Sandra Hill (6 page)

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 small den, gathering together the oversized sketches.

“God’s teeth and Odin’s breath! ’Tis impossible!”

She jumped, not having realized that he’d followed so closely. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw him 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 the 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 thread 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 impostor 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—one 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 a 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, turn
ing 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 adornments.

On and on Rolf went, examining 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 karl…a high chieftain.”

“Wh-what?” She shook her head to clear it. She was talking 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.”

“
Guð minn góður!
” 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. “
Faðir 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 numbly.

“I am
dauður
…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, “
Dauður…dauður…dauður…
” 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 band from his nape and pulled wildly at the strands of his long hair in agony. He let out a primitive Viking yell, as old as time, and stormed from the room and out to the cliffs, where he proceeded to bellow his rage and grief to the night skies.

Peering through the windows, she saw him pacing 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, really, and yet she felt connected to 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 to mourn…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.”

During 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.”

She didn’t want to make love with him. Not yet. 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.”

His whispered entreaty—three little words, spoken with raw, pain-ridden honesty—were her undoing. And Meredith accepted something she’d unconsciously concluded hours earlier. She turned in his arms and 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. In surrender.

“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 contin
ued to caress his cheek, and guided it to his chest, where his heart thudded wildly, as if it would, indeed, burst. Rolf was bare to the waist, and from there covered by her grandmother’s handmade quilt—a starburst design. She knew he was nude to the toes, 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 the gift of his presence in her life.

His bleak eyes held hers. “Make me feel alive, Merry-Death.”

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.”

She nodded, unable to speak over the lump in her throat. Slowly she lowered her head, and, with her left hand still resting over his heart, she pressed her lips to his. Soft against firm. Warm against cold. He was so frozen and stiff, like death. But she would restore him, she vowed.

It was a decidedly unerotic kiss, meant to convey
only caring. And, yet, it was extremely erotic, as evidenced by Rolf’s quick indrawn hiss.

“Will you be my heart-friend?” he murmured. His breath was a sweet kiss in itself against her lips.

At his words, Meredith reeled as some need, long hidden and denied in her deepest soul, began to open, like the petals of a fragile flower.
Heart-friend? Was that like a soulmate? Or just a friend?

He parted his lips, inviting more. At the same time, his arms remained immobile at his sides, palms upward, in supplication.

He didn’t insist that she get naked with him. Or grab her with lusty intent. He didn’t make false promises, or swear undying love. He merely waited, letting her set the pace of this loving…or halt it, if she chose.

Meredith found the prospect oddly empowering…and unique. No man had ever let her lead in quite this way, not even Jeffrey. To make all the decisions, or none. She wasn’t sure what to do.

So, she deepened the kiss, testing, and he accommodated her with a slight shifting of his lips, which were no longer cool. From side to side, she moved her lips over his, exploring, till she found just the right position. Then she slipped her tongue inside his mouth, tentatively.

His heart jumped with excitement under her hand.

She smiled against his lips, and felt him smile back.

Encouraged, she pulled away and examined his face with her eyes and her fingertips: the angry bruise at his temple, which she kissed gently; the arch of his thick brows; his long, feathery, thick lashes; the sharp bones at his cheek and jaw lines; even his straight, arrogant nose.

She admired but didn’t touch his wide shoulders.
Nor the ridges of veins that outlined his muscled arms. Nor the many scars, old and new, that covered his skin. Not even the enticing sweep of shadow and light that marked the well-toned planes of his chest and abdomen. Instead, she savored the anticipation of touching him in all those places, eventually.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.

“Yea,” he agreed, and crossed his eyes at her. For some reason, the gesture touched her deeply. Perhaps because the small sign of humor showed she was succeeding in her efforts to pull him from his despair.

“You’re not chilled anymore,” she remarked, running a palm up his chest to his neck, sweeping back down as far as his waist. Then stopping.

He inhaled sharply, and sucked in his stomach.

In resistance? Perhaps he’d expected her to go farther. Or perhaps he didn’t want her to go so far.

“Nay, I’m not cold anymore, sweetling, thanks to you. But I am bone weary and heart sick.”

