Page 85 of The Last Viking

“Hell if I know,” Jillian said morosely. “Oh, don’t go getting all uptight and sanctimonious on me, Mer. I’m not sure what to do with her yet. And let’s be honest, isn’t the best place for her right now here with you?”

“You would give up your child?” Merry-Death stared at her sister incredulously.

“No!” Jillian shouted, but then softened her voice. “Maybe…I don’t know. Maybe I could give you guardianship…for a while. Oh, Mer, I do love Thea, but I’m so damned screwed up, and George has remarried. His new wife has two kids of her own. It’s just such a mess.” Jillian ended by bursting into a long sob. Then she began to blubber in earnest.

Merry-Death slipped from his arms and went to her sister. Both of them were hugging and crying now.

“Aaarrgh!” Geirolf said then.

“I’ll second that,” Jeffrey added with a shiver of disgust.

“I need another mead,” he grumbled, heading toward the scullery.

“I think I’ll have one, too,” Jeffrey said, standing.

Rolf stiffened. He didn’t want the companionship of this swinish past-husband of the woman he loved. But then he shrugged. He had surely landed in a country of lunatics, and he feared he was becoming mad himself.

An hour later, Jeffrey and Jillie stood at the front door, preparing to leave. Meredith was emotionally drained and physically fatigued beyond endurance.

Despite the despicable acts that they had planned, there would be no legal repercussions for the two of them. They’d promised not to try their dirty tricks again, or spread the word about the belt on the academic grapevine. That was the way Meredith wanted it, and Rolf had grudgingly conceded. She wasn’t entirely certain that he’d been jesting when he suggested they throw them off the cliff.

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider, Rolf?” Jillie tried one last time. “Honest, I would return the belt to you. It could be so important to science and history.”

“Leave off, Jillian,” he ripped out.

“Won’t you at least allow us to interview you?” Jeffrey tried. Rolf was right. The jerk had a death wish. Anyone looking at Rolf’s stormy face could see Jeffrey was treading in treacherous waters. “I still don’t understand who you are, or where you’ve come from. But your description of—”

With a snarl of irritation, Rolf shoved Jeffrey and Jillian out the door and slammed it loudly after them. Then he turned the key in the lock and swung her into the circle of his arms, swirling her in a circle. “Alone, at last,” he said joyfully into her neck.

Almost immediately, he set her on her feet near the stairs. Holding her by the upper arms, he studied her face. “You are going to fall over with exhaustion, my sweet. Go to your bed and sleep. I already told Mike there will be no work on the morrow; so, you can sleep late.”

“Well, I don’t know…. Oh, okay.”

But he didn’t let her go just yet. Leaning down, he kissed her tenderly on the lips, then he kissed her hungrily. Finally, with great restraint, he held her away from him again. She felt like a rag doll, no longer capable of common sense.

“I must know, Merry-Death,” he began somberly, “will you wed with me?”

What? Where did that question come from? After all they’d been through that night, it was the last thing on her mind.

“We’ve been at cross-purposes over this issue for days, and ’tis time to blister or bleed, as I told Jeffrey and Jillian earlier. Will you give your free consent to marry me?”

“Will you take me with you when you leave?” Her tone was weary because she already knew the answer.

“Nay, I cannot,” he sighed.

She sighed then, too. “If that’s the case, the answer is no. I love you so much my heart aches with it, but I can’t marry you, Rolf. I can’t.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, and then nodded. “So be it, then.” He gave her another quick kiss and proceeded to walk away from her.

So be it. What does that mean? So be it, I give up? I don’t think so. Or is it, so be it, now you’d better beware?

“Rolf?” she questioned as he walked around the room clicking off lamps. “Rolf, what do you mean, ‘So be it’?”

He didn’t speak. A slow smile curved his mouth but never reached his icy eyes. It wasn’t a smile that said, “Okay, baby, have it your way. I give up.” No, his smile said, “Watch your butt, baby. You are in deep Viking trouble.”

Meredith was almost afraid to fall asleep that night. If she’d been living in another time, she’d be calling out her knights to man the ramparts, pull up the drawbridge, and prepare for battle. She giggled at the thought. But just before deep slumber overtook her, the oddest line occurred to her. It was a famous Anglo-Saxon refrain in the ninth and tenth centuries:

“From the fury of the Northmen, oh, Lord deliver us.”