But one thing in this land might prove better: the food set out on the table smelled delicious, though foreign to his palate. Not a salted fjord fish or a bowl of skyr, the soured cream favored by many in his country, was in sight. And there was no central hearth with a boar on the spit or an ever-present cauldron of the meat or vegetable of the day—usually rabbit and leeks. No loss to him were any of those things.
Instead Mag-he, without the aid of any housecarls, had prepared a roast turkey with sage stuffing, whipped potatoes, and candied sweet potatoes. Jorund had no idea what a potato was until Mag-he explained that it was a root vegetable, like a turnip. How one went about whipping a root, he could not even guess. There was also corn—another vegetable he’d never witnessed before—cranberry sauce—which caused his eyes to narrow and his belly to knot up because it had the same jiggly texture as that hated jail-low from the Rainbow hospitium—bread, butter, milk, and pumpkin pie.
Another thing he did not miss from his time was the often smelly, vermin-infested rushes on the floor. It was a constant struggle on the part of womenfolk to keep them fresh with juniper and dried herbs. Here there were luxurious carpets…thick as the plushest wool fleece. But then, hounds did not abound indoors here, grousing about for bones and relieving themselves hither and yon. Just an irksome cat that had its own privy box. The insufferable Rita had taken to following him about, giving him the evil eye. He would consider cleaving the bothersome beast from its hissing mouth to its twitching tail if he did not recognize the misplaced affection these three females held for the fat cat.
He started to reach for a piece of bread, then pulled his hand back abruptly when Beth made a cautionary tug on his sleeve. Beth was the name of one twin, he had learned; Sue-zee was the other. Jorund was not devoid of social graces, but he felt so awkward in this strange country whose customs he was yet learning. Even the use of a fork still came clumsily to him.
“We have to say grace first,” Beth informed him as she took his hand.
Grace? Who is Grace? Jorund glanced behind him to see if another person had come in, or worse yet, another bothersome cat.
Sue-zee took his hand on the other side. Then both girls joined hands with their mother at the other end of the table.
Jorund closed his eyes briefly at the wave of poignant memory that swept over him at the feel of two tiny hands engulfed by his. The entire hand of each of them barely covered his palm. And the skin…ah, the skin was softer than the film on his mother’s thick cream.
Dismayed, he opened his eyes to see the girls gazing at him with what could only be described as…adoration. Adoration! That caused him to be even more dismayed. What had he done to earn such adoration? Nothing. He did not deserve—nor did he want—such sentiments. Really, they were pathetic little creatures in their need for a father figure, he concluded. Any man would have suited. At least, that was what he told himself. But deep down, he suspected the only pathetic one in this picture was a Viking who was quaking in his boots…or rather, his cloth running shoes.
“Dear God, bless this food we are about to eat….” Mag-he began.
Oh. Grace must be a prayer.
“And let us give thanks for all the bounty you have given us this year.”
“Amen,” the three of them said at once.
The only bounty I’ve been given is a kick in the arse through time to a land of lackwits, he thought ungraciously, and tried to tug free of the girls’ hands, but the little imps held on tenaciously. Now that they had him, they were not about to let him go.
“Now let’s begin our annual ritual,” Mag-he told her daughters. They nodded, but first Mag-he elaborated to him: “Each Thanksgiving we list the things we are most thankful for from the past year.”
Holy bloody hell!
“I’m thankful that no more killer whales were captured last year,” Beth, the gentle twin, said.
Huh? What an odd sentiment! I would think a child her age would be thankful for a new pair of slippers, or a riband. But a whale’s noncapture?
“I’m thankful that I passed math this quarter,” Sue-zee proclaimed with a brash smile at her mother.
“What is this math?” Jorund asked.
“Numbers. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing. Yuck!” Sue-zee explained with disgust.
