Chapter Five

"Love slave?" Maggie squeaked out.

As a professional, Maggie shouldn't have been shocked. Patients made outrageous suggestions to her all the time. But when the proposition came from a compellingly handsome man with pale blond hair, translucent gray eyes, and suntanned skin…well, Maggie had to admit to a teensy bit of temptation.

She would have to be extra careful not to cross that ethical line between patient and doctor…even if the patient was drop-dead gorgeous, despite the fact that he wore boring blue hospital-issue pajama bottoms, ankle restraints, and a white straitjacket. Even his bare feet, which were huge—a narrow size thirteen, she would guess—were surprisingly sexy.

She had to smile at that latter whimsy. Yep, there were strange goings-on inside Maggie these days, if she was getting turned on by feet. Actually, the psychiatrist in her had a ready, logical explanation: on a big, strong man like Joe, his bare feet appeared vulnerable and open to…well, touch—as other parts of his covered body were not.

Her face flushing with heat at the mere thought of touch , Maggie experienced a twinge of guilt as she glanced at the restraints that were put on him whenever she entered his room. They were necessary, though, even with a security guard posted outside the door, because he fought confinement. Fighting back was a natural reaction, of course, but it proved that he could be dangerous, until hospital experts could complete a diagnosis.

He was lounging on the bed now, his back propped up by two fluffy pillows and his long legs spread out on the narrow mattress, crossed at the ankles. His posture said he was relaxed, but the tension of the corded muscles in his neck said he was ready to pounce at the first opportunity.

He nodded in response to her question, which she'd already forgotten with all her musings. Oh, yes, she'd exclaimed at his ridiculous love-slave proposition.

"Yea, a love slave." He spoke slowly, with a strong foreign accent. Clearly English was not his first language. "Release me from these restraints, and we can negotiate an agreement."

She shook her head and pulled her chair closer to the bed, pencil and notepad at the ready. It was time she got a more complete background on this guy, now that he'd finally deigned to speak. "I can't release you till we're certain you won't harm others, or yourself."

"Why would I harm myself?" he scoffed.

She shrugged. "Lots of people do."

He looked skeptical at that statement.

She smiled as some of his words flitted through her brain. "You would actually negotiate a contract to be a…love slave?" Her face heated up over those last words.

To her dismay, his intelligent eyes registered her embarrassment, and he winked. Oh, my God! He winked at me. Whoa! Since when is a wink an erotic signal? Maybe my girls are right. Maybe I really do need a man. No, no, no. That's the last thing I need .

Maggie also saw the way his eyes scanned her body, from the top of her short hairdo, over her silk blouse, short skirt, and sheer stockings, down to her high heels. The jacket that matched the skirt hung on a wall peg back in her office. She was attending a seminar later today.

Joe liked what he saw—Maggie could tell by the brief flicker of his eyelids and the dilating of his pupils, especially as his gaze paused over her breasts—and she had to force herself not to react, either in anger or withdrawal.

It had taken Maggie years to become comfortable with her body. As a young girl who had developed much earlier than her friends, and as a young woman who had always had a curvy, voluptuous figure that made males think she was "easy," Maggie had gone out of her way to dress in a manner that would hide her figure, and to behave contrary to her sensual nature. But she was changing—her short, saucy hairdo and the belly-button ring being the most recent signs—and she no longer dressed repressively. If people wanted to form the wrong opinions of her, that was their problem, not hers. She didn't wear slut clothes, but then she didn't dress like a librarian, either.

That didn't mean she felt entirely comfortable under the carnal scrutiny of this handsome fellow. But she wasn't dying of mortification, either.

She held her chin high in defiance, and he chuckled, as if he understood…which was impossible, of course.

She hoped.

"You would actually negotiate a contract to be a love slave?" Even as Maggie repeated her question, she wondered why she was pursuing this line of questioning. In her own defense, psychologists were taught to go with the flow of the patient's dialogue…to lead unobtrusively, when necessary, but mostly to follow, without censorship.

"Yea…if it would bring me closer to freedom."

