Page 4 of The Very Virile Viking

"Nay, that is not all. Do you want to know what Njal and his friends are doing?"

Nay. "Do I have a choice?" Njal was his nine-year-old son. A more mischievous boy had never been born.

"Njal and his friends are breaking wind, deliberately, every time they pass the weaving room, and the girls there say they will not work in such a stinksome place."

Magnus sighed loudly and put a palm to his aching forehead. At least his groin was no longer aching.

He could not wait till the wedding feast, when Madrene's besotted young jarl would take her away from all this misery. At least then he would have one less child to worry over. At least then he would be a little less miserable himself.

Wouldn't he?

Still wintertime (would it ever end?), the Norselands, A.D. 1000.

"We think we have the answer to your problem, Magnus."

Resting his bleary head on the trestle table, Magnus was sitting on the dais above the central hearth when he heard someone addressing him from below. He'd had only one horn of ale to drink this eve, but he was overtired from a day of shoveling snow to make paths to the various outbuildings of his vast farmstead. Already the snow was eaves-high and still falling. And ice had to be knocked off the roofs lest the thatch come crashing down under the heavy weight. The skies were black day and night, except for about an hour each day, which was the pattern in the Norselands. Everyone was tense from the confinement, especially his energetic children. Will winter ever be over ?

He raised his head reluctantly to see his best friend and chieftain of his hird of fighting men, Harek the Huge, waiting expectantly for his answer. Harek—who was… well, huge—stood in the aisle that separated the dais from the open-sided hearth, taking up most of the space. Crowded on either side of Harek were Atli One-Ear, Kugge the Archer, and Sidroc of the Forked Beard. They were all grinning up at him.

Uh-oh! "You say you have an answer to my problem, Harek. Which problem would that be? It cannot be Madrene. She is two weeks wed and gone with her bridegroom to her new home. Ragnor? Torolf?

Kirsten? Storvald? Dagny? Njal? Jogeir? Hamr? Kolbein? Lida? Which one has caused the problem this time?"

"Freyja's tits! How do you remember them all?" Kugge wanted to know. Kugge was an expert marksman, but he was thickheaded as a woolly sheep.

"How can I forget them?" They will not let me forget .

Magnus arched an eyebrow at Kugge and took a sip of stale ale.

"They—your children—are not the problem we refer to," Harek said.

Magnus noticed then that dozens of men about his hall were watching them expectantly… with much amusement. Norsemen ever did enjoy a good jest. But what—or who—was the subject of this particular jest? He came suddenly alert.

"You have been very peevish of late," Atli remarked, pulling at his disfigured ear, as if the lobe had not been lost to a Saxon sword.

"Peevish?"

"Yea, you nigh bite the head off of anyone and everyone for the least little reason," Sidroc added, jutting out his forked beard, daring him to disagree. "And we know the reason."

"You do?"

"Frustration," Harek explained. "Your male humors must needs escape on occasion, or you will explode.

Happened to Halfdan the Hermit, it did. He went barmy in the end for lack of a good swiving. Yea, you have been too long without a tupping."

All the men nodded their agreement.

"You men push the bounds of friendship. My body humors are naught of your business." Can anything in the world be more embarrassing than this? Methinks I should go live in a cave. But nay, I cannot do that. My children would follow me, and they would freeze in a cave. Aaarrgh !

"But here is the best part…" said Ottar the Oarsman, a new entry to the company.

"We heard you were looking for a more… uh… mature woman. One who could give you pleasure in the bed furs without popping out a babe every nine months," Harek explained.

"A mature woman who is still attractive," Atli quickly added.

"Well, reasonably attractive," Kugge further added.

"Leastways, not repulsive," Sidroc further added.