by Sandra Hill
“Methought you would like to put him in a cage.”
“There is merit in that idea, too. Naked, wearing his bloody crown.”
“Mayhap I would spare him to you for that purpose, but only if you give me a limb or two for keepsakes.”
“Will an eyeball do?”
“Men!” Kirstin muttered from where she still sat atop the sorry-looking mare.
But they all heard her and turned to stare.
“And who is this wench?” Sweyn asked.
Hauk rolled his eyes and revealed, “My wife. A gift from Aethelred.”
“Wedlock? For you who always disdained the chains of matrimony? And I thought the cage had been your greatest torture!”
Egil could understand Sweyn’s misthinking about Hauk’s marital history. Not many people knew that the master had married a Saxon lady all those years ago, never having lived with her or taken her to his home. And then she’d died. It was as if she’d never existed. Except for…
“’Twas my second greatest torture. My greatest torture was riding the skies in a magical whirlwind.”
“Was that you?” Sweyn inquired, throwing his head back to laugh uproariously. “Methought ’twas an omen from the gods prophesying my upcoming luck in battle.”
“Nay. ’Twas me. And my wenchy wife.” Or did he say “witchy”? Egil wasn’t sure.
Hauk looked at Kirstin to see if she was amused at his words.
She was not, the frown on her face a clear clue to her displeasure.
So Hauk glared at her, no doubt remembering that he should be displeased over the manner of his escape from the Saxon castle and her spouting off her opinions to Sweyn.
She glared right back at him.
“You did that strange trick without my permission,” he lashed out indignantly. “What will you do next, turn me into a toad?”
She muttered something about him already being a toad.
“Because I object to being hurled about like a jester’s puppet?”
“You escaped, didn’t you?”
“I would have escaped anyway, in my own way, and my own more seemly manner,” he insisted.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little gratitude would be nice, baby.”
“Baby?”
“If the name fits!”
They faced off at each other, of an equal height with her still on the horse, him pressed against the animal’s side, and continued to glare, one more stubborn than the other, not wanting to be the first to look away.
Egil suspected that his master had met his match, in more ways than one. He could scarce wait to see what they would do next.
But first, Egil had other matters to be concerned over. He must tell Hauk about Bergliot. Soon. Afore he discovered elsewhere that the maid was actually Bjorn. His son.
Help me, gods! he thought, suspecting that Hauk would be a mite displeased at his withholding that information. He sighed. Where is a mead barrel when a man has a mighty thirst…or the need for ale-bravery?
Chapter 7
He’d thought a cage was his biggest problem until…
“Let me see if I understand,” Hauk said, his lips twitching with a combination of barely suppressed amusement and mounting impatience. “You traveled here from the future, a thousand bloody years in the future, your sole purpose to save me?”
“Exactly. The year two thousand and nineteen. Whew! I’m glad you finally understand.”
He rolled his eyes. This was the first chance he’d had to be alone with Kirstin and demand an explanation for the amazing feat that had the two of them twirling up in the air and out of the castle in some kind of magic whirlwind. And this was the answer she gave him? Time travel! Pff! More likely, she was a witch. Which was equally unacceptable.
He had to be careful. Yea, he owed her for her help. But he could not chance another sky ride. Leastways, not until the battle was over, and he’d sent King Dumb-as-Dirt to an early grave, hopefully in a dozen pieces.
They were in a small tent which had been assigned to Hauk and his entourage of Kirstin, Egil, and the lackwit maid Bergliot in the midst of the huge temporary settlement erected by Sweyn a considerable distance from Winchester. Hundreds of warriors had gathered already…a scene of organized pre-battle chaos, to be sure. But promising for the battle to come, which would be the following morning, if all went according to plan. They were waiting for Duke Richard of Norsemandy and his troops to join up with them.
Hauk was sitting on a chest, using a whetstone to sharpen his short sword. She was sitting on a pile of furs, opposite him, rebraiding her hair. Seen in the light of day, with the sun’s rays peeking through an opening in the tent, the pale blonde strands shimmered like spun silver. With her sapphire-blue eyes enhanced by the sky-blue of the suddenly (well, ’twas the first he’d noticed) form-fitting bodice of her gown and the deep blue stone hanging about her neck, she was more than comely.
And she was his.
He had mixed feelings about that.
So, she was not as uncomely as he’d first thought.
But she was strange, to say the least.
On the other hand, having a wife could be a convenience betimes.
But mostly they were a pain in the arse.
He cleared his throat and inquired with casualness that was forced, “And this…uh…what did you call it?...time travel…it happened just because you wished it?”
“Dreamed it,” she corrected.
“Wish, dream, summon, conjure, cast a witchy spell.” He drew the whetstone over the blade as he spoke. Rasp, rasp, rasp.
“Don’t get snarky on me. I’m pretty sure my time travel had something to do with these arm rings my brother Storvald made for me. That and the Viking reproduction hall in Maine where I was standing. Uncle Rolf’s hall somehow resembles the one in Winchester Castle. Suffice it to say, that’s why it’s important that I keep the bracelets on me, and that I don’t wander too far from Aethelred’s royal estate.”
