The Last Viking

  "Gramps had no choice. The college is inland and crowded for space. Gramps had this extra land here, and it seemed the logical place. Besides, it's no big deal to put the boat on a flatbed truck when the time is right and take it a few miles down the road to a docking site."

  "Well, that may be, but there is also the lack of water to soak the timbers. I must needs build a water trough... a big water trough. Blessed Balder! Can you imagine how much time and muscle power it's going to take hauling pails of water up that cliffside, or from your keep?"

  She snickered softly and strolled over to the side of the house. Turning on an outside spigot, she pulled the hose along with her as she walked back toward him.

  And the evil side of her nature—the one she'd just discovered since a certain Viking entered her life—kicked in, giving her the perfect opportunity for revenge. "Let's see you smirk at me again, Mr. This-Is-Man's-Work Viking," she jeered, and pressed the lever on the nozzle, spraying him from head to foot.

  Rolf stood speechless for a moment as rivulets of water—probably very cold water—ran down his face, knocking off his cap, plastering his clothing to his body. Then a slow smile spread across his lips, just—before he leapt forward, tackling her to the ground and turning the hose on her. She was the recipient of a good soaking then, and the water was cold.

  Roaring with glee, Rolf reached out a hand and helped her to her feet. She spit out water and strands of hair from her mouth. Only then did she notice that Rolf had abruptly stopped smiling. Instead, he gazed with decided interest at her wet pajamas, now plastered against every curve of her body, like black plastic wrap.

  "I thought I did not like your pay-jam-hose when I first saw them yestereve," he remarked with a lazy grin. "I have changed my mind." Then, with a shake of his head, he took her hand, leading her toward the house. "Enough of these games. You must stop trying to seduce me, sweetling."

  She sputtered indignantly.

  He chucked her under the chin. "Come, let us go into the keep and make a list of needed supplies. Do not dawdle now, wench."

  I must be an adult here. I must not rise to every baiting word he utters. I must not stare at his behind in those wet jeans. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

  "Yea, I broke fast long ago. Cookies and mead. You will have to go to the grocery mall again."

  Huh? Cookies and mead? "Oh, Good Lord, did you have Oreos and Bud Light for breakfast?"

  "Yea. Did I not just say so? Why is your mouth hanging open? The fare was delicious. I ate whilst watching Sesame Street on the picture box. Today I learned the letter X with Bert and Ernie. I've decided X is the best letter in your alphabet. Indeed, my favorite word has the letter X in it." He waited several moments for her to comprehend what word that might be, his amber eyes twinkling with mischief.

  She laughed, feeling wonderfully carefree and happier than she had in ages. Impulsive. In fact, she decided to try Oreos and beer for breakfast.

  Then again, maybe she should case into this impulsive stuff.

  Geirolf had landed in shipbuilders' heaven—the Bangor Hardware Superstore.

  "No kidding, man! Who are you, really?" Mike Johnson asked for about the hundredth time since he'd arrived at Merry-Death's keep hours ago, at Merry-Death's instruction. Although it was the Lord's Day, she'd gone into her off-face to work. "I mean, what man gets his rocks off over sandpaper? Sandpaper! Now, Sharon Stone in a carpenter's belt, I could see. But sandpaper? You must've been living in a jungle all these years."

  "What?" Geirolf replied distractedly, fingering the various grades of abrasive paper piled up on shelf after shelf. He threw a half dozen of each in his pushcart.

  "Do not take offense, Mike, but it appears lackwitted to me that you and Merry-Death would want to build a longship using the old methods when you have all these modern marvels."

  "That's the whole point... to show our students the painstaking labor and perseverance needed to complete a project of this magnitude."

  "Hah! The rest of yon can persevere by rubbing sand onto rough boards and shaving wood with an adz till your fingers ache, but I am not a lackwit. I will use sanding paper on my ship."

  Mike shook his head in amazement. "Professor Foster is gonna put your neck in a noose. And it's not just the sandpaper. Wait till she sees those. high-tech hammers and gouging tools you've picked out. She wants this ship built exactly the way the primitive Vikings did it."