"Have you ever been a love slave before?"

His eyes shot wide at her question. "Nay. Have you?"

"No," she answered with a nervous laugh. "And I'm not interested now."

His only answer was the disbelieving lift of his eyebrows. He flicked his tongue briefly over his full lips, as if to signal that, even if she wasn't interested, he definitely was.

Lordy, lordy!

This had to be a joke, but he displayed no sign of humor. In fact, the chiseled features of his fine face lacked the laugh lines that should have been etched about the mouth and eyes of a man his age—about mid-thirties. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, his bespoke grimness, not a life filled with smiles.

Who was this man? The Orcaland people claimed they'd never seen him before. A police search of his fingerprints had brought up nothing. No family or friends had shown up claiming a missing person. He seemed to be a man without a past.

Maggie shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to bring up the love-slave subject again. But then she chastised herself: no topic should be taboo in the therapy relationship. With that in mind she asked, "Exactly how would you negotiate a love-slave contract?"

She expected him to laugh, or at least grin, but his expression was somber. "On your side, there would be the promise of freedom. On my side would be the promise of bed pleasuring."

A ripple, like an erotic shock, rushed through Maggie with stunning force. And that was amazing, really, because, while she'd made great gains in her insecurities about her body, she still harbored strong inhibitions about her sexuality. Case in point, her girls' father, Judd Haskell, who'd once said she was "as exciting as nailing a bowl of mashed potatoes."

"I see." Maggie blinked several times to clear her head under the intense survey of the man half reclining on the bed before her. He saw way too much. "Define freedom," she encouraged.

"I'd rather define bed pleasuring." A slight grin tugged at his lips, and Maggie thought he might not be without a sense of humor, after all. Perhaps it was just buried beneath the surface…or whatever pain had caused his breakdown.

"You talk in such an odd way," she commented. "I can't quite place the dialect."

"Hah! You think I talk oddly? You should hear yourself…and I do not just mean that sex-voice."

Sex-voice? Oh, he must be referring to the huskiness . That was another part of her body makeup that had contributed to her early reputation as easy. Leave it to this fellow to home in on it, right off. "My voice has sounded raspy like this since I was a child. A severe throat infection," she said, more defensively than she'd intended. "But your dialect…where are you from?"

"Vestfold."

"Huh? Is that in Texas?"

"I have no idea where this Tax-us is. Vestfold is in Norway. I am a Norseman. A Viking."

"I see." Now they were getting somewhere. Among his other mental problems, this guy thought he was a Viking…although, come to think of it, he did resemble a Norse god. She made a few quick notes on her pad.

"We were negotiating our love-slave contract when—"

"I never agreed to negotiate any such thing," she interjected, perhaps too indignantly.

"I have much experience in bed sport, of course."

"Of course," she replied, and immediately regretted her sarcasm.

Either he failed to hear the sarcasm in her voice, or he chose to ignore it. Good .

"Now, I cannot claim great finesse in more refined bed sport—no flowery words or hand-holding or such—and, in truth, I do not favor kissing all that much, but I have been told my endurance is remarkable. That and my size." Her only response was a gurgle, which he must have taken for a compliment because he continued, "And, of course, all Norsemen know the secret of a woman's S-spot."

"Don't you mean G-spot?" Criminy, was she the one going crazy here? What would prompt her to encourage him with questions like that?

"I know naught of a G-spot, but all Vikings know that the S-spot is far superior to any other sex spot." The lack of expression on his face gave her no clue as to whether he was serious or not.

"Well, this love-slave business would never work, I can tell you that right away," she informed him with a nervous laugh, "because most women like kissing."

"Do you?"

"Uh…well, yes. Of course." Oh, good heavens! My tongue has developed a mind of its own .

He seemed to consider her faltering words, the whole time staring at her with those luminous gray eyes. Finally he said, "Agreed."

"Agreed? What does that mean?" she practically shrieked.

He arched an eyebrow at the panic in her voice. "I agree to give kisses, and you agree to give…well, some things I want—nay, need ."

