Page 16 of The Last Viking

Despite his dire prognosis, a sense of relief filled Meredith. Rolf did seem to know his craft.

“I will build this Viking ship for you, Merry-Death,” he assured her, “but it will be done my way, or not at all.”

What an arrogant, overconfident man! But she had no other choice right now. If he knew even half what he claimed, he would be perfect for the job. However, there was no way she’d let him control this project. She just wouldn’t tell him that yet.

“Why is this ship so important to you, Merry-Death?”

His feet were still propped on her coffee table, and one long arm stretched along the back of the sofa, where his fingers played with the strands of hair lying on her shoulder. She wished he’d stop doing that. It unnerved her. Distracted her from the serious business at hand. Made her think of very unserious things…like, just how hot was a hot Viking?

“Because it was important to my grandfather. He was a professor of medieval studies at the local college with a special interest in Nordic culture.” Once she started talking about her grandfather and the project, she lost her nervousness and the too-consuming awareness of Rolf as a man. Thank God! “All his life, Gramps dreamed about reproducing a Viking longship and actually setting sail, re-enacting one of the Viking voyages. Just like Captain Magnus Andersen did a hundred years ago.”

“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 teaching college, and he always said that planning, hard work, and persistence, the talents learned 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 answers.

“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 long 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.