They arrived at Rosestead the next morning, and the Viking village was beautiful as a postcard…a perfect Hallmark holiday image.
“Wow!” Suzy and Beth exclaimed. They were practically jumping up and down with glee in the backseat of the rental car—not just at their initial view of an authentic Norse settlement, but at seeing real snow for the first time. Luckily this wasn’t gray, slushy snow, but crisp, new-fallen flakes, like the snow globes found in gift stores.
“It was well worth the trip just to see this charming scene,” she told Joe as they exited the vehicle. She was trying to make up for her earlier resistance to the trip, but her sentiments were honest.
He nodded distractedly. He was no longer hyped-up, but also somber with some odd anticipation…something she could neither fathom nor alleviate.
“Are you all right?” she asked, putting a hand on his arm. His face was pale, his lips pinched.
Giving her a sideways glance, he grimaced. “Bloody damn a-drain-a-line! My hearts pumping faster than a youthling’s legs in his first wolf race.”
At first Maggie had been alarmed by Joe’s belief that something monumental was about to happen, but now it was more as if they were all on a slow-moving roller coaster. It was sure to be a rocky ride, but there was no getting off. What would be, would be.
She did say a silent prayer, though: Please, God, if it be your will, let everything work out for me and Joe and my daughters. We love him so much.
They’d gotten into the Bangor airport the night before, but Maggie had insisted that they get a motel room before heading for the village. If Joe and the girls had had their way, they would have come upon this scene in the dark, and that would have been a shame, she realized now.
With snow flurries coming down steadily, their first view of Rosestead was seen through a filter of the white flakes. Suzy and Beth were so excited as they emerged from the rental car, they were oblivious to the freezing cold.
Rosestead was located at a secluded site in northern Maine, accessed by a half-mile roadway leading off the interstate. A giant archway over the entrance read: ROSESTEAD: A VIKING VILLAGE. A smaller sign on the side listed its schedule. A banner over the sign proclaimed, CLOSED TILL APRIL. And there was a wooden gate across the entrance barring car traffic. It couldn’t be any clearer than that. Closed to the public.
They emerged from the car, and Joe walked right around the gate. She and the girls had no choice but to follow.
A small, rolling mountainscape provided the backdrop to Rosestead on the left side. Several dozen thatch-roofed Viking longhouses—some large, some small; some clearly private residences, some workshops and businesses—were scattered about a private lake on the opposite side from the wooded hillside. She assumed that the lake led out to the ocean, because there were several beached longships, which would be of no use on a mere lake. In the middle of these longhouses, set back and elevated somewhat, was a larger dwelling that could only be described as a wooden, fortlike castle.
“That structure doesn’t seem to fit in with the Viking ones,” Maggie remarked to Joe, having to practically skip to keep up with his long strides.
“You are right. It is more in the Saxon and Frankish manner of building, but, if my eyes tell me true, ’tis identical to my father’s home in Vestfold,” he observed. “Some of the kings and jarls of Norway in the late tenth century were building castles of wood, just so. Longhouses were becoming too small for their extended families and housecarls and hirds of soldiers.”
She nodded. If she hadn’t already accepted that Joe had somehow come to her from another time, his ease in discussing the everyday life of the Dark Ages would have impressed her now.
“Look, Mom, look!” Suzy was gazing at the lake, where a group of young people had begun ice-skating.
“Can we go, too? Please. Please. Please,” Beth added.
“Maybe later,” Maggie said, though why she would make even that tentative promise when they were already trespassing was beyond her.
A young, thirtyish man in a crew cut, jeans, and a sweatshirt that read, U.S. Army came out of one of the first buildings and yelled at them, “Hey, you guys. You can’t come in here. The place is closed for…” He was striding quickly toward them when his steps faltered and his words trailed off. “Holy cow!” he muttered. At first Maggie thought he was awestruck because he thought Joe was a Navy SEAL, as evidenced by his jacket; many people were dazzled by the prestigious military unit. And he was apparently an ex-army man. But then she noticed that he was staring fixedly at Joe’s face. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Who are you?” Joe demanded of the young man. His tone was so imperious, he sounded like some visiting warlord.