Rasp, rasp, rasp. He continued to work with the sword, seemingly only half listening, to cover his distress. What had he gotten himself into? Out of a cage into…another kind of prison. Wedlock with a witch! So, she wanted to stay close to Winchester. Could it be this was all a plot, and she was a spy for Aethelred? “Why would you need to stay close to Winchester?”
“Well, duh! Otherwise, I might not be able to return home. Or, rather, we might not be able to return to my home in California. Since that’s where my bridge in time or wormhole, or whatever you want to call it, took place.”
“Worm hole? You crawled here through a worm hole?” he sputtered, then stood, dropping the sword and whetstone to the ground. “We?” he inquired with sudden alarm, taking a step back.
“Aren’t you curious to see what it’s like in the future?” She stared up at him through amazingly beautiful blue eyes, waiting for his answer, a picture of innocence. Which could be a deception, of course.
“Not in the least.” What a pointless exercise! He would have to accept her outrageous notions before he entertained speculation on what the future would be like. When boars fly!
“Believe me, there are fascinating advances,” she driveled on. The woman did talk a lot. And it was clear she considered herself of greater intellect, whereas everyone knew that women had smaller brains. “Life is much easier. For example, you wouldn’t need a couple dozen rowers for your longship. All you’d have to do is turn on the motor and steer the craft. Vroom-vroom.”
He looked at her as if she was demented. She was. Not that he knew what a moat-whore was. “Even if I believe this time-travel nonsense, which I do not, are you capable of moving from one time period to another, at will? I mean, can you guarantee I would be able to return here, if I did not like the future?”
She blushed.
As well she should!
“I don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “This is actually the first time I’ve done it, on my own, and I certainly didn’t ask for it to happen. It was an accident.”
He threw his hands in the air. The woman was beyond unbelievable. “Listen to me well, wench.” And, yes, he had deliberately used the word wench to show her he was the one in charge here. “I am all for an adventure, but I am not sure I would want to risk my future in that extreme a fashion.”
She shrugged. “You can decide later.”
Easy for her to say when she’d just admitted that she’d ended up a thousand years in the past by accident. The gods only knew where he might end up, by accident. Mayhap that Biblical Garden of Eden that Christians believed in. Or in the other direction, mayhap the Norse estate of his very own great-grandson, assuming he ever had living children. Try explaining kinship to a great-grandson who is older than you.
Hah! A smart Viking did not depend on mischance for his future. “I doubt I will feel differently later. I have neglected my estates back in the Norselands far too long. ’Tis past time I returned to Haukshire and took care of my responsibilities. Gods only know what conditions I will find.”
Although the tent gave them some privacy, they could hear clearly the loud noises outside of wooden tent stakes being pounded into the ground with mallets, the neighing of huge war horses, the bellow of oxen pulling equipment wagons, the clanging of cooking cauldrons over open fires, the whistles of swords and arrows being engaged in battle exercises, shouts, and laughter.
Hauk felt almost human after having bathed in a nearby stream, shaved, then bathed again. With his long hair hanging in a single plait down his back, except for two slim war braids framing his face, wearing a clean tunic, braies and boots borrowed from Sweyn, he might not be as handsome as he’d once been proclaimed, and he’d lost a good two stone in body weight, but that mattered not when it came to the upcoming battle.
Mayhap later, when the sex urge rose like sap in a maple tree as it did for many soldiers following a good fight, he would be concerned with his appearance and his appeal to willing wenches. He was a Viking, after all, and vanity was a gods-given right to that favored race of men. Truth to tell, bedmates came easy for Norsemen, handsome or not.
Which brought him to his wife. “I would be barmy to believe your story of time travel.”
“I know how ludicrous it sounds. How do you think I felt almost twenty-one years ago, when I was only fourteen years old, living in the Norselands, and suddenly found myself along with my family on the other side of the world, America, a thousand years in the future?”
Hauk thought it best to humor the woman, who was clearly deluded, if not a mite insane. At the same time, he did a mental calculation. Almost twenty-one years ago she’d been fourteen. Which means, she is thirty-five now, or almost thirty-five. Long in the tooth, as I suspected. He was thirty-five, too, but age was different for men than it was for women. He was in his prime, or would be once he recovered from his ordeal.
“Are you saying that in your land…uh, time…when you left yesterday, it was…?”
“The twenty-first century. Yes, as I told you before.”
“Unbelievable!” he muttered. “But your family’s time travel or whatever it was is neither here nor there. It does not explain what just happened to us. Did you and your family travel to the future in a whirlwind like we just did? Which would be something to see! Your father is known to be the size of a horse. Ha, ha, ha!”
She shook her head, and did not smile at his jibe about her father’s weight. “No. There was a shipwreck off the coast of Iceland and we landed on a Hollywood movie set.”
“Uh-huh.” He had no idea what she meant.
“After that, we lived on a California vineyard, where my father remarried, had another child, and still lives.”
“Your father, who already had ten or more children, as I recall, is still breeding in the future? Your father, a noted farmer, now grows grapes?” Her tale grew more and more unbelievable. He laughed.