Sweetling? What a lovely endearment!

Lifting his hands from their invisible bonds at his sides, he drew her into his arms and settled her against his chest. One hand wrapped around her shoulder, the other burrowed into her hair, drawing her head against him.

In seconds, with her face pressed against his warm chest, Meredith felt the slowing of Rolf’s heartbeat. Then the steady rise and fall of his chest. Just like that, he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

She wasn’t offended. In fact, she felt rewarded for her efforts to bring him peace.

But Meredith didn’t sleep. Nor did she feel much peace that night as slumber evaded her and troubling questions niggled at her brain. Toward dawn, she
slipped out of bed and drew the quilt up to Rolf’s chest. One arm was thrown over his head, and a thick patch of oddly attractive masculine hair showed in his vulnerable armpit. The other arm lay across the pillow where he had been holding her only moments before.

Tears burned in her eyes as she gazed at him. Then she forced herself to turn away and went downstairs to her computer, where she intended to find some answers.

It was eight o’clock before Meredith heard Rolf awaken. Soon after, she heard the sound of the shower running. She’d left a pile of Jared’s old clothing for him, along with a pair of battered running shoes. They would probably be too tight.

Getting up from the computer, she went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. She would have to go to the supermarket soon. There wasn’t much in the fridge. Deciding on French toast, she broke an egg into a bowl with milk, hesitated, then added two more eggs, figuring Rolf’s appetite would probably be huge after his meager meal the night before.

When she’d prepared ten slices of French toast, she placed them in the warming cycle of her microwave, set the table, and laid out butter and maple syrup. Then she prepared a pitcher of orange juice from concentrate and turned on the coffee maker.

She could still hear the shower running, so she returned to her computer and her distressing Norse journeys on the Internet. Thus far, way too much of what she’d learned confirmed Rolf’s preposterous stories. There had been a powerful Jarl Eric Tryggvason in the Vestfold region of Norway in 997, and one of his sons had been a shipbuilder and noted warrior. Eric’s
brother, Olaf Tryggvason, had reigned as high king of Norway at that time. Aelfgifu, queen of Britain and wife of Aethelred the Unready, had been weak and plain, just as Rolf had said. She’d died of childbed fever, possibly in 997.

How did Rolf know all this historical trivia?

Punching in her password now, she waited for her computer program to log on her access. Tapping her fingertips nervously while the computer processed her data, she made plans.

She intended to fax her brother Jared in Norway the minute she got to her office. She didn’t have a home fax system yet.

And she had some questions for Mike, as well, still not convinced that he and Jared didn’t have something to do with Rolf’s arrival. But she’d tried Mike earlier and learned that he was visiting some Army buddies in Bangor for the weekend.

“What are you doing, Merry-Death?”

Meredith jumped, not having realized that Rolf had come up behind her. Placing a palm over her thudding heart, she glanced back over her shoulder and had to stifle a groan. Lord, the man was gorgeous.

Wearing the same black sweatpants she’d given him the night before, he’d donned a gray Adidas T-shirt, tucked in at the waist where his talisman belt was clasped—an incongruous combination, but somehow it fit his Viking image. He’d pulled back his damp hair with a rubber band, and he’d shaved, revealing even more dramatic good looks. Lines of grief bracketed his eyes and grim mouth, but he appeared well rested.

Never breaking eye contact, he placed his left hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you,” he said
huskily, and Meredith knew he referred to the comfort she’d offered the night before.

She nodded her acknowledgment and he stepped away. Then she noticed what he carried in his other hand.

“What are these?” he asked, sitting in a straight-backed chair near hers.

She smiled. “Those are jockey shorts. Underwear.”

He held the white briefs up in front of him and scoffed. “Nay, they are too small to a hold a man’s parts.”

She scoffed back. “They stretch…even for the biggest
man parts
.” But then she concluded, with embarrassment, that he must not be wearing anything under his sweats.
Lordy!

“And these?” he asked.

“Athletic socks. You know—” she searched for words he would understand—“ummm…hose, that’s the word. You put them on your feet before you put on your shoes.”