“Ah,” he said with understanding. “I know exactly how you feel. Ever did I have trouble with my numbers as a child. Likewise, my brother Magnus of the Big Ears. The priest who was hired to tutor us nigh pulled his hair out with frustration…what little there was on his bald tonsured pate. My brother Rolf the Shipbuilder was the scholar…he fostered in the Saxon court, but I was destined for the battlefield, even as a youthling, and…” His words trailed off as he realized that everyone was gaping at him…and that he’d interrupted the thanking ritual.
Mag-he spoke next. “I’m thankful that I got my doctorate degree finally, and that I’m now a full-fledged psychologist.”
Jorund thought her efforts might have been better directed toward more traditional female tasks…like begetting more children, especially boys—there was always a need for more young men to go off to battle or build ships or plow fields. With a grin, he decided not to share those sentiments with her. She would no doubt call him a male show-vein-is pig, just as Reva had called Josh one day a few weeks ago. Or perchance she would clout him on the side of the head, as his mother was wont to do with his father when he pronounced what she called “male blather” or “ale talk.”
Sue-zee spoke again. “I’m thankful Joe came home.”
“Me, too,” Beth said.
Oh, no! No, no, no, no! Do not be thankful for me. And do not call this my home. I am just a way-farer passing through. The only reason Jorund kept these sentiments to himself was that he’d promised Mag-he not to hurt her daughters. He looked at her for help.
Mag-he just nodded her head, seemingly at a loss for words, too. Why didn’t she correct her daughters? It was her job to steer the children’s thinking toward the right path.
On the other hand, Mag-he might also be thankful that he had “come home.” More likely, she was thanking her One-God that she had peaked three times the night before under Jorund’s expert fingers. She should be thanking her One-God that Jorund was going to bring her even more pleasure at the first opportunity. He knew that he was thanking the gods that she was a woman with enthusiasm for bed sport. He could not wait till he showed her the renowned Viking S-spot. She would be more thankful than she’d ever been in all her life, he would warrant.
“Actually,” Beth began, “it was really the Vikings who discovered America. So we should probably be thankful today for the Vikings.”
“Funny you should mention that. I had forgotten. You know, that Leif Eriksson was a barmy fellow…just like his father Erik the Red. I remember one time he…” Jorund’s words trailed off as he realized that Mag-he was staring at him with dismay. He assumed he was not supposed to be speaking of his ancient past around her children.
“What are you thankful for, Joe?” Sue-zee asked.
Caught was his first thought. He’d been caught having lewd thoughts in the midst of a family event. His mother really would have clouted him now, having an intuition concerning her boys’ lustful fantasies, even when they were no longer boys. His eyes went involuntarily to Mag-he’s shert front—made of another of those stretchy materials that he loved—which clearly delineated her nipples.
She blushed, sensing his wayward thoughts, then frowned in warning.
“I’m thankful I’m alive,” he blurted out, grasping at the first thing he could think of. When he saw the expression of disappointment on their faces, he added, “I thank the gods that they have given me a family with whom to share this special day.”
Jorund wished he were dead.
He was strapped into a metal box, with Beth and Sue-zee on either side of him, and they were in the midst of riding a metal monster called ‘the Comet,’ or ‘the Vomit,’ depending on which child was spea
king. Sue-zee was laughing gaily. Beth was tapping her fingers with boredom, much preferring another trip to the orca park, where there had been not one single message from Thora. And Jorund was holding on to the front bar with white knuckles, his Thanksgiving turkey in his throat, along with the candy apple and cotton candy and root-beer Slurpee he’d just consumed. If his brother, Magnus, ever heard that he’d consumed a beverage called a Slurpee he would roll on the rush floor with laughter.
Mag-he—the coward, or the wise woman, depending on one’s perspective—was standing down below, waving up at them. He was going to wave something at her, like a birch rod, if he ever survived this ordeal. She should have warned him about the danger of this amusement ride, which he thought was ill-named. There was nothing amusing about putting oneself into a metal box that rode up one hill, then down another, higher and higher into the sky, sometimes upside down, then hurled the passengers straight down at excessive speed till their stomachs lurched and rose to their bulging eyeballs. Then the procedure was repeated over and over again. It was insanity, pure and simple. They ought to establish a Rainbow Hospitium right in the midst of this chaos.
