The Last Viking

  "You are making my head ache, Merry-Death. Who in bloody hell is Magnus Andersen?"

  "Andersen built a replica of the Godstad ship in 1893. To prove how seaworthy a Viking ship was, he sailed it from Norway to Newfoundland in just twenty-eight days, despite several storms. Since boyhood, Gramps was inspired to do the same, in reverse."

  "Was your grandsire of Norse origins?"

  She shook her head. "Gramps just believed there was much that could be learned from the Viking way of life, and especially Viking shipbuilding. This is a tech-ing college, and he always said that planning, hard work, and persistence, the talents teamed in actually building a ship... well, all these things would help a student in any walk of life."

  " 'Tis true, 'tis true," Rolf agreed, nodding his head.

  "Gramps died before he could complete his dream."

  She wiped her eyes, then looked at Rolf with determination. "But I'm going to complete the project for him."

  "I understand."

  "You do? No one else does. Certainly not my parents, or my ex-husband."

  "Though I am loathe to say so, you and I have much in common. Like your grandsire, my father gave me a mission. Until it is complete, I cannot rest."

  His perception disconcerted Meredith for a moment.

  "Well, anyhow, that's why I'm on a one-year sabbatical from Columbia, where I'm a professor of medieval studies. I've taken Gramps's place on the staff of Oxley College until the Trondheim project is completed."

  Rolf stared at her blankly.

  "What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

  "Half of your words have no meaning to me. What language is this you... we are speaking?" He rubbed the clasp of his belt while he spoke, as if for luck, or answer.

  "English."

  "It can't be. I speak both Norse and English, which are much alike, and your words come from neither."

  "Like what words?" Geez, this guy's games wore thin. Okay, he seemed knowledgeable about shipbuilding, but did he have to keep up the pretense of being a Viking? "Give me an example."

  "Like profess-whore. I can hardly credit you as a whore."

  "I beg your pardon," she bristled. "Professor is another name for a teacher."

  "Call-ledge?"

  She frowned, then laughed. "You mean college. That's a school... usually for young men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two."

  "Now I know you speak pure drivel. Men are only past the age of schooling by eighteen. Either they tend their own estates or fight their king's wars. And women... women are well into breeding by then."

  "Give me a break! Listen, Rolf, I have too many problems to continue with this charade of yours. So, knock it off, and—"

  "What is this made-heave-all you prattle about? Did you say you teach made-heave-all? Earlier this evening, you called yourself a dock-whore, and now you claim to be a profess-whore... a woman teacher.

  "I think not."

  Dock-whore? Oh, he means doctor. She should refuse to answer any more of his absurd questions, but his furrowed brow appeared genuine. Meredith was getting alarmed. He really might be a mental case.

  Even so, taking a deep breath, she explained, "Medieval refers to the period from the sixth to the sixteenth century. My specialty is tenth-to twelfth-century Britain."

  He made an incoherent sound, which she interpreted the usual reaction to her devoting her life to such a dull subject.

  She raised her chin defensively. "I come from a family of scholars. My grandfather was an expert in early Nordic culture. My parents are famous for late-Middle Age social customs. My brother Jared is an archaeologist who has worked on the Coppergate dig in York and is currently in Norway excavating a Norse farmstead. My sister Jillian makes Jelling-style jewelry."

  Rolf raked his fingers through his hair in confusion.

  "'Tis puzzling to me."

  "You?"

  "Well, I could accept learned men studying the past, but how can they study the future?"

  "What do you mean... the future?"

  He threw his hands out impatiently. "Anytime after this year, 997, is the future, is it not?"

  She tsked her disgust. "No, the period after 997 is not the future. Listen, why don't I just show you my grandfather's blueprints for the longship, and let's start from there?"

  A few moments later, she stood in her smal den, gathering together the oversized sketches.

  "God's teeth and Odin's breath! 'Tis impossible!"

