale hunting… in the dark… with a stick.

It was the strangest thing… a lack-witted female killer whale had been shadowing his longship for days now, as if she were a long-lost friend. Click, click. Squeal, squeal. Chirp, chirp , the whale went on endlessly, which was enough to give a grown Viking an ache in the head. The whale seemed to be communicating with them in whale language, which Magnus of course did not understand, despite being fluent in the language of five countries, including Saxon English, which was very close to Old Norse.

Perhaps the whale's vision was bad, and she thought his longship was a male whale.

Torolf saw the direction of his stare and said, "I am never going to have children. They are far too bothersome."

"Going to be celibate, are you, son?" he asked with a laugh.

He could barely see Torolf's face in the moonlight, but he suspected that it had turned green at the prospect. Celibacy at sixteen years of age must sound horrific. But then, celibacy at his age was not so pleasant, either.

"Nay, I am not as lack-witted as you to take such a vow."

The boy is far too impertinent by half.

"I will find a way to get the pleasure without the pain, so to speak."

Ha, ha, ha! Immature braggart! And I am going to find a beautiful young woman who loves to tup and cannot bear children. Well, actually, I am not. Now that I have taken my celibacy vow, I could not tup her, even if she dropped down in front of me… which will probably happen now, some twisted joke of that jester god, Loki. Mayhap then my vow would be invalid… because of the interference of a god. Aaarrgh! My brain is splintering apart here, and all from lack of a good tupping… or from too many children. Or whale talk.

"I have heard that the Saracens have invented a method to prevent conception."

Is the pup still on the selfsame subject? "That must be why there are so many children running about the desert harems I have seen in my travels," he replied with dry humor. Young men always thought they knew more than their elders… not that he considered himself an elder at seven and thirty. He was in his prime. Too prime, if truth be known. "Besides, I cannot see a true man donning a sheep's intestine…

even to prevent the flowering of his seed in yet another woman's womb."

Torolf grimaced. "Is that what they do?"

But Magnus had more important things on his mind. "Do you think we should turn our ships back to Greenland on the morrow?"

"Would Erik the Red allow us back in his settlement?"

Torolf had a good point there. "Probably not." For some reason, Magnus and his children had not endeared themselves to Erik whilst visiting at his not-so-great hall, Brattalid . After Njal had wrestled with a baby polar bear, causing the enraged mother and father to run into the settlement and stomp on Erik's precious oat field and vegetable garden, the Viking chieftain had not been in a very good mood.

That mood had grown stormier when he'd accused Torolf of flirting with his wife, Thjodhild. As if Torolf would flirt with a fifty-year-old woman! Lida had pulled off her nappy and pissed in the great-hall rushes, right in front of one and all, which made it appear as if he had no manners. Then Storvald had sculpted a figure of Erik's eldest daughter, which showed her to have an unflattering set of oversize buttocks…

which she did. Dagny and Kirsten wouldn't stop weeping with homesickness. The coal that had caused the pot to boil over, though, was Magnus's innocent remark that Erik had put on a little bit of extra weight about his middle. Some Vikings were so vain!

They'd chosen the wisest course the next day— which was a sennight ago—and decided to visit the new settlement in Vinland recently discovered by Erik's son, Leif. And that was a whole other saga… how Leif was luring Norsemen to his new land under the pretext that it was some kind of paradise, when in fact it was not. Oh, 'twas true there were grapevines here and there, and much greenery, and there did appear to be more arable farmland than there had been in Iceland or the Norselands, and the climate was a bit warmer.

But there were also wild native people of red-hued skin, who ran about almost totally naked, wielding sharp axes and emitting strange war cries. He did not understand the guttural tongue they spoke, but it would be his guess that they did not want to share their grapes. That supposition was confirmed when one of Leif's Irish slaves confided to him that these native inhabitants liked to take the scalps of white men. He and Leif had gotten into a fist-throwing exercise starting when he'd merely commented that Leif might be called Leif the Lucky, not because he'd saved some men in a shipwreck one time, but because he still had a scalp. The man had no sense of humor.

All the men, and a few female maidservants from this longship, Fierce Dragon , as well as his other two longships, Fierce Wind and Fierce Hammer , were sleeping on land tonight in Leif's crude settlement.

Leif had told him that he and his brood were not welcome until Magnus said he was sorry. Ha ! It would be a hot day in Niflheim when he apologized to the likes of that ill-bred Norseman.

"Perhaps we should go home," Torolf suggested.

"Nay!" Magnus said without hesitation. They had come too far, and they had not given any of these new lands a chance yet. But then he wondered if he was being selfish. "Do you want to go home?"

"It is not that, Father. It is just that… well, Erik and Leif are strong-willed men, as you are. I wonder if there is room in Greenland or Vinland for two strong-willed leaders. I cannot see you taking orders from those two."

Hmmm. Torolf had a good thinking head on him. He made good points. "What would you think of our traveling a bit farther south? Would it not be a noble enterprise for us to discover our own new land?"

Torolf's voice was bright with enthusiasm when he answered. "Yea, I like that idea. And who is to say there are not many other lands beyond Vinland? No doubt there are dozens."