“Mike Johnson. The curator,” he replied, not even questioning Joe’s authority to grill him. “Who are you?”
“Jorund Ericsson.”
Mike Johnson nodded. Then, with a disbelieving shake of his head, he repeated, “Holy freakin’ cow!”
A young woman with blond hair and a little boy of five or so came out of the longhouse where Mike Johnson had originally emerged. Maggie assumed it was his wife and child. The woman watched Joe, wide-eyed, then exchanged a look with her husband.
“Where is your chieftain?” Joe asked. “The jarl of Rosestead?”
Mike inclined his head toward the wood castle, and Joe immediately stomped off in that direction. Maggie took Suzy’s and Beth’s hands and followed after him.
As they walked along, people were coming out of the longhouses, some in Viking attire, which they all probably wore during the regular tourist season, but most of them in jeans or sweatpants. There seemed to be a large number of young people. Hadn’t Beth told them, when surfing the Web site, that there was a residential program for homeless inner-city kids here?
Interestingly, although this was a Viking village, there were Christmas decorations on many of the longhouses, a light-up Santa and a reindeer panorama in the front yard of another, and lots of illuminated pine trees. So it was a modern-day Viking village, she supposed.
No one tried to halt their progress, though they were clearly outsiders, trespassing. Little by little, the people following in Joe’s wake grew into a murmuring crowd.
“Mommy, I’m scared,” Beth said.
“Everyone’s acting weird,” Suzy added. “Even Joe.”
“Don’t worry, kiddos. It’s just that Joe looks like a Viking, and this is a Viking village. They’ve probably never seen a real Viking before.” That sounded like a good explanation. Too bad Suzy and Beth weren’t buying it any more than she was.
Maggie wished Joe would take her hand. Instead he seemed to be oblivious to her presence. Soon his longer stride caused them to be left behind…at first only a few paces, then a greater and greater distance. To Maggie’s dismay, she realized that he didn’t even care whether she was there anymore, so intent was he on this…this thing that was drawing him.
Was this the beginning of the end?
Rosestead felt like home to Jorund.
There were differences, of course. Cold as it was here, winter in his country was frigid. A man’s mustache and nose hairs developed icicles with just a brief visit to the garderobe. Some men claimed it was so cold their piss froze the second it left their bodies. In addition, the light coating of snow on the ground would have been eaves-high at his homestead by now, and would stay that way or pile higher till the spring thaw. The landscape itself was different, too. The northern fields were mostly rocky and untillable, unless they were farmed by skilled farmers like his brother, Magnus. But here, he could see, there would be thriving wheat fields and vegetable patches by midsummer.
Despite the differences, Jorund reveled in his first glimpse of the familiar wattle-and-daub longhouses with their thatch and sod roofs, the wooden keep so like his father’s, and the dragonships. His throat constricted as he walked swiftly into the village. He had not realized how homesick he was till now.
He passed the dragonships, which were
propped on wooden cradles. Then he did a double take.
Holy Thor! There was a colorful figurehead on one of the prows that appeared identical to the one he’d given Rolf as a coarse jest years ago—a figure of a buxom blond woman with cherry-red nipples. They’d dubbed the wooden wench Ingrid, as he recalled. How odd! Had a copy of this figurehead been made in his country by the craftsman who’d chiseled the first? Or had this figurehead gone down with Rolf’s ship a thousand years ago, and ended up on some beach as flotsam?
Well, that was of little import now. He needed to speak with the leader of this village. There were some significant questions he wanted to ask, like, How did his family crest get on Rosestead’s Webbing site? Why did this keep so resemble his father’s? What was the Ingrid figurehead doing here?
A man wearing standard Viking attire of a belted leather tunic over black braies and cross-gartered half boots, stepped out of the giant double doors of the keep. He walked across the small wooden bridge that traversed a narrow dry moat. Beside him on one side was a small boy of about two winters, clinging to his hand. On the other was a woman with long, auburn hair and green eyes. In her arms was a warmly bundled babe of perhaps a few months.