“Yes,” she replied. Still no smile at his humor. “He’s adapted.”
“Vikings do not adapt. They conquer. They do not surrender and adapt.” He spat the last word as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. For a moment, he realized that was just how his Viking comrades would regard his being a caged Viking…surrender. They would make mock of him and say he should have fought harder and died in battle afore giving in to his captors.
She shrugged. “My father is an enlightened Viking.”
Did she imply that he was not enlightened, whatever that meant? At least she was not calling him a coward, as some might, or a weak specimen of a man. “And you…have you a husband waiting for you in the future?”
She shook her head.
“Dead?”
She shook her head some more. “No, I never married.”
“And you live with your father and his new family on this vineyard?”
“No! Of course not. Not anymore. I’m a college professor. I live alone in the city.”
He blinked at her with confusion.
“A professor is a teacher of high education. And a college is a place where students…boys and girls both…go to study for various professions after twelve years of high school.”
“Good gods! Are people so dumb in your time that they need twelve years of study?”
“Sixteen or more years, actually, if you include college.”
He rolled his eyes. “What could they possibly study over all that time? Never mind. What do you teach?”
“Ancient Nordic Studies. In other words, this time period.”
Is she saying I am ancient? He sighed. Talking with her was like swimming through mud. Hopeless. “If reverse travel through time is possible…” He couldn’t believe he was actually saying that. “…why did your father and your entire family, for that matter, not return to the Norselands long ago?”
“Because life in the future is so much better…well, easier.”
“No wars?” I have no idea why I mentioned wars first off. Vikings ever do love a good battle; therefore, a world without wars would not be “better” for a Norseman. What would a Norseman do with his time, if there were no wars? Ride his longship for trading only? Or visit foreign lands just to chatter with new people? Or farm? How boring! Holy Thor! I am blathering in my head now, as bad as my wife with her running tongue.
“Well, yes, there are still wars,” she said.
“Whew! Thank the gods for that.”
“In fact, three of my brothers are in the military.”
“More wealth then? Is that what makes your country…uh, time…better?”
“My father was wealthy enough here.”
“Adventure? Vikings are ever up for a good adventure on their longships.”
“Hah! My dad is pretty much land-bound. In fact, I can’t recall the last time he was on a boat.”
“And yet you consider it a better place…uh, time…to live.”
“It’s hard to explain. There are so many modern conveniences, like horseless carriages and, suffice it to say, inventions that would boggle the mind. Like…oh, never mind. I can tell you everything later. For now, all you need to know is that I was sent here to save you.”
And I was a dunderhead just sitting there waiting to be saved by a female? Hah! I beg to differ. Still, he wanted to be polite until he understood his path in this mire of confusion. “By whom, pray tell?”
“God, I think.”
He laughed. “The Christian One-God has a care for a pagan Viking? Why? What is so special about me?”
“I can’t explain why. I just saw you in my dreams and here I am.”
The dream story again! “I hope I performed well.” His mouth twitched with amusement.
She waved a hand dismissively. “There are some things you should know about the near future. What’s going to happen right here in your time period. Like, I know that Sweyn is waiting for Duke Richard’s forces to join up with him before attacking the Saxon castle. But news flash! The duke is playing both sides of the field. He’s probably already sent men in to rescue his daughter, her husband Aethelred, and others in the roya
l household, scooting them off to Normandy for safe exile.”
“What? Are you certain?” He paused and stared at her to see if she was serious. She was. “I should go tell Sweyn immediately. But, Frigg’s Foot! Sweyn will want to know how I gained this information, and how will I explain that my witchy wife from the future told me so?”
She arched her brows at him, for doubting her words, no doubt, or perchance because he’d referred to her as witchy. “You could tell him and let the facts prove their truth.
“You are so sure of the facts?”
She nodded. “I am. And here’s another fact. A few years from now, the Normans will invade Britain and conquer the entire realm. For a period of time, starting with William the Conqueror in 1066, Vikings will actually rule the English world.”
His eyes about bugged out at her amazing prediction…and that is all it could be, of course…a prediction. “And do we Vikings still rule these parts in your time?”
“Oh, no! The Vikings die off as a separate culture soon after that.”
“Die off?” he sputtered.
“Well, not die off precisely. More like they meld into other cultures. Marriage, settlement, and so on. In fact, modern-day Iceland is the closest we have to Vikings.”
He laughed. “You should be a skald. Your sagas are as absurd as any I have ever heard the poets and storytellers relate during the long winter nights afore the hearth fires.”
“Believe it or not, it’s the truth. You’ll find out. At least some of these things will be proven true soon enough.”
He tried to decide what to do. Tell Sweyn about Richard’s possible defection and risk ridicule. Or tell him nothing, and have them all waste precious time awaiting the duke’s arrival. “Come,” he said, taking her by the elbow, “Let us go brave the lion, and inform Sweyn of your news. But, please, enough of this nonsense about time travel! Instead, just say that you know by way of Queen Emma, or other family members.”
She appeared unsure of his plan, but allowed him to lead her out of the tent, making their way through the various camp sites.