They all looked at each other, then began laughing hysterically.
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Torolf said.
“Try me.”
“We were fighting a battle.”
“Well, shiiiit, why didn’t you invite me to come along? My ex-wife was in town, and I would have taken any excuse to kick butt somewhere else.”
“ ‘Somewhere else’ about says it all.”
Hilda is here. And she’s freakin’ blind. And she’s sure as shit gonna blame me. And now I’m responsible for her, and I feel so damn bad. What am I gonna do with her? “What if Hilda never regains her sight?” he murmured aloud. “What if she’s locked here in the future?”
Pretty Boy summed it up well. “One thing is clear in this whole damn mess. You are a classic case of FUBAR.”
Yep! Fucked up beyond all recognition.
When they got to the emergency room, Torolf was the only one permitted to enter and then only because he claimed to be Hilda’s fiancé. He felt like a vise was squeezing his heart when he saw her lying on a gurney. Straps restrained her across the forearms and chest, belly, and thighs. There was mud in her silvery hair. Her skin was ghostly white.
“Is she unconscious?” he asked a guy whose name tag ID’d him as John Flanigan, RN.
“We had to sedate her. She was screaming and flailing to beat the band, could have hurt herself or one of the orderlies. She claimed she was going to kill the lout if he didn’t show up and take her out of here.” Flanigan gave him a knowing look. “Don’t suppose you’re the lout?”
“In person. Has she been examined yet?”
“Yes. Dr. Hendershott over there can give you the lowdown.”
He walked over to the nurse’s station, where the middle-aged doctor was writing on a clipboard. Torolf introduced himself and again repeated—shudder, shudder—the fiancé story. After filling out some admission forms as best he could—How does one explain that a thousand-year-old woman doesn’t have medical insurance?—the doctor took him into a small office.
“Ms. Berdottir has sustained a blow to the head. We need to hold her overnight . . . maybe longer . . . to make sure her vital signs continue to be okay.”
That sounded like good news. “So, she’s not blind anymore?”
The doctor shook his head. “She still has vision problems, but that should be temporary. Of course, we’ll have her checked out by a neurologist and ophthalmologist, if necessary. Don’t worry, son. She should be back to normal in a day or two.” The doctor paused and took in his mud-splattered clothing. “Why don’t you go home and shower? Get a good sleep. Hopefully, I’ll have good news for you when I make my rounds tomorrow morning about eleven.”
Torolf shook his head vigorously. “Hilda is a stranger here. She’ll be frantic if I’m not there when she awakens.”
The doctor shrugged. “We’re going to keep her sedated, give her body and brain a chance to rest. She won’t even know you’re there.”
“When do you think the tranquilizers will wear off?”
Another shrug from the doctor. “Eight a.m. or so. When the nurses change shifts would be my guess.”
Torolf glanced at his watch. It was four p.m. “Nah, I think I better stick around.”
When he went out to the waiting room, he told the guys to head back, that he was going to stay. They agreed reluctantly.
By eleven, Hilda still hadn’t awakened. Once again, he was told, this time by the night nurse, that Hilda would not be awakening till morning because of the orders for sedation every three hours.
Torolf thought about the necessity of reporting in to the base, a two-hour drive. I could go to Coronado, take care of business, and be back in plenty of time, he convinced himself.
So Torolf left.
Big, big mistake.
She was in an alien place . . .
Hilda was frantic.
She was blind. She was strapped to some kind of mattress. There was an odd, unfamiliar scent in the air. Every time she awakened, screaming for answers, there were soothing voices and a prick in her arm, immediately followed by deep sleep.
Where is the lout?
What did he do to me?
Oh, gods, what if I am really blind? I would fain be dead than blind.
The next time she emerged from the strange sleep, she forced herself to remain calm lest they give her the magic jab her in the arm again. Pretending to still be asleep, she listened to the voices. There appeared to be two, a male and a female.
“No change, dock-whore. Mzzz Berdottir gets frantic and flailing every time she awakens.”
