Page 96 of The Caged Viking

“Now, what about the food, Frida?”

“We will do several haunches of venison for the wedding. Signe is working with me on the menu. Then, for the yule feast, we will roast the traditional boar,” his cook told him. Frida had been uncommonly quiet during all this discussion, up till now. No doubt she was still harboring ill feelings toward him since he’d snapped at her two days ago when she asked if he was ever going to look for his missing wife.

“You have everything you need?” Hauk asked her, kindly, wanting to make peace.

“I do, especially with all the extra vegetables and spices that Egil brought back from Hedeby.” She did not mention all the game he and his hunting party had brought back as well. Ah, well, she would get over her sulk with a few honeyed words. All women did.

“Thank you kindly, Frida. I knew I could count on you,” he said, smiling at her.

She lifted her chin and gazed at him haughtily.

Well, mayhap it will take a little more time.

Frida and Signe left then to various duties, while he and Thorkel finished the rest of the ale in the pitcher.

“So, do you think your wife will allow you to go a-Viking next spring?” he asked Thorkel.

“What? Of course.” Thorkel appeared insulted before he realized that Hauk was teasing.

“Originally, I thought to go amber-harvesting in the Baltics, but with our success in replenishing the larders here this winter, I am more inclined to adventure. Maybe those lands beyond Iceland.”

“Where Lady Kirstin came from?”

“Nay, not that,’ he replied. “’Twould be impossible.” Which was more true than Thorkel could realize since Kirstin came not just from a distant land but a distant time.

“Do you think she will ever come back?” Thorkel asked.

Hauk stiffened. Thorkel pushed the bounds of their friendship with his question, just had Frida had. Everyone knew it was a forbidden subject. Even so, Hauk answered, “Nay. She will never return.” Then he added, “Even if she did, she would no longer be welcome.”

* * *

Signs can be interpreted in different ways, but a sign from God? Oh, boy!...

Everything Kirstin did for the following weeks was seen through a Hauk filter.

When she went to a supermarket, she wondered, “What would Hauk think of such abundance?”

When she drove to her apartment in LA to get her work laptop and research materials, she smiled. Hauk would love driving a car. No doubt he would have a lead foot on the accelerator.

When she watched her father working in the vineyard, she wondered if Hauk’s family had ever tried to raise grapes. Probably not, not that far north.

When Torolf and Hamr visited one weekend and talked about their latest SEALs’ mission, she realized that Hauk would probably fit in well with his warrior skills.

The last straw was when she accepted and went out on a date with JAM…Jacob Alvarez Mendoza…the Navy SEAL she’d been dating off and on for years. She sat across from him in a Salina restaurant, and couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was, and nice. But she felt nothing. He was not Hauk.

After that, she stuck pretty close to home…Blue Dragon, that was. For some reason, she needed the comfort of her family, especially since the dean of her college at UCLA, Dr. Carter, assured her that her substitute was doing a fine job, and Kirstin would be welcome back next semester. Dr. Carter was even more accommodating because Kirstin had mentioned that she’d found some new research material that would enhance her doctoral thesis, which was to be presented after the new year. And that was the truth, but in a way her supervisor was not aware. All that Kirstin had witnessed and experienced during her time travel would enhance her thesis tremendously. And she did work diligently on her laptop every day.

But then she started streaming some of the old Outlander series, particularly the episodes where Claire decides to go back in time, again, and she is planning all the objects she could carry with her, like penicillin. Which was fine for Claire since she was a physician. Not so much for a college professor of Nordic studies.

Even so, Kirstin found herself compiling a list in her head of what she would take if she were going back, not that she was actually considering such a ridiculous notion. It became a sort of game.

Yes, a few photographs. One of her entire extended family taken last summer, all fifty-some of them. One of the Blue Dragon vineyard, with the house in the background. And pictures of a few other modern marvels.

Some antibiotics and over-the-counter painkillers might come in handy, but they would run out eventually. Maybe she should research some primitive herbal remedies.

Kirstin wasn’t much for make-up, but she’d always been embarrassed by her light eyelashes, which appeared nonexistent in some lights. So, a few mascara wands might come in handy. And flavored lip glosses, she thought with a smile; Hauk would get a kick out of those. She’d missed having a mirror, but she couldn’t lug such a fragile item through time, and she wasn’t out to change history, or anything, with modern inventions, but a compact one might be possible.

Maybe an old-fashioned self-winding wrist watch, rather than a battery one, would be helpful. Jewelry itself held no appeal for her, and she didn’t have much of it, anyway.