  She jumped, not having realized that he'd followed her so closely. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw gaping at the bookshelves that lined three of the walls. The fourth wall had huge casement windows that opened during the daytime onto a spectacular view of Atlantic Ocean.

  He touched one of the leatherbound volumes with reverence. "You must be very wealthy to afford so many precious books," he said in an awestruck voice.

  "In my world, even kings often own only one book or two."

  He opened a volume carefully. Tracing a fingertip over the glossy page, he sighed. "The paintings are remarkably lifelike. And the writing is strange. Not the usual ink scratchings of the monkish scribes."

  "Hardly." This guy was a fantastic actor. To what purpose, Meredith couldn't imagine. But, if she didn't know better, she'd believe his fascination with books to be genuine.

  "It's incredible. I understand your words when you speak, but I cannot fathom the language in these books. Is it English?"

  Meredith nodded. A dread of panic caused her to back away slightly, although he did nothing menacing, other than stand there, shirtless, drooling over a book.

  "Tomorrow you must teach me to read your kind of English," he pronounced with his usual arrogance, slamming the book shut.

  Tomorrow like in one day, he expects to learn to read a language. Hah! If he thinks I'm going to waste my day pretending to give an imposter English lessons, he's got another thing, coming. And even if he can't read English, what would make him think he could learn an entire foreign language in one day? Next he'll be telling me he's Einstein... a Viking Einstein.

  Walking around the small den, Rolf picked up one book after another, poring over them, caressing their covers, murmuring soft words of disbelief or admiration. Finally, he came to a book written by a colleague of hers at Columbia, The Vestfold Dig: Death of a Viking Prince. He opened it to the center illustration and turned bone-white with shock.

  "What? What is it?" she asked with alarm.

  " 'Tis my sword," he said. "How can that be?"

  Meredith stepped closer.

  "See, the engraving is the same as that on my belt clasp."

  Meredith scrutinized the color illustration of a Viking sword taken from a burial site. Its ornate hilt had an engraved design of stylized animals that was, indeed, identical to the clasp of Rolf's belt. The base of the hilt also had several runic symbols scratched onto it. She pointed to them, asking, "What do they mean?" She immediately chastised herself for asking the question. How could this jokester decipher the futhark alphabet?

  "This weapon, Brave Friend, belonged to my beloved son, Geirolf Ericsson," he replied in a stony voice.

  She was stunned. "Amazing," she commented, more than impressed that he could read runes, and that his words duplicated the caption at the bottom of the picture.

  He flipped the page and gasped. There was a double-page illustration of a magnificent Viking longboat with dragon prow. "Who did this? Who made a painting of my ship?"

  "Your ship?"

  "Yea, 'tis the dragonship I built last year. Fierce Dragon. All my ships have the word 'fierce' in their names. I intend to call my new one Fierce Destiny."

  "I don't understand," Meredith said, rubbing the fingertips of one hand across her forehead.

  "I share your bafflement, my lady," Rolf said, turning a page. "Look, look at these." He pointed to the silver armlets taken from the site and held out his arms to show the similarity of the etched motifs to his own adorments.

  On and on Rolf went, e
xamining the pages of the book, his frown growing deeper, his growls more pronounced.

  And Meredith felt a ripple of fear sweep her. What was going on?

  Rolf finally turned on her. "What is this book? Who wrote it? And why?"

  "The Vestfold Dig: Death of a Viking Prince, is its title, as I said before. It's about an archaeological dig that took place about five years ago in a grave field in Norway. Vestfold was a region of southwestern Norway. "

  "I know where Vestfold is," he said impatiently. "I live there."

  "You do?"

  "And why are men digging up sacred burial sites?"

  Meredith shrugged. "Archaeologists do it all the time. Thousands of Norse graves have given us the only insight we have into the way people lived a thousand years ago, since no written documents survive."

  She flinched when she saw the look of revulsion on Rolf's face.

  "If they were Christian graves, the holy priests' hue and cry of sacrilege would reach the high heavens. Are Norse graves fair game because we are 'heathens'?"