  "The hard way, you mean. Isn't that just like a woman?" Geirolf snorted. "And who says I am primitive? "

  Mike choked back a guffaw. "You're really into this Viking re-enactment crap, aren't you?"

  "Nay, I told you... I have come from Hordaland—mean Norway. And that is all I am free to tell you. I forswore an oath to Merry-Death not to discuss how I got here."

  "Now that's real interesting, because she accused me... or her brother Jared of hiring you." Mike slitted his eyes, studying him suspiciously. "She practically burned out her fax machine this morning shooting off letters about you and that crazy belt of yours to every university in the country. Even had me run a check on you with the local fuzz."

  Geirolf had no idea what a fax machine was. Perhaps Mike had meant Saxon machine. Or fuzz. Wasn't that lint found in the navel? He was sore tired of asking "What's that?" about every blessed thing he encountered in this land. He did understand letters, though.

  "In my opinion, that was one of the biggest mistakes your people made... teaching women to write. Bloody hell! You men of Am-eric-hah must be soft in the head. Now your females can not only jabber incessantly in a man's face—Dig the moat... Clean the garderobes... Stop belching—but they can put all their nagging on parchment, as well."

  Mike laughed, rushing to keep up as Geirolf steered his cart around a comer. "And you've shared these opinions with Professor Foster?"

  "Not yet," Geirolf admitted, exchanging a rueful grin with the younger man.

  Geirolf liked Mike. The man, who'd seen about twenty-five winters, was dressed almost identically to him in den-ham braies, T-shert and running boots.

  Many of the males they'd encountered that day wore the same attire. Except that Mike's shert was green and had U.S. Army printed on the front. That was the name for Am-eric-hah's military force, Geirolf had learned.

  Mike had been a warrior for three years before going back to school, which was very strange to Geirolf's way of thinking. A grown man needing more education?

  And his hair! The young man had clipped his blond tresses—there must be Nordic blood in his family—down almost to the scalp. A gee-eye buzz cut, he called it. Geirolf had never held with that biblical notion that a man's strength was in his hair, but it did keep a man warm on a cold Norse night when there was no wench available for the bedding. What could Mike have been thinking? A woman must have talked him into such a foolhardy action. Probably that Sharon Rock-no, Sharon Stone creature who had Mike salivating at the mere mention of her name.

  Mike had already told him that his father and mother had died years ago in a wheeled box accident, and his wife had passed away two years past whilst skiing.

  Geirolf decided he would have a man-to-man talk with Mike later and help steer him on the better path of masculine behavior. Mayhap he would even show him how to win that Sharon Stone seductress to his bed.

  Geirolf had spent the morning, after Merry-Death had gone to the call-ledge, working on his English language skills with Thea. The girl, who looked much better without her face paint, had found a child's "primer" on the Internet, which helped him tremendously.

  Then-they'd watched two hours of Sesame Street on a public television merry-thong to solicit money. Geirolf wished he had more time; he would relish nothing better than to meet the mischievous Ernie, who felt like a newfound friend to him in this alien country. Ernie's appearance was unlike that of any child he'd ever seen, but be had big ears like his brother Magnus, and that endeared the "boy" to him.

  With the help of the talisman belt, Geirolf already had mastered the rudiments
of the English language. He only needed to touch his belt on occasion now when out in society to translate odd words or phrases—the ones not found on Sesame Street or in the grammar texts. Such as the words that drivers of the other wheeled boxes yelled at Mike whenever he cut in front of them. Or the words to the songs Thea's music box played so loudly... lyrics as peculiar as the ill-named musicians. 'Twas a curious country where men were grateful to be dead. Or a woman was merry in death.

  Thea was home now, painting her finger and toenails with Black Plague, and blasting the air with the raucous music.

  Now his attention swerved in another direction.

  "Oh, Holy Thor, I think I am in Asgard," Geirolf said enthusiastically. He soon learned that they'd entered Am-eric-hah's version of Valhalla, a real man's paradise—the power-tool section of the hardware store.

  Mike hooted and sniggered at his fascination with the power tools, but Geirolf could not care. He would give his entire treasure chamber at home for half of these tools of the gods. In the end, it took Mike almost an hour to drag Geirolf away. Only a reminder of wasted time recalled to him the urgency of his Mission.

