Page 111 of The Very Virile Viking

"What is the problem, Magnus?" Rolf asked.

"Everyone can see how unhappy you are," Jorund added.

"Of course I am unhappy. I have the world's worst headache from being confined indoors during the past two days of rain with my nine children—not to mention your children—and crying newborn babes."

"You adore those children of yours," Rolf charged.

" Adore is too strong a word. Did you hear that Lida said a whole string of words today? She said, 'I lub you, Fa-Fa.' And she was talking to me."

"We heard, we heard," Jorund said with a smile. "About a hundred times now you have told us."

"What are you two doing here at this time of night, bedeviling me? You should be in your beds a-slumber, or keeping your wives happy. Need you some advice on how to do that? The latter, I mean."

His brothers just grinned at him.

"Methinks I should go home on the morrow," he said of a sudden. And for some reason, having said it, he felt a world of heaviness lift from his shoulders.

"And where is home, Magnus?" asked Jorund, who always was the more serious one. "Back to Vestfold?"

"Nay, back to California, and the Blue Dragon."

"And Angela?" Rolf offered.

That was the crux of the matter. Wherever Angela was would be home to him, he realized in an instant.

He was a thickheaded lackwit not to have realized that before. Nodding slowly in response to Rolf's question, he asked, "Dost really think we have a choice… to stay or go back?" He and his brothers had discussed this issue over and over the past few days. They were convinced that there was a choice, and once they had made theirs, there was no going back.

"I repeat my first question: What is the problem, Magnus?" Rolf persisted.

"I do not know if I can have a future here."

"Why the bloody hell not? Do you love her?" Jorund was ever the one to get at the heart of a matter.

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

"Do you want to stay here in the future?" Rolf was crossing his eyes at him as if he were being

deliberately stubborn in not seeing the answer.

"I think so. Yes. Yes, I do. I worry betimes about Ragnor and Madrene, and I would miss them sorely, even that shrewish Madrene, but they are well able to take care of themselves."

"Then what is the freakin' problem?" Rolf pretended to tear at his own hair.

"The free-can problem, my brother, is that I have nine children here in Ah-mare-ee-ca… tagging along behind me, attached to my sides like burrs, hanging around my neck. Then two more back in the Norselands. I do not want any more children."

"Aaah," said Jorund. "And Angela does."

He nodded. "Yea, she does. Leastways, one. But knowing her, it would not stop there. My seed is virile, and she is voracious. I told her I would be willing to wed with her, but no more children. She told me to do something obscene to myself." He threw his hands in the air in a hopeless gesture. "That is the problem."

Jorund looked at Rolf, and Rolf looked at Jorund, and they both burst out laughing.

"Vor… voracious… the man has a voracious female, and he is complaining. Oh, holy Thor, that is the most mirthful thing I have heard in ages." 'Twas Jorund speaking. The halfbrain!

"Willing… you told her you were willing … oh, I wish I had been there. Merry-Death would have slapped me witless for such a remark." Rolf was still laughing. "And exactly what obscene thing did she tell you to do?" Rolf was even more of a halfbrain.

When Jorund had stopped laughing and wiped tears of humor from his eyes, he turned more serious.

"Magnus, you always were one to make a mountain out of a molehill. Is Angela willing to act the mother to your existing children?"