If Mag-he ever again dared to refer to him as a type-tea personality, he intended to set her crooked mind straight. There might very well be men—or women, or children for that matter—who enjoyed great thrills by making their hearts nigh stop beating, but he was not one of them. In truth, a Saracen horse soldier had once put a scimitar to his throat while dangling him off the side of a cliff, and Jorund had not felt such fright as on this rolling hell-ride.
Why could they not have stayed at Mag-he’s home and watched football—a brutal game more to his liking, where grown men tried to beat each other’s brains out—on the tee-vee box? It was the custom of most Americans in this land on this day. But no, these three lackbrains had to make one last trip to the Orcaland park before it closed for the winter.
Soon—though not soon enough for Jorund’s satisfaction—they emerged from the demented ride. He staggered on weak legs over to a bench, where he plopped down and put his face between his outspread knees. Sue-zee sat down beside him and exclaimed happily, “Wow! That was so cool. Can we do it again?”
He raised his head slightly and slanted her a look that he hoped conveyed his feelings on the subject. He was afraid that, if he spoke aloud, foul words would spew from his mouth.
“Can we go on the Ferris wheel now?” Beth asked her mother, who sat down on his other side and stared at him with concern.
“What’s a fair-ass wheel? Is it a fright machine, like the rolling coaster?”
“No,” Mag-he said with a short laugh. “Even I am not afraid of the Ferris wheel.”
So they walked over to another area, where the girls quickly jumped into another metal box. He and Mag-he followed in the next box. If Jorund hadn’t been so disoriented by the effects of the rolling coaster, he would have paid more attention to his surroundings. It was only as the fair-ass wheel began to move, backward and upward, that he let his gaze roam skyward and saw just how high this fair-ass wheel was. Enormous. Then he glanced down at the fence that enclosed the fair-ass wheel arena where a sign clearly proclaimed, World’s Largest Ferris Wheel.
That was all Jorund needed to learn. “You people are barmy,” he declared, unbuckling his seat belt. He began to climb out of his metal box, which was already high up in the air.
“Joe! You can’t do that,” Mag-he cried out. “Come back here.”
“Way to go!” Sue-zee, the bloodthirsty little type-tea, was cheering.
“Be careful,” Beth shouted down to where he was dangling from the slow-rising box. Despite her concern, it was obvious she was enjoying his wild antics, too.
“Joe, you have to stay on the Ferris wheel till it stops,” Mag-he informed him with chagrin.
“Not bloody likely,” he said, equally chagrined, swinging an arm out to grasp at a metal supporting pole, which he used to shinny down to the ground.
“You crazy son of a bitch!” the machine operator was screaming, practically frothing at the mouth. He had a front tooth missing and a bulge in his cheek.
“You are fortunate I do not have my sword with me,” Jorund retorted as he landed on his feet with a thud.
“Well, sword this, buddy,” the fellow hollered recklessly, meanwhile sticking a middle finger in the air.
Normally Jorund would have ignored the scrawny know-nothing, but he had learned from his friend Steve just what this gesture meant. He could not let the insult pass.
“Nay, I prefer to do this.” Jorund said, shooting him a sharp punch in the mouth, thus loosening another tooth.
Needless to say, they were soon evicted from the amusement park. But Jorund did not care…he had had enough amusement for one day.
That night Joe was in the den, buffing his sword with a soft cloth and a jar of her silver cream. He claimed that fresh blood—as in battlefield blood—was the finest polish for “a warrior’s best friend,” but Maggie didn’t know if he was kidding or not. She certainly wasn’t about to open a vein to find out.
“Are the girls abed?” he asked, without glancing up from his task. She had been standing in the doorway and hadn’t realized he’d been aware of her presence. She stepped into the room now and wished he’d put the sword aside. The fact that he felt the need to keep the weapon in tip-top shape bespoke a time when he would be leaving them.