Like what? she desperately wanted to ask. Luckily her good sense returned, and she bridled her tongue. Enough was enough on this danger ous subject. "I am not in need of a love slave, thank you very much. We should get back to the subject at hand—the client interview."

"Is that what this is? An interview?" He frowned. "By the by, m'lady Muck-bride, are you married?"

She shook her head in confusion. What had her marital status to do with anything? Oh . He must be worried about potential conflicts with another man in the event she agreed to the love-slave business…which would be when hell froze over. "No, I'm not married."

"I thought not. No offense, m'lady, but wedlock will not be part of our love-slave agreement."

It took a moment before her fuzzy brain absorbed the fact that he was declining a marriage proposal from her. "You…you…" she sputtered.

"Am I dead?" he asked suddenly.

"Wh-what?" Now that question really surprised her. "Why would you ask a question like that?"

"Well, the anchor of my longship got tangled in the seas somewhere beyond Iceland, and—"

"Iceland!" she exclaimed. "Joe, you are apparently lost."

He frowned. "Why do you address me as Joe?"

"Because you told me your name was Joe Rand. Oh…do you mean that I'm being too familiar? Do you prefer I call you Mr. Rand?"

"Nay, I prefer that you address me by my real name. Johr-rund," he sounded out for her. "Jorund Ericsson."

She put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile at her mistake. "Jorund. What an unusual name! But nice…very nice! I think I'll just call you by your nickname, though—Joe."

"Joe the Viking?" He pursed his lips pensively. "Somehow it does not have the same luster as Jorund the Viking, or Jorund the Warrior." Then he flashed her an irresistible grin.

She grinned back at him.

"I know I was—am—lost," he confessed. "But it was that damned Thora who caused me to end up here."

"Thora?" For some reason, the thought of Joe being with a woman caused her stomach to clench. No, no, no . She couldn't allow herself to become involved with a patient. Besides, for all she knew, he might be married. "Is Thora your wife?" she asked with as much nonchalance as she could muster.

"Do you make mock of me?"

She took that for a no. Whew! "Your lover?"

He snorted with disgust. "Thora is a killer whale."

"Thora…a killer whale? You named a killer whale?"

"I did. Well, actually, my bother Magnus and my sailors did. And, if you must know, Thora is the most irritating animal this side of the Baltic. And she has bad breath, too."

"I see."

"Why do you keep saying, ‘I see,' when you clearly do not see?"

Maggie put her notebook aside and rubbed at the furrows in her forehead with the fingers of one hand. "A killer whale brought you here…from Iceland? A killer whale with bad breath?"

"Aha! Now you are beginning to understand."

"I see," she said.

The next day…

"That's it till next Monday," Dr. Harry Seabold told the people assembled around the conference table, thus calling a halt to the weekly staff meeting. "We should have more definite word within the next two weeks on the status of Medic-All negotiations with the Rainbow owners. I hope to give you a progress report next week."

"Two weeks! Well, whoopie-doo! My nurses are panicking now , Dr. Seabold. They need to know if they should be submitting job applications elsewhere," Gladys Hatcher insisted as she stood and gathered up her papers. "Some of them live from paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to go even two weeks without work." Gladys was a big, brusque woman who took no guff from anyone, not even their boss, but she also had a heart of gold when it came to her "girls," the nurses working under her supervision.

Earlier today, when Maggie had mentioned her daughters' report of the nurse's overheard remark, Gladys had clapped Maggie so hard on the back she almost fell over and exclaimed, "Well, he is a stud muffin, honey. Ya can't deny that." Maggie had decided not to make an issue of it, for now.

"I know, I know." Harry was nodding in reply to Gladys's concerns. "But let's not overreact here, folks. Even if Medic-All buys out Rainbow, it doesn't mean the hospital will shut down, or that jobs will be eliminated."

But what Harry wasn't saying, and they all knew, was that Rainbow was a unique operation, and many of them, Maggie included, might not want to work for the hospital if it changed its procedures. Maggie knew of only a few mental clinics in the country that were experimenting with a minimal-security setting with a combination of in-and outpatient therapy for serious mental disorders, combined with work-training experience. It was all based on individualized contracts, a relaxed atmosphere, and close supervision. Their success rate had been phenomenal, but it was too soon to try it on a wider scale.

