Page 60 of The Very Virile Viking

Ha! He would have squawked at anyone who'd suggested such to him, too, if he wasn't seeing evidence of that fact all around him.

"I have just learned that this is the year two thousand and three We must have traveled somehow into the future a century and more from our own time of one thousand."

"I cannot credit that notion," Torolf said, shaking his head from side to side. "Oh, I know that the old sagas speak of such, but I always thought they were mere folklore."

"Me, too," Magnus agreed. "Me, too."

"Why? Why would such a thing happen to us?"

Magnus shrugged. "Methinks it is our destiny. All along I assumed that Grandma Rose and her prayer beads cajoled the gods into bringing us to a strange country. Little did I know that her prayer beads could bring us across time."

"But what will we do now that we know?"

"We must bide our time and see what happens. What will be will be," Magnus said philosophically.

"Now that I think on it," Torolf mused, "something Juan told me about one of the greatest inventions of all time begins to make sense. Of course, I did not believe him at the time, but if we have indeed time traveled, mayhap it really is possible."

"What great invention?" Magnus asked with little interest. What did he care about another modern marvel when his world had been turned upside down?

"Birth control."

"Birthing control?" Magnus asked, his interest piqued in spite of himself.

Torolf nodded vigorously. "Not only do they have pills that women can take to prevent conception, but men can wear extremely thin sheaths over their man parts called cone-domes, or men can even have a cutting operation performed that prevents them from impregnating a woman. And none of these interfere with the man's or woman's pleasure."

Magnus literally gaped at his son. "Can this be true?"

"I see no reason why Juan would lie to me."

"As a jest?" Magnus suggested.

Torolf thought a moment, then shook his head. "Nay. At the time, Juan was telling me about his girlfriend, Anna. They are both call-ledge students with three more years to go till graduation. They practice this birth control so they will not have children afore they are able to marry."

The implications of all that Torolf had told him suddenly began to sink in. "She knew! She knew, and she did not tell me!" he exclaimed, standing suddenly in outrage.

"Who knew? And what?"

"Never mind!" he said. But what he thought was, Someone is going to pay for this withholding of information. Someone is going to pay for torturing me needlessly. Someone is going to find out just what it means to be my destiny .

Then he recalled his vow. Even if he had known about this modern birthing control, there was still his vow to be reckoned with.

"Where are you going?" Torolf called after him as he began to walk away, not toward the house, but in the direction of the road leading away from the house.

He turned around and informed his son, even as he was backing away, "I must needs find an expert on vows."

"With all due respect, Father, have you lost your senses?"

"Probably."

Chapter Ten

Give me a vowel… I mean vow …

Grandma Rose was sitting on the side porch off the kitchen peeling apples when he walked up the steps.

Juanita was sitting across the table from her snapping string beans. The apples made his mouth water, because he knew they would probably go into a pie or some such sweet delicacy to end the dinner meal.

The string beans on the other hand, he could do without. Although he was a farmer, and should appreciate fresh produce, he still contended that they served far too many vegetables in this land. Even worse were the greens that they put in salads; no matter how they tried to hide them under various sauces and dressings, they were still weeds.