As the man came closer, Jorund got his first good view of him, then said with a gasp, “Guð minn góður!” Stopping in his tracks, he repeated in English, “My God!”
The man did likewise, muttering, “Bid hell!” He released the child’s grasp to put both hands to his face, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Except for the darker blond color of his hair, the resemblance between him and Jorund was remarkable. That was why all the inhabitants of this village had been gawking at him so, he realized now.
It was his brother, Rolf.
“Jorund!” Rolf shouted joyously, now that his initial shock had passed.
“Rolf!” Jorund exclaimed, and rushed forward to grasp his younger brother, who was the same massive height as he, and lift him high in the hair, swinging him around as his father used to do with his mother when he came home after a long voyage a-Viking.
Once Jorund released his brother, they embraced tightly, choked with emotion. Then they stood, simply staring at each other with stupid delight. They both had tears in their eyes, which they wiped away surreptitiously.
“How did you get here?” Rolf asked.
“On a flying machine. An airplane,” he informed him with disgust.
“From Vestfold? And the tenth century?” Rolf’s mouth dropped open with surprise.
“Nay, you lackbrain, not from Vestfold. From Tax-us.”
Rolf shook his head briskly from side to side, like a wet dog who had fallen into a fjord. “How the bloody hell did you get to Texas?”
“Ha! Funny you should ask! On the back of a killer whale. Do you believe it?”
“A…a killer whale?”
He nodded. “Her name is Thora.”
“A whale with a name?”
“And Joe was buck-naked, too,” Sue-zee offered with a little giggle, coming up behind them.
“Oh, I do not believe this,” Rolf said, reaching down to lift both Suzy and Beth into his arms and give each of them a hug and a kiss. When he put them down, the girls scurried back to their mother, a little bit frightened by this exuberant stranger. “You brought Greta and Girta here? On the back of a whale? Was that not foolhardy of you?”
At first Jorund did not understand. Then he realized that Rolf thought these twins were his twins. “No, brother, these girls do not belong to me,” he explained.
The expression of hurt on Suzy’s and Beth’s faces cut him to the quick. So he quickly added, “But they are the daughters of my heart.”
The girls beamed.
“I will tell you of Inga and Greta and Girta later. Suffice it to say, they died in the famine.”
“Oh, Jorund!” Rolf commiserated sadly and gave him another bear hug.
Jorund noticed Mag-he standing there silently, as well as the woman with the babe and child next to Rolf. He had been rude in ignoring them all, especially Mag-he, who had brought him, reluctantly, to this joyous homecoming. Tucking an arm around her shoulder, he drew her closer, and introduced everyone all around. “Rolf, this is my…uh, friend, Dock-whore Mag-he Muck-bride.” He had been about to say “my leman,” but suspected that Mag-he would not appreciate that title. Then, “Mag-he, this is my little brother, Rolf.”
“Little?” Rolf scoffed.
“Younger, then.”
“The brother you were searching for?” Mag-he asked.
“Yea, the very one. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“More than wonderful,” Mag-he said softly, and he knew they had much to discuss, later, about the implications of this reunion.
Then Rolf introduced his wife, Profess-whore Merry-death Ericsson, his son Foster, and his new daughter, Rose. A wife? What an amazing happenstance! Methought Rolf would never wed again. Methought he liked his freedom too much.
“A profess-whore?” Jorund asked with a grin.
“A dock-whore?” Rolf asked with a grin.
The two ladies shook their heads at each other, as if their men were hopeless youths.
“Seems to me there are way too many whores in this country” Jorund quipped, and Mag-he elbowed him in the ribs.
Despite his attempt at mirth, Jorund was puzzled. How could Rolf have left Norway one year ago, in 997, and already have two children? It was all so confusing. Perhaps the time portals where they had entered were just different…years could be gained or lost in the passing. Perhaps he could have even left after Rolf, but arrived before him.
It was enough to muddle the brain, if his weren’t already muddled.
The women and children were all shivering in the cold. Rolf motioned for everyone behind them to go on home and invited the rest of them to come inside.
With his arm looped over Jorund’s shoulder, Rolf said, “I have been praying for a sign from the past.”
