Page 17 of The Last Viking

He made an incoherent sound, which she interpreted as 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.”

“Why?”

“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 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.