  So, it was with a sigh of regret that they pushed their cart up to the wooden box... a counter... where the store worker took their money and put it in another box... a cash register.

  Geirolf's eyes were glazed over when Mike finally pulled him from the store with their purchases. 'Twas a mirracle... all the extraordinary power tools that had been invented. There were saws that moved by themselves. Drills to bore holes in even the hardest wood with no effort. All powered by something called elect-rice-city, which Geirolf intended to research on the come-pewter when he returned to Merry-Death's library. Mike had even told him of huge shovel machines, called backhoes, that could dig an entire-moat in one day. Geirolf knew a few Saxon kings and aetherings who'd pay a fortune for such.

  "Don't look so glum, Rolf" Mike's lips twitched with mirth as he dumped their packages in the back of his wheeled box. Mike's riding vehicle was different from Merry-Death's. It was blue, and only the front seat was covered by a root. The back portion was a long, uncovered box—What else!—for hauling things.

  "When we get back to Professor Foster's house, you can watch those two videotapes we bought—Bob Vila's This Old House and Tim Allen's Home Improvement. They'll teach you everything you ever wanted to know about modern tools." '

  When they reached the dirt road leading up to Merry-Death's keep, Geirolf convinced Mike to let him drive his box. After several rough lurches and skidding accelerations, he mastered the technique. And it was a truly exciting experience, speeding along at what Mike said was ten miles per hour. 'Twas like the rush of exhilaration after a fiercely fought battle, or the rush of another kind after a fiercely played bout of bedsport.

  By the time he came to a screeching halt in front of Merry-Death's door, Mike was alternately bracing his outstretched arms on the dashing board and laughing uproariously.

  Merry-Death stood on her front porch, hands on hips, eyes flaming angrily. Thea, in war paint that would do a Scot warrior proud, stood beside her, smiling from ear to ear.

  "Isn't she magnificent?" Geirolf said, inhaling sharply.

  "Who?" Mike slanted him an incredulous glance. "Thea?"

  "Of course not. Do you take me for a despoiler of children?"

  "Professor Foster? You think Professor Foster is magnificent?"

  Geirolf nodded, feeling the usual heaviness in his loins and a strange fluttering in his heart when he gazed at her.

  "Professor Foster?" Mike repeated with stunned disbelief. "You've got the hots for my boss? You must be nuts. I mean... don't get me wrong, I like Dr. Foster. She's a really nice person. But magnificent? No way! Now Sharon Stone... that's what I call magnificent. "

  Geirolf shook his head adamantly. "You are young, Mike. Like a horse with blinders, you are. You weigh a woman's value only with your eyes... and your cock. "

  "So?" Mike grinned. "Works for me."

  "Foolish boy, there is more... much more."

  Meredith couldn't believe her eyes. It was six o'clock and not only had Mike and Rolf been gone all afternoon, but Rolf was driving the truck. Even though it was Sunday, she'd decided to go into her office, where she'd run into Mike. She'd asked her grad assistant to go to her house and meet the new shipbuilder on the project. She hadn't expected him to take off on some great adventure... and certainly not to put the Viking behind the wheel of a truck.

  She was going to wring Mike's neck. Then she was going to tackle the big guy, the one who'd been causing her grief all day as inquiry after inquiry brought no answers concerning his identity, only more questions.

  "Where have you two been all day?" she snapped as the two men approached, laden with bags imprinted with the Bangor Hardware Superstore logo.

  "Shopping," Rolf answered blithely, leaning down to give her a quick kiss on the lips in passing. "I missed you, sweetling," he whispered against her gaping mouth.

  The casual gesture zapped Meredith speechless. She forgot momentarily why she was so angry and worried.

  He kissed me. Just like that. He kissed me. In front of Mike and Thea. Oh, Lord, he kissed me. As if he had every right in the world.

  Mike just chuckled.

  Thea giggled.

  Rolf gave Mike a knowing look and winked.

  "Aaarrgh!" Meredith said, coming to her senses.

  "I've been so worried."

  " 'Tis e'er the way of women... to wring their hands when their men are off to battle."