“Yes, but they’re still so overexcited by their day with you that I doubt they’ll be asleep anytime soon.”
She saw the muscles in his jaw go rigid.
“Thank you for being so kind to them. I know they were a pain in the neck, clinging to you, and…well, I appreciate your…uh, tolerance.”
“They were just being youthlings, no different from…from other children their age.”
She knew that he had been about to say they were no different from his own daughters. Why wouldn’t he talk about his girls? Greta and Girta, he’d told her reluctantly, but he almost never mentioned them by name. The psychologist in Maggie recognized that Joe would never heal until he faced his loss head-on. It was a necessary part of the grieving process. And how about his wife? It was even stranger that he shut her out of his mind. He must have loved her very much.
“Do you know what your daughters said to me when I went up to look at their wishing star tonight?”
“What?” Maggie braced herself for the worst.
“‘I wish you were my daddy.’ That is what they said, Mag-he.”
Yep. The worst. “I told them not to say stuff like that to you, but I guess…well, I guess they can’t help themselves. Don’t get bent out of shape over it. Hey, next week they’ll be hoping that whale trainer at Orcaland is their father, or some hotshot movie star, or…” Her words trailed off at the disbelieving look Joe leveled at her. They both knew this was not a passing fancy on her girls’ part. “So what did you say to them?”
“I told them that, by necessity, I could stay in this land only for a short time.”
“And?” she prodded.
He released a long-breath. “And then Beth asked if I would be their daddy just while I am in this land…at least till after the yule season.”
“Oh, Joe! And what did you say to that?”
“Naught…I said naught. I was saved by Sue-zee asking me if I could chop down a Christmas tree for them. I said that I could indeed chop down a tree, though why they would want me to do so is beyond my understanding.”
Maggie laughed then and sat down next to Joe on the couch. Briefly she explained the tradition of Christmas trees. “You’re lucky they didn’t ask you for firewood and snow, as well.”
“You bring dead evergreen trees into your homes to celebrate Christ’s birth?” His eyes were wide with amazement.
“Yes, and we adorn them with bright lights and glittery balls and homemade decorations.”
“Now see, that is the strange thing about your land, Mag-he. You deem a man demented because he rides atop a whale
naked, but you see naught wrong with people voluntarily putting their lives at risk on rolling coasters and fair-ass wheels, or worshiping dead trees. I ask you, who is truly insane?”
She smiled and put a hand on his arm, about to squeeze it in playful remonstrance when she felt the heat emanating from him. It was only then that she noticed the flush on his face as well. Was it a sunburn? She put a hand to his forehead and gasped. He was burning up. This was no mere sunburn.
“Joe, why didn’t you tell me you’re not feeling well?”
“Dost have a hearing problem, m’lady? I told you after eating all those sweets at the amusement park that my stomach was rebelling. Riding that metal monster just churned it up more. Of course I am unwell.”
She left and came back with a thermometer. “Lift your tongue and let this rest in your mouth for a minute or so. I need to check your temperature.”
“Temperature?”
“Body heat.”
“Oh, I can assure you that I am hot. For you.” He waggled his eyebrows at her with a halfhearted attempt at humor.
“Not that kind of heat. Open your mouth.”
“No.”
“If you don’t want to do it that way, I’ll take you to a hospital, where they can take your temperature in another orifice. It’s what they do with babies—and stubborn adults.”
“You would not dare.”
Try me.
Reluctantly he opened his mouth for the thermometer, but the whole time he held it under his tongue, he glowered at her.
She soon discovered that he had a fever—one hundred and four. Forcing him to take two Tylenol, she helped him into the sofa bed and declined his request that she join him. The silly man wouldn’t have been able to do anything in his condition anyway. Well, maybe he would, but she doubted he’d be up to his par.
Ridiculous thoughts.
She slept restlessly that night. When she awakened the next morning, she realized that she had reason for concern. Joe was almost delirious with a raging fever…now a whopping one hundred and five. She rushed him to the emergency clinic at a nearby medical center.
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