Would Medic-All be impressed with what they'd accomplished so far? After all, the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital was a small facility of less than one hundred patients, and it was only five years old. Or would they bring their own people in and want a rubber stamp of the medical procedures followed in its other numerous facilities? Would the bottom line be dollars, or patient success?

Maggie feared she already knew the answer.

As the business manager, nursing director, activities coordinator, and other psychologists began to stream out of the room, Harry said, "Stay behind, Maggie. I have something I need to discuss with you."

Uh-oh . She sat back down in a chair close to the head of the table.

"It's about your John Doe…." Harry, still sitting in the head seat, gave her a weary glance that didn't bode well for said John Doe. Today Harry wore a white, short-sleeved dress shirt, a red-striped power tie, and khaki slacks—every bit the head honcho, even with his hair comb-over, which he patted every so often, whether to make sure it was still in place or out of nervousness, Maggie couldn't tell for sure.

"He's no longer a John Doe," Maggie reminded him. "Remember, he started talking yesterday. His name is Jorund Ericsson."

Harry gave a short "whatever" wag of his hand. "We are walking on eggshells with the potential takeover, Maggie. I'm very concerned about our having a patient here at this time with no known medical insurance and—"

"So that's what this is all about? Money?"

"Damn straight it is," Harry shot right back, his face flushed with sudden anger. He was usually such a calm person, even in the face of traumatic events, which were not unusual in a hospital setting. The takeover talks must be taking a bigger toll on him than she'd imagined. "I've never refused to care for a patient who had no means to pay, but these are very sensitive times. I'll be damned if I'll jeopardize the interests of ninety-nine paying customers for the sake of one…one"—he stammered, at a loss for the least offensive words to describe Joe—"one nude exhibitionist who just happens to be wearing a hundred thousand dollars in jewelry."

"Huh?" Maggie homed in on the most irrelevant part of Harry's tirade. "What jewelry? Oh, you mean those brass arm rings?"

"Brass? Ha! Those are solid gold, if my guess is right, and probably antiques…maybe even tenth century—at least that's what Martie said when she was here yesterday."

Martie, an antique dealer, was Harry's on-again, off-again girlfriend. She operated a well-respected auction house with international connections, similar to Sotheby's and Christie's, though on a smaller scale, and she served on several museum boards. She ought to know.

"Martie says those arm bands are potentially important antiquities, whatever the hell that means. And besides that, have you looked at that sword the police department sent over? I did, before they locked it in the hospital safe. My God, Maggie, it weighs a ton, and the hilt is in the shape of a dragon, imbedded with what appear to be real emeralds. I didn't bring it out to show Martie, of course—that would be unethical. But I'm telling you, this guy should be a paying customer…insurance or no insurance."

Maggie's shoulders sagged with weariness. Harry was right. He'd gone out on a limb, giving in to her whim over bringing a stranger to their hospital. And how did she repay him? By giving him grief. "What do you want me to do?"

"One week," he stipulated, wagging a forefinger at her with emphasis. "You have one week to show some real progress with this guy. That's when the advance team from Medic-All will arrive for the red-carpet treatment. I expect your assurance by then that he is no danger to anyone, including himself. That means no more ankle restraints or straitjackets. I want to see some interaction with other patients. Otherwise he is being sent to the state facility, whether it is in his best interests or not. Rainbow's best interests are my main concern, especially now. I mean that, Maggie. I really do."

Maggie put up both hands in surrender. "I get the picture, boss."

The question, though, was how to translate that picture to her patient. Most important, would Joe the Viking cooperate?

The next day…

"I do not understand," Jorund said, pacing the room as he shook his head with incredulity. "What kind of prison is this?"

"Why kind of prison do you think it is?"

