Page 40 of The Last Viking

Rolf stood speechless for a moment as rivulets of water—probably very cold water—ran down his face, knocking off his cap, plastering his clothing to his body. Then a slow smile spread across his lips, just before he leapt forward, tackling her to the ground and turning the hose on her. She was the recipient of a good soaking then, and the water was cold.

Roaring with glee, Rolf reached out a hand and helped her to her feet. She spit out water and strands of hair from her mouth. Only then did she notice that Rolf had abruptly stopped smiling. Instead, he gazed with decided interest at her wet pajamas, now plastered against every curve of her body, like black plastic wrap.

“I thought I did not like your pay-jam-hose when I first saw them yestereve,” he remarked with a lazy grin. “I have changed my mind.” Then, with a shake of his head, he took her hand, leading her toward the house. “Enough of these games. You must stop trying to seduce me, sweetling.”

She sputtered indignantly.

He chucked her under the chin. “Come, let us go into the keep and make a list of needed supplies. Do not dawdle now, wench.”

I must be an adult here. I must not rise to every baiting word he utters. I must not stare at his behind in those wet jeans. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Yea, I broke fast long ago. Cookies and mead. You will have to go to the grocery mall again.”

Huh? Cookies and mead? “Oh, Good Lord, did you have Oreos and Bud Light for breakfast?”

“Yea. Did I not just say so? Why is your mouth hanging open? The fare was delicious. I ate whilst watching Sesame Street on the picture box. Today I learned the letter X with Bert and Ernie. I’ve decided X is the best letter in your alphabet. Indeed, my favorite word has the letter X in it.” He waited several moments for her to comprehend what word that might be, his amber eyes twinkling with mischief.

She laughed, feeling wonderfully carefree and happier than she had in ages. Impulsive.

In fact, she decided to try Oreos and beer for breakfast.

Then again, maybe she should ease into this impulsive stuff.

Geirolf had landed in shipbuilders’ heaven—the Bangor Hardware Superstore.

“No kidding, man! Who are you, really?” Mike Johnson asked for about the hundredth time since he’d arrived at Merry-Death’s keep hours ago, at Merry-Death’s instruction. Although it was the Lord’s Day, she’d gone into her off-face to work. “I mean, what man gets his rocks off over sandpaper? Sandpaper! Now, Sharon Stone in a carpenter’s belt, I could see. But sandpaper? You must’ve been living in a jungle all these years.”

“What?” Geirolf replied distractedly, fingering the various grades of abrasive paper piled up on shelf after shelf. He threw a half dozen of each in his pushcart. “Do not take offense, Mike, but it appears lackwitted to me that you and Merry-Death would want to build a longship using the old methods when you have all these modern marvels.”

“That’s the whole point…to show our students the painstaking labor and perseverance needed to complete a project of this magnitude.”

“Hah! The rest of you can persevere by rubbing sand onto rough boards and shaving wood with an adz till your fingers ache, but I am not a lackwit. I will use sanding paper on my ship.”

Mike shook his head in amazement. “Professor Foster is gonna put your neck in a noose. And it’s not just the sandpaper. Wait till she sees those high-tech hammers and gouging tools you’ve picked out. She wants this ship built exactly the way the primitive Vikings did it.”

“The hard way, you mean. Isn’t that just like a woman?” Geirolf snorted. “And who says I am primitive?

Mike choked back a guffaw. “You’re really into this Viking re-enactment crap, aren’t you?”

“Nay, I told you…I have come from Hordaland—I mean Norway. And that is all I am free to tell you. I forswore an oath to Merry-Death not to discuss how I got here.”

“Now that’s real interesting, because she accused me…or her brother Jared of hiring you.” Mike slitted his eyes, studying him suspiciously. “She practically burned out her fax machine this morning shooting off letters about you and that crazy belt of yours to every university in the country. Even had me run a check on you with the local fuzz.”

Geirolf had no idea what a fax machine was. Perhaps Mike had meant Saxon machine. Or fuzz. Wasn’t that lint found in the navel? He was sore tired of asking “What’s that?” about every blessed thing he encountered in this land. He did understand letters, though. “In my opinion, that was one of the biggest mistakes your people made…teaching women to write. Bloody hell! You men of Am-eric-hah must be soft in the head. Now your females can not only jabber incessantly in a man’s face—Dig the moat…Clean the garderobes…Stop belching—but they can put all their nagging on parchment, as well.”

Mike laughed, rushing to keep up as Geirolf steered his cart around a corner. “And you’ve shared these opinions with Professor Foster?”

“Not yet,” Geirolf admitted, exchanging a rueful grin with the younger man.

Geirolf liked Mike. The man, who’d seen about twenty-five winters, was dressed almost identically to him in den-ham braies, T-shert and running boots. Many of the males they’d encountered that day wore the same attire. Except that Mike’s shert was green and had U.S. Army printed on the front. That was the name for Am-eric-hah’s military force, Geirolf had learned. Mike had been a warrior for three years before going back to school, which was very strange to Geirolf’s way of thinking. A grown man needing more education?

And his hair! The young man had clipped his blond tresses—there must be Nordic blood in his family—down almost to the scalp. A gee-eye buzz cut, he called it. Geirolf had never held with that biblical notion that a man’s strength was in his hair, but it did keep a man warm on a cold Norse night when there was no wench available for the bedding. What could Mike have been thinking? A woman must have talked him into such a foolhardy action. Probably that Sharon Rock—no, Sharon Stone—creature who had Mike salivating at the mere mention of her name.

Mike had already told him that his father and mother had died years ago in a wheeled box accident, and his wife had passed away two years past whilst skiing. Geirolf decided he would have a man-to-man talk with Mike later and help steer him on the better path of masculine behavior. Mayhap he would even show him how to win that Sharon Stone seductress to his bed.

Geirolf had spent the morning, after Merry-Death had gone to the call-ledge, working on his English-language skills with Thea. The girl, who looked much better without her face paint, had found a child’s “primer” on the Internet, which helped him tremendously. Then they’d watched two hours of Sesame Street on a public television merry-thong to solicit money. Geirolf wished he had more time; he would relish nothing better than to meet the mischievous Ernie, who felt like a newfound friend to him in this alien country. Ernie’s appearance was unlike that of any child he’d ever seen, but he had big ears like his brother Magnus, and that endeared the “boy” to him.

With the help of the talisman belt, Geirolf already had mastered the rudiments of the English language. He only needed to touch his belt on occasion now when out in society to translate odd words or phrases—the ones not found on Sesame Street or in the grammar texts. Such as the words that drivers of the other wheeled boxes yelled at Mike when he cut in front of them. Or the words to the songs Thea’s music box played so loudly…lyrics as peculiar as the ill-named musicians. ’Twas a curious country where men were grateful to be dead. Or a woman was merry in death. Thea was home now, painting her finger and toenails with Black Plague, and blasting the air with the raucous music.