“Has her fee-ant-say returned yet? Someone’s got to give an explanation for these blood results. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my entire career.”
“We’re running another series right now. There must be a mistake.”
“Absolutely.” The woman giggled then. “You won’t believe what Dick Phillips down in the lab believes. He thinks we’ve got an ale-yen on our hands.”
“God! Is he the loony who came from the National Center for Alien Research?”
“Yeah. He’s a good tack-nit-shun, though, except when he goes off on one of these ale-yen tan-gents.”
Hilda’s brain was hurting, and not just from the blow suffered in the mudslide. She was confused. Where was this hospitium she was in? The closest hospitium to The Sanctuary that she knew of was days distant at Oslofjord. These people in her room . . . they spoke an English unlike the Saxon English she was familiar with. She could understand much of it, except for the occasional word, like ale-yen, dock-whore and fee-ant-say.
She moaned and opened her eyes. All she saw was a gray haze, but that was an improvement over the blackness she’d seen before. Her arms were strapped down, which caused her to panic, but she tamped that down, merely clenching her fists. “Where am I?”
“You’re awake?” the man said. “That’s good, that’s good. How do you feel?”
“The sedative shouldn’t have worn off yet,” the woman said, probably to the dock-whore.
“Terrible. I cannot see.”
“That will probably pass. Nurse, get her bee-pee and temp.”
More words I do not understand. “Where am I?” she repeated.
“Holy Cross Hospital. You’ve had an accident, but we’re taking good care of you. I’m Dock-whore Hendershott, and your nurse is Miss Wilson. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”
Good hands? Since when are a whore’s hands good hands? And since when are there male whores? Well, I am learning new things every day. If a woman can pleasure herself, why can there not be male whores? “Holy Cross Hospitium? I have ne’er heard of such a place here in the Norselands.”
The dock-whore’s voice sounded worried, and she thought she heard him whisper to his nurse in a worried voice, “Hall-loose-nation.” He patted Hilda’s hand and asked, “Norselands? Do you mean Norway?”
“Yea, Norway.” The idiot. An idiot whore.
“You’re not in Norway. You’re in Ah-mare-eek-ha.”
“Whaaat?” The land that Torolf spoke of . . . a land far away. “How can that be?”
“Now, relax, dear. Would you like a drink of water?”
“Yea, I would.” Or a cup of mead. A big cup.
“Nurse,” he said.
Something was stuck into her mouth. She gagged. When it was pulled out, she snapped, “What was that? I asked for water.”
“It’s just a straw, honey,” the woman said, placing the object into her mouth again. “Just suck.”
She did and surprisingly, water came up. Why they couldn’t have just put a cup to her mouth was beyond her comprehension.
“How long will it be afore my sight comes back?”
There was a pause. Then, “No telling right now. We need to run more tests. It might come right back in an instant. Or it might . . . uh, take months.”
“Months?” she screeched, bucking against the straps. “Where is Torolf? I want Torolf. Get the
lout so I may kill him.”
Hilda felt another jab in her arm, and she drifted back to sleep. Not surprisingly, she dreamed of putting her hands around the neck of the lout, but then the dream turned on itself, and it was his hands on her neck . . . and everywhere else on her body. How could she dislike a man so much who made her feel so good?
It was a nightmare, not a dream.
And, in the midst of that nightmare, she heard two men talking in whispers over her . . . neither of them the dock-whore who had been there before.
“I don’t know, Dick, she looks pretty normal to me.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t seen her blood tests. There’s no blood type in existence like hers. It’s like the dean-nay you get from ancient artifacts, thousands of years old. Of course, they think it’s just a mistake here, and they’ll be retesting in the morning. The dock-whores don’t see any urgency yet, because apparently this oddball type is compatible with type B, and besides she hasn’t had an open wound yet.”
“And you think she’s an ale-yen?”
“Could be. Must be. It’s worth investigating. But we’ve gotta find a way to get her to the lab in Dee See. I’ve already alerted the board.”
“The hospital will never release her to us, and I doubt she’d come on her own.”