The wench was back in his chamber again, battering him with more pointless conversation, half of which he could not comprehend, when he needed to be on his journey back to his ship to rescue his brother Rolf. And— Thor's toenails! —he hated it when she never answered his questions, but instead tossed them back at him like a bloody parrot.

If he asked, "Why am I being confined?" she countered with, "How do you feel about being confined?" Or a simple query like, "Where am I?" would garner, "Where do you think you are?" Never could he get a simple answer to a simple question.

She wore another of those short-sleeved sherts , as she had worn at the orca place—crimson red this time, made of a stretchy material that highlighted the most perfect breasts, round globes that would fit nicely into a big male hand…one the size of…oh, say, his hand. Not that he was considering the handling of her breasts. It was just an observation, he told himself. Just as he'd noticed she was wearing men's black braies that clung to her rounded hips and flat belly in a beguiling way. Then, too, there were those enticing, open-toed shoes with flame-painted toenails today. He had the most alarming compulsion to suck on those deliciously appealing appendages.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Really, he had been isolated too long if he was developing a taste for toes. Magnus would love to hear of this. No doubt at the next All-Thing, the skalds would be writing praise-poems…but to ridicule, not praise him. Instead of his being known as Jorund the Warrior, people would refer to him forever after as Jorund the Toe-Taster.

He'd best be on his guard. The wench might be out to seduce him with all these dock-whore wiles. And he might just be tempted if it weren't for her annoying nature. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? he mocked her incessant refrain in his head. What he thought was that he was tired of thinking. It was long past the time for action.

Oh, the wench had released his ankle restraints. A guardsman was still posted outside the door, though, and Jorund still wore the torture shert . That ankle-restraint concession had been made this morn when he'd promised not to make an effort to escape or engage in any violence. Even so, it rankled that she engaged him in useless chatter when he had important business elsewhere. Besides—he might as well admit it—he wanted to get back to the black box and see if Josh was able to rescue Reva from those dastardly villains on that far island. He had some suggestions he'd like to offer Josh for retrieving his wayward wife. And— Odin's balls! —that Reva was a woman after a Viking's heart…or any other body organ.

"What don't you understand, Joe?"

I swear I am going to rip out your tongue if you don't stop calling me Joe. What kind of name is that? That was what he thought. What he said was, "You say this is a hospitium?"

"A hospital…yes." She craned her neck to watch him as he resumed moving restlessly about the small chamber. "Actually, we prefer to call it a clinic."

"Ne'er have I seen a hospitium—or clan-hick—like this afore," he declared with a grunt. "I should know. There is one of the finest in the world located in Jorvik, near the minster. The good monks perform the healing arts there. They've sewn up my wounds on a dozen occasions. One time I nigh lost an eye."

Scanning him quickly, the wench took note of the white scar that ran from his right eye to his ear.

A distressing idea occurred to him then. "Since this is a hospitium, are those men in white uniforms who come in here…are they perchance monks?"

She smiled. "No, they're orderlies, or attendants."

"And the women in white—and you—surely you are not nuns?"

She laughed out loud at that. "The women in white are nurses, and I'm a doctor."

He exhaled with a loud whoosh, in relief.

The wench looked at him strangely. "You do understand that? No, I guess you don't." She paused. "This is a mental hospital, Joe."

Men-tall? Men-tall? He rolled the word around on his tongue silently. Oh, she must mean mental, like having to do with the head . It took him a few moments to digest that news. "Your country has special hospitiums for mad people?"

She nodded.

"Well, I can see where that might be a good idea." I have ne'er heard of such a ludicrous idea in all my days. Next she will tell me there are separate hospitiums for battle veterans or breeding women . Not wanting to give offense, but needing to know if he faced additional dangers from a berserk society, he asked casually, "Dost have so very many mad people here?"

She shrugged. "No more than any other country."

"We lock them up in my country…in dungeons, if they are available." Actually he'd seen only a few dungeons in his time, though he supposed some folks did lock up their infamous family members. They were probably Saxons, who were known to have no heart, even for their own kin. Even then, it was more likely to be a root cellar or woodshed, rather than a dungeon.

She gaped.