  "No, when it comes to greed... or, more often, the search for historical knowledge, graves become a sort of public domain."

  He hugged his arms around his chest as if suddenly cold and mumbled, 'Thousands of graves opened... . who could have predicted such? 'Twould have been better if all Vikings followed the tradition of death burning." Then he seemed to remember something else. "What did you mean about this death of a Viking prince?"

  This whole conversation was getting ridiculous. "I already told you," she said with exasperation. "The objects depicted in that book were taken from an ancient Viking burial site. A ship burial mound."

  "Burial? Whose burial?" he asked, almost fearfully. Then added, "Ancient?"

  "Well, it's believed that some powerful Viking leader had a son who died and that he erected this burial mound in his memory. There were no skeletal remains. So, it's presumed that the son died in a battle out of the country, or at sea, maybe even... " Her words trailed off at the absolute horror on Rolf's ashen face. "Rolf, why are you so upset?"

  "He was not a prince. He was a Jarl... a high chieftain."

  "Wh-what?" She shook her head to clear it. She was falling to him as if she bought all his playacting. However, the teacher in her rose stubbornly to the surface, and she explained, "Rolf, the Viking buried there died more than a thousand years ago. Ancient history."

  "A thousand years?" he repeated dumbly. "Do you persist in saying this is the year 1997?"

  "Of course."

  "Guđ minn góđur! " he whispered, then repeated the expletive, "My God!" Holding her eyes, he spat out, "Not only did my ship run off course in the great waters, but it traveled through time, as well."

  "That's impossible," she declared.

  "What other explanation is there? Yesterday my ship wrecked and the year was 997. Today, you tell me that it is 1997."

  "And you think that time travel is possible?" she scoffed.

  He rolled his shoulders uncertainly. "The saga legends tell of such, but usually those adventures involved gods and the afterlife. But, yea, to answer your question, I do believe, like all good Norsemen, that anything is possible in this life."

  She curled her upper lip with skepticism.

  A soft moan escaped Rolf's mouth as he gazed once more at the book clenched in his fists. "Fađir minn, " he groaned. "My father—" he raised anguished, tear-filled eyes to hers, pleading—"my father must have prepared this burial site for me. Do you realize what this means ?"

  She shook her head mumbly.

  "I am dauđur... dead."

  Meredith nodded, though she didn't really think Rolf was dead, or that the man standing before her was a time traveler. No, she couldn't accept that.

  Could she?

  Rolf was swaying from side to side now, keening a low, savage wail of bereavement. Because of his own death? Holy cow! Over and over, he muttered, "Dauđur... dauđur... dauđur..." Finally, he snapped his head up, and swore, "Hver fjandinn! Damn it! Damn Storr Grimmsson! Damn all the gods who drew me to this place and time. Most of all, damn me for my sins, which must have brought about this punishment."

  Meredith tried to put a comforting hand on his arm but he shrugged her off. "Feel no pity for me, maiden, for I will return to my time—this I swear on all I hold sacred."

  Stepping back, she watched the raging warrior who tore the rubber bad from his nape and pulled wildly at the strands of hi long hair in agony. He let out a primitive Viking yell, as old as time, and stormed from the room and out to the bellow his rage cliffs, where he proceeded to yell and grief to the night skies.

  Peering through the windows, she saw him walking along the cliff edge, tearing at his hair, beating his chest, throwing out his hands in dismay. He chanted some strange words in Old Norse. A funeral dirge?

  Meredith's heart went out to the tormented man. She should be frightened, but she wasn't. Somehow she knew he posed no threat to her. At least not a physical one.

  He was a stranger, completely, and yet she felt connected him in a way she couldn't define. She was attracted to him, but it was much more than that.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she felt Rolf's pain.

  Whatever the reason for his being here, her intuition told her that fate, Or God, played a role. It was meant to be.

  She went out and tried to offer solace, but he was beyond hearing or welcoming her aid at this point.