He nodded his understanding, and did just that, after some clumsy efforts to figure just how it was done. Then he lifted an eyebrow and held up the last of the items he’d brought with him, Jared’s decrepit sneakers.

“Those are Jared’s old running shoes,” she informed him, dropping down to her knees in front of him to help put them on.

“Really? Men in your country have shoes just for running?”

“Yes,” she said with a laugh. It did sound funny now that he mentioned it.

“And do they have special
braies
for sitting?”

“No,” she grunted out as she tried to force one of the shoes onto his foot. The shoes were, indeed, at least
two sizes too small. “You must wear a size-thirteen shoe. You know what they say about Vikings with big feet, don’t you?” She’d blurted out that last observation, and instantly regretted it.

Rolf looked down at her with a puzzled frown. “Nay, what do they say about Vikings with big feet? And why is your face so red?” Then a grin tugged at the edges of his lips. “Could it be the same thing they say about Saxons with big noses?”

She decided to change the subject. “Do you think you can stand to wear them? Your toes must be cramped.”

He shrugged. “’Tis no worse than wet leather boots in the midst of a battle.” Then he stood, did a couple of deep knee bends and ran in place for a few seconds. “Yea, I warrant a man could run like the wind in these cloth boots,” he said, flashing her a dazzling, bone-melting smile. “Now show me this box you were staring at when I walked in. Blessed Thor, I ne’er saw a land with so many magic boxes.”

A short time later, Geirolf sat blinking with amazement, trying desperately to process all the information Merry-Death and her come-pewter flashed out. “’Tis sorcery, pure and simple, of that I have no doubt, but sorcery of the most wonderful nature. Letters and pictures and all the wisdom in the world are contained in this little box…in the…what did you call it? Oh, yes, the seedy-rome.”

She laughed.

He’d no doubt mispronounced one of the hellish words in this new language. “You are a mean-spirited wench to garner pleasure from my discomfit.”

“It’s just that you sound so cute.”

“Cute? Me? Do you treat me like a lackwit pup?” He shook his head.
Cute?
“Leastways, I intend to master the magic in this come-pewter box,” he snapped. “From birth, my father and mother encouraged learning about all things, in nature and in the world. ‘From knowledge comes strength,’ my father often said. ‘Even for fighting men, the brain is as powerful a weapon as the sword arm.’

“Your father sounds like a very wise man.” Her raised brow belied her compliment.

“You are loath to believe we
heathen barbarians
relish wisdom? Nay, do not deny what shows clearly on your dubious face. I told you afore that my mother is Christian, but my father follows the old ways. At birth, he dedicated each of his living sons to the Norse gods.”

“So?”

By all the saints! I’d like to wipe that smirk from her pursed lips. Mayhap a dunking in her moat would accomplish the deed. Nay, I must control my temper. For now. Until I master the secrets of all these magic boxes
. “If you would bridle your wagging tongue, a man could perchance finish his tale,” he told her instead. Truly, the woman could use a lesson or two—or fifty—in being biddable. “As I was relating before your interruption, my brother Magnus’s birth-patron is Frey, the god of fertility and prosperity. Magnus has ten living children with his three wives, and he is the best farmer in all Norway.”

“Three wives!” Merry-Death commented, as if that were the most important of all the facts he’d imparted. “Three wives!”

He waved a hand airily. “Then there is my brother
Jorund, whose patron is Thor, the god of war. Jorund is the fiercest warrior in all lands.”

He inhaled deeply at the sudden unhappy thought of possibly never seeing them again. Then he went on brusquely, “And my father dedicated me to Odin, the god of learning. Mayhap you have heard that the all-father sacrificed his one eye to drink wisdom from the well of Mimir?”

“A myth!” Merry-Death sneered. “Besides, you’re a shipbuilder, not a scholar. So much for your father dedicating you to wisdom!”

“Ah, but I was not always a shipbuilder. From the time I reached ten winters, I fostered in the Saxon court of King Edgar, my mother’s cousin. For five years, I suffered there in that snakepit of conniving noblemen, but I soaked up all that the monk teachers could provide in their monastery schools.”