"Or just kill them." His third cousin Halfdan had killed his half-witted brother, Helvid, many summers ago because he'd slobbered in Halfdan's mead. "I have heard of some clans where less-than-perfect babes are left outdoors to die soon after birth. Life is harsh in the northlands, and sometimes 'tis merciful to spare the child with death when life would mean endless torture."

She gulped.

"In truth, I have heard of madhouses on occasion, but those were mostly in leper colonies."

She gasped.

But then, the implications of her words struck him on a personal level: he was being held captive in a madhouse. "You think I, Jorund the Warrior , am demented?"

"Well, I wouldn't use the word demented ," she answered, but the flush on her cheeks told another story.

"What word would you use?" He narrowed his eyes at her and gritted his teeth.

"Troubled."

He released the breath he had not realized he was holding. "Of course I am troubled. I already told you I am lost and must needs get back to my ship in order to rescue my brother Rolf."

"I mean troubled in a more serious, clinical way. Joe, you need help to correct your disorders before you can be released back into society."

"If by disorders you mean mental ones, then you are sorely mistaken," he informed her haughtily. "I am as sane as the next person…as you, for example. Or that Dock-whore Hairy with the hair swag."

He saw her lips twitch with suppressed mirth at his description of her colleague.

"Tell me exactly what I am accused of so that I may convince you of my innocence, and leave this place."

"No, no, no. You aren't being accused of any crime. This is a low-security mental facility. If police thought you were truly dangerous, or a criminal, you'd be in jail, not here."

"Then why am I not free to leave?"

"For starters, you showed up stark naked in a public place."

"Pfff!" He blew air out in a dismissive manner. "I did not choose to arrive without garments, but I needed ease of movement when I dove into the waters off Iceland to disentangle my ship's anchor."

"See, that's another thing," she said with excitement, as if she'd made some great discovery. "Surely you're aware of the frigid nature of waters in that region. Your body never could have withstood that temperature for more than a few minutes."

He was trying his best to concentrate on her words and not notice that her nipples had pearled with her excitement and pressed outward from the stretchy material of her shert . He made a mental note to take a length or two of that fabric back to Vestfold with him. He knew a trader who could make a fortune selling it to the Eastern potentates. For a certainty, the nether portion of his body was developing a liking for all that the fabric disclosed on the dock whore. He forced himself to think of other things before he embarrassed himself.

"Well, you may have a point there," he managed to get out finally. "Mayhap my boat did go off course a mite. Mayhap it was not really Iceland, but some other country. Mayhap I was a trifle…well, lost."

"Oh, Joe"—she sighed—"that would be more than lost. From Galveston, Texas, to Iceland is more than two thousand miles, as the bird flies."

It was his turn to gasp now. "As the bird flies, hmmm? And how many sea miles would that be by longship?"

"I haven't a clue. Possibly four thousand miles." She laughed. "Why do you keep mentioning such archaic words as longship?"

"Huh?" Then, "What is archaic about a longship? 'Tis the way we Vikings travel."

"There you go again, referring to yourself as a Viking. I've got to tell you that I've had patients in the past who thought they were aliens from another planet. One even believed he was the emperor Nero. Vikings, Romans, aliens…those are delusions, my friend."

He stared at her, slack-jawed with incomprehension.

"Vikings do not exist as a separate culture today," she explained slowly. "They were assimilated into the various countries where they raped and pillaged, or just plain settled."

"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 all."

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.

"Joe!" she exclaimed with alarm. "This isn't the year 998. It's the year two thousand."

"That's impossible!"

She shook her head slowly with a telling sadness. Instead of his convincing her of his sanity, he could tell she was increasingly convinced he was demented.

He inhaled and exhaled several times to digest all that she had proclaimed. Finally he told her, "If I am not dead, as you have assured me, and if this is in truth the year two thousand, then there can be only one conclusion."

"And that would be?"

He groaned. "I've heard about this in the sagas of the Norse gods, but never did I actually think it could come true, especially not for mortal men. But what other explanation could there be?"

"What are you talking about, Joe?"

"I must have traveled through time."