  Through glazed, red-rimmed eyes, he stared at her as if she were invisible. "Begone, woman. Leave me... alone." Turning blindly toward the house, she thought he added in a gentler tone, "A man's honor demands he show strength, even in the death farewells."

  In the next few hours, as Meredith tidied the kitchen, made up a bed for Rolf on the sofa, and turned off the lights for the night, she kept glancing outside with concern. One time, she saw him kneeling with arms upraised to the moonlit sky, still chanting the Norse dirge. Another time, he raged, pounding a fist against a tree in frustrated anger.

  And all the time he appeared so lost and lonely.

  Finally, Meredith could no longer keep her eyes open, and she went to bed. Surprisingly, she fell into a deep sleep, exhausted by all that had happened to her that evening. Before dozing off, though, she wondered if she might awaken in the morning to find that the fierce Viking visitor had been a mere figment of her overworked imagination.

  Oddly, that prospect filled her with heartfelt sorrow.

  In the middle of the night, she awakened groggily, sensing a presence in her room... in her bed, actually.

  Before she had a chance to jump up with alarm, a cold arm snaked around her waist, pulling her flush against a hard male body. Although she wore panties and a nightshirt, she could feel that the body holding her was totally nude.

  "No," she protested and tried to push herself out of his embrace.

  "Shhh." Rolf breathed against her ear, fitting himself more closely against the length of her back, from head to heel. "I mean you no harm. Just let me hold you for a while."

  The lust that had almost overcome her earlier was gone now, replaced by a new, unsettling bond that she wanted to examine more closely in the light of day.

  Besides, she had so many questions.

  "No," she repeated. "Not now... not yet."

  Rolf's body stiffened behind her, and his fingertips, which had been tracing a sweet path down her arm from shoulder to wrist, stilled. He exhaled softly, and Meredith closed her eyes against the enticing feel of his lips against the nape of her neck.

  "I need you."

  This whispered entree—three little words, spoken with raw, pain-ridden honesty—were her undoing. And Meredith accepted something she unconsciously concluded hours earlier.

  She turned in his arms ad lovingly touched the side of his damp cheek, unable to distinguish whether the wetness had been caused by tears or ocean mist.

  "I need you, too," she sighed and surrendered.

  Chapter Four

  "I am dead," Rolf
said with utter desolation.

  Rolling over on his back, he rested a forearm over his closed eyes. By the light of an unshaded window and the lingering full moon, she saw his long hair spread out over the snowy white pillow.

  Meredith propped herself on her right elbow and reached across with her other arm to place a hand against his cheek again with gentle assurance. "No. You are alive, Rolf."

  Lifting his arm, he regarded her beseechingly. "Do you think so? Hmmm. I must needs yield to your better judgment on the matter. In truth, my head throbs with confusion. My body is frozen in your time, but my spirit craves the comfort of my own people. My heart is breaking. Surely those who walk in the afterlife experience no such pain."

  Then he laid his huge hand over hers, which continued to caress his cheek, and guided it to his chest, palm down. His heart thudded wildly, as if it would, indeed, burst. Rolf was bare to the waist, and from there covered only by her grandmother's handmades quilt.

  She knew he was naked under the cover, but as she gazed at his magnificent body, she felt no overpowering lust. What she felt was an overpowering... what? Caring was the only word she could come up with to describe the emotion that swelled her heart and warmed her blood.

  He was a stranger, but he was not.

  She yearned to touch him and heal all his inner hurts, but she didn't even know what they were.

  As a teacher, she delighted in passing on knowledge to her students. Ironically she sensed this primitive man could teach her much, much more.

  He was sent to her for a purpose, she suspected. And right now, she didn't care what the reason. She relished in the gift of his presence in her life.

  His bleak eyes held hers. "Merry-Death. Make me feel alive."

  She tilted her head in question, her pulse accelerating.

  "I am so tired and weary of the struggle. Thaw the frost that threatens to freeze my soul, Merry-Death. Please. "