An evil laugh. “Who could blame her? Willingly submitting to dice-section? I . . . don’t . . . think . . . so.”
“We’ll wait for the right chance and slip her out. Late tonight. Can you get a van ready that quick?”
“Yep.”
“This could be our greatest discovery . . . the one thing that convinces the world there really are ale-yens.”
The voices drifted away.
Hilda was left with the disquieting sense that danger lurked. They wanted to take her somewhere and perform some tests, apparently without her permission.
Where is Torolf?
And then the lout came strolling in . . . ELEVEN hours later . . .
Torolf arrived at the hospital at ten a.m. the next day.
The reaming he and his teammates had gotten from their commanding officer at the Special Warfare Center took longer than he’d expected. Where the hell had they been the past few weeks, out of beeper range? Their explanation that they’d been in Norway hadn’t cut any ice. Punishment would be in the future; Gig Squad had been mentioned more than once. They had one week to get ready to muster out again on a new deployment. One week! He sure as hell hoped he had Hilda back in eleventh-century Norway by then, or settled God only knows where.
He’d left Coronado, stopped at his apartment to shower and change clothes, and called his sister-in-law, asking her to take care of Slut a few days more. Luckily, Alison hadn’t been at home, and he’d been able to leave a message on her answering machine.
He had inquired by phone about Hilda’s condition several times, and he’d been assured that she still slept. The doctor on duty, not Dr. Hendershott, had told him that Hilda was moved to another floor, no longer needing critical care. A good sign, in Torolf ’s opinion.
He went directly to the desk in front of the elevator. “Can you give me Brunhilda Berdottir’s room number?”
The nurse, a skinny, no-nonsense woman whose skin was as white as her uniform, asked, “Dare I hope that you’re the lout?”
He laughed. “That would be me.”
“Visiting hours aren’t till one. Only family members are allowed now.” She peered at him over the top of her granny glasses. “Are you family?”
If I say no, they probably won’t let me in. He took a deep breath and blew out. “Her fiancé.” He kept his fingers crossed behind his back for fear God would hear him lie again and make it come true.
“Room 317.”
Torolf walked down the hall, feeling apprehensive at what he would find, feeling worried about Hilda’s physical condition, feeling guilty for getting her here in the future. Will she be happy to see me? Or angry? Maybe I should have brought flowers. Damn, I never thought about flowers.
He got to Hilda’s private room and walked in softly, closing the door behind him. He didn’t want anything they said to be overheard. Hilda was lying flat on the bed, her platinum hair spread out on the pillow, her arms and legs strapped to the bed, an intravenous tube leading into her arm, a sheet covering her up to her waist. Wearing a hospital gown, she looked so white and helpless.
He leaned over her and whispered, “Hilda? Wake up. Hilda?”
Her eyes shot open. “Is that you, Torolf?”
Oh, shit! She must still be blind. He put his hand over one of hers. “Yeah, it’s me. How you doing?”
“How do you think I’m doing?” Her voice was sweet . . . too sweet.
Uh-oh! “Can you see at all?”
She shook her head. “ ’Tis better than it was, though. The black has turned to gray, and I can make out some shapes, such as your big loutish body.”
Uh-oh! “You’re upset.”
“Dost think so?” Still, that sweetness in her voice.
“What can I do for you?”
“Take this thing off my arm. It feels like a needle.”
“It is a needle.”
“This is how they torture people in your country? Pfff! Take it out.”
“That’s not a good idea. I should ask the doctor if—”
“Take the bloody thing out, or I will lean over and take it out with my teeth.”
“Okaaay. It’s probably just for fluids anyway.” Carefully, he removed the tape and slipped the needle out.
“Now, take the restraints off of me.”
“Oh, no! I’m going to call the doctor and see—”
“They have only restrained me because I was being wild and demented. I am no longer wild . . . just demented.” Her sense of humor was misplaced and suspicious.
“You won’t do anything foolish?”
“Would you like to hear my new talent . . . screaming?”