  "Battle? Battle? You were shopping."

  Rolf waved a hand airily. " 'Tis the same thing."

  Mike dipped his head sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Foster. I should have called, but we got sort of, uh, delayed in the power-tool section of the hardware store."

  Rolf sighed. "I am in love..."

  Meredith's heart lurched. He met some woman in the hardware store? And fell in love at first sight? Oh, isn't that just like a man? Snag one woman, then go trolling for another. No, no, no! What am I thinking here? He hasn't snagged me. Uh-uh!

  ". . . with power tools," Rolf finished with a speaking grin. He'd obviously recognized her dismay.

  "Wh-what?" she sputtered. Somewhere along the way, Meredith had become lost in this crazy conversation.

  "Rolf has discovered the grown man's dream toy-power the Power tool," Mike declared with dry humor.

  "Tonight we will watch Bibveela and Timalley on the picture box. Then you will understand," Rolf explained, pulling two videotapes out of his bag.

  "Bob Vila and Tim Allen," Mike interpreted. In an aside to Meredith, he mouthed, "Who is this guy?"

  Meredith's brain swirled, but one important fact seeped through. There was no other woman. Later she would contemplate the uncalled-for relief that flooded her. For now, she blustered, "Come inside. Dinner's ready, and I have lots to discuss with you two. You'll stay, won't you, Mike?"

  "I wouldn't miss it for the world," Mike said, still chuckling. "I can't wait to see your reaction when Rolf expounds his philosophy on feminism." Looping a free arm around Thea's shoulder, he started into the house.

  "Great makeup, by the way, kid. I don't know about the earring in the nose bit, though. Doesn't Kleenex and stuff get caught there?"

  "Oh, Mike! You're always kidding," Thea twittered.

  "I hope we're not having worms again," Rolf grumbled, patting Meredith on the rump as he passed.

  She barely stifled a squeal of affront.

  "I have a ferocious hunger," he continued. "A side of roast boar would be a welcome repast right now. With a slab of manchet bread. I don't suppose..."

  She laughed. "We're having chili and sourdough biscuits. Take it or leave it."

  "I talked to my brother Jared today. He said that he didn't send you here," Meredith informed Rolf as she ladled out his third helping of chili and Mike's second.

  She was going to have to retrain herself to cook in volume.

  "Did I not tell you so
afore?" Rolf retorted, still disgruntled that she hadn't stopped for more beer. "How's a man to eat a meal without mead to wash it down?" He'd been grumbling throughout dinner. "Especially this spicy prevender."

  "So, who told you that I wanted to hire a ship-builder?" Meredith threw the question out nonchalantly, hoping to catch Rolf off guard, but she saw Mike and Thea raise their heads alertly, and immediately added, "Oh, never mind. You're here now. I guess that's the most important thing." She would have to pick a better, more private time.

  The phone rang then and Meredith went into the living room to pick it up. Her usually immaculate home was a shambles. Thea's clothes were scattered about. A bag of microwave popcorn sat on the coffee table along with an assortment of CDs, not to mention an array of cosmetic products that would turn Mary Kay purple. In the corner was a neatly stacked pile of Rolf's new clothing, as well as his leather tunic and boots that she'd cleaned for him. Outside, the hideous, big-breasted female prow still lay on the patio.

  Meredith groaned and picked up the phone on the third ring. "Hello."

  "Mer? You groaned. What's wrong?" a female voice asked in a rush of concern.

  It was her sister Jillian. "What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong, Jillie' I've got a twelve-year-old girl here who should be with her mother. I've got a Viking-longship to build before the end of the semester. I've got a master shipbuilder who thinks he's a real Viking and who honest-to-God expects me to sit and watch Home Improvement on TV with him tonight. And, if that's not enough, I've got to decide what the hell to do with my future once this project is completed."

  Jillie let out a Ion breath of relief "Oh, is that all? I thought it was something serious."

  Meredith groaned again. "If this isn't serious, what is?"

  "I'll tell you what's serious, sister dear. It's that sketch you sent me today of a medieval ornament."

  Meredith was instantly alert. She'd faxed the sketch today to Jillie, her brother, her parents, even a colleague at Columbia.