Jorund arched an eyebrow at him. “You? Praying?” Then, “Hell and Valhalla! I am your sign?”
“Yea.” His brother nodded. “Finally, someone I can best in swordplay.”
“Hah!” From the time they were children, Jorund had always triumphed over his brothers in the military arts.
“There will be no swordplay here.” Rolf’s wife spoke up for the first time. “Remember what happened the last time? Mike had to get fifteen stitches.”
“Whate’er you say, dearling,” Rolf replied, then rolled his eyes at Jorund, as if fifteen stitches were a mere child’s wound.
It was.
“By the by,” Rolf remarked then. “When did you arrive in this land?”
“Three months ago.”
“Three months! What have you been doing all this time?”
“Well, of late, I have been teaching demented people.”
Rolf stopped walking and stared at him, gape-mouthed, as if he were himself demented, which of course they had thought he was at one time.
Then, just to tease his brother, he added, “In a madhouse.”
Rolf’s jaw dropped a notch lower.
Leaning close to his brother’s ear, he confided, “One of the pay-shuns is a sex addict. Another thinks he is Moses, on the days when he is not Charlemagne. Still another cannot get his cock to rise. One wench sings all day long. And there is a Norse there named Glad-ass. Is that not amazing, Rolf?”
Bursting out with a short laugh, Rolf punched him in the arm. “You are making all this up.”
“Nay, I am not. ’Tis true. Really.” He called up to Mag-he, who was walking beside Rolf’s wife, Merry-death, conversing softly with her. “Mag-he, tell Rolf the truth. Do you and I not work in a madhouse?”
She cringed at his words. “We work in a mental-health facility,” she said, making a point of the distinction in wording. “The word madhouse is not used anymore, Joe.”
“Madhouse, mental-health facility…’tis the same thing,” he whispered to Rolf. But to Mag-he he said, “Whate’er you say, dearling,” r
epeating his brother’s response to his wife. A fine response it was, too. It was always best to let women think they had the upper hand.
“Why does she call you Joe?”
Jorund shrugged. “’Tis a nicking name.”
Rolf burst out with a chuckle. “Joe the Viking?”
Jorund rolled his shoulders in a gesture meant to convey, What could I do?
But then Rolf smiled at him, hooking an arm around his neck and yanking him close. “’Twould seem that you and I have much to discuss, brother.”
That was the Viking version of an understatement.
They were sitting at the high table in Rolf’s great hall, the men sipping mead and the women tea. It was like stepping back in time, right down to the primitive weapons on the walls. During their tourist season, there were even rushes on the floor, which Meredith claimed were a pain in the neck to keep clean.
Lunch had been over an hour ago, but Maggie was still in a state of shock. She’d sent Suzy and Beth out with some of the older kids, including a girl named Thea, who’d come up with extra ice skates for them, along with gloves, knit caps, and warmer jackets. Maggie had been assured the ice was very thick and completely safe.
She liked Rolf and his wife…a lot. Right now Meredith was discreetly nursing her three-month-old baby under a receiving blanket thrown over her shoulder. Maggie couldn’t help noticing the way Rolf’s loving gaze kept going back to his wife, even as he spoke with Joe. And Meredith was equally enamored of her husband, which was evident in the pleasure she displayed over her husband’s joy in being reunited with his brother. Whatever made him happy made her happy; that was obvious.
“Besotted, are you?” Joe teased his brother. Apparently he had observed the same bond between Rolf and Meredith.
“For a certainty” Rolf admitted without hesitation, leaning over to kiss his wife loudly on the mouth, then to give an equally loud smack to his now-sleeping daughter’s cheek.
Both brothers had been talking rapidly ever since they’d come inside, catching up on all their news. Joe told Rolf everything that had happened to him since he’d arrived in Texas, and it was interesting to hear the spin he put on everything. All agreed that Joe’s method of time travel, atop a killer whale, naked, was much more dramatic than Rolf’s simple shipwreck. And all agreed, as well, that not one, but two brothers being time travelers was a remarkable coincidence.
Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 02] Page 26