I must have done something really bad for God to punish me this way. “Hold your horses.” He unbuckled the restraints.
“Torolf,” she said so softly he barely heard her. “Come closer. I would tell you a secret.”
When he leaned forward over the bed, she jackknifed upright, grabbed him around the neck, twisted, using one of the karate moves he’d taught her, rolled them both, so that he lay half on and half off the bed, with her on top of him, beating his chest, saying over and over, “Lout, lout, lout, lout!”
“What the hell’s the matter with you? I thought you were blind.”
“I am blind, but I’m not a lackwit.” She continued to beat at his chest, sometimes missing and hitting his head or his shoulder. “What have you done to me? Why did you take me to your country? How did you take me to your country?”
“What is going on in here?” It was the white-faced shrew nurse he’d met on his way in. “Oooh, I know what you were doing. Have you no shame? This patient is blind, and you cannot wait till she is better to put your hands on her?”
Hilda was grinning down at him.
“Here’s a news flash, Nurse Ratched. Hilda is the one pinning me to the bed.”
“He made me do it,” Hilda said. “See how his hands hold me down.
His hands were loosely grasping her waist. He pinched her butt.
She pinched his belly . . . down real low. She must have been aiming higher and missed. Or maybe not.
“And you pulled out her IV,” the nurse accused him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk! Wait till I report this to Dr. Hendershott. I’ve always heard you SEALs are crazy, but this pushes the bounds of decency. Having sex with a blind woman in a hospital bed!”
“I was not having sex . . . or thinking about having sex.” But now that you mention it.
“Hah!” Hilda and the nurse said at the same time. Hilda was squinting her eyes at the nurse, and he suspected she was beginning to make out her shape.
“Hilda pulled out the IV herself,” he lied. “I was just trying to make her more comfortable in the bed when you came
in, and I slipped, and then I rolled so that Hilda wouldn’t be hurt.”
“That doesn’t pass the giggle test, mister.”
Torolf lifted Hilda off of him and back onto the bed. Into her ear, he whispered, “Behave yourself, or you’ll get me kicked out of here.”
“I’ve got to check her vitals. She needs rest. You can go home now.”
“No!” she and Torolf said at the same time.
Shocked, the nurse glared at him, as if he had some nerve refusing to leave. She also gave Hilda a disapproving look.
“I do not want him to leave,” Hilda said in a whiny voice, accented with sniffles. “I am afraid here in the dark.”
Hah! Hilda had killed one of the most vicious beasts in all the Norselands. The dark wouldn’t frighten her. On the other hand, being blind would.
“Well, I suppose you could stay since you’re her fiancé. Just put a lid on your sex drive.”
Hilda turned her face on the pillow, facing him. “What is a fee-ant-say?”
He hesitated. “Betrothed.”
Hilda’s eyes went wide. But she must have realized that he had a good reason for the lie, because she remained silent.
While the nurse wrapped the blood pressure gauge on Hilda’s arm and took her temperature, he kept reassuring Hilda that what the nurse was doing was harmless.
When the door clicked shut again, he asked, “Why are you so damned mad?”
“Aside from being upset that you have taken me from my homeland and from The Sanctuary, that you caused me to fall in a mudslide, that you turned me blind, and that you caused me to time-travel?”
“Oh. Well, I’m sorry.”
“I need to relieve myself. Where is the privy?”
He stood and helped Hilda stand.
“What . . . Holy Thor! What kind of garment is this I am wearing?” Her hands examined the back of the hospital gown. “My arse is bare.” She held the back section of her gown together while he led her, muttering Norse curses, into the bathroom.
He parted her gown for her and showed her how to sit on the toilet, which she said felt strange for a privy hole. Before he had a chance to leave her for her privacy, he heard the sound of her piss hitting the water. He put his face in his hands. He didn’t think he’d ever been in a bathroom when a woman was taking care of her bodily needs. It was an oddly intimate thing for him to witness, but it was too late now. He took some toilet paper off the roll and handed it to her. “What is this?”