• • •
Darren opened his eyes, an uncertain amount of time afterwards, to find himself on his back on what seemed to be a straw-filled mattress, to judge by the crunching noises it made. There was no wind, but it was only marginally warmer, despite the fact that he was under some kind of covering made of singularly scratchy wool. The back of his head throbbed, and he moaned a little, tried to sit up, and almost immediately decided it wasn’t a good idea.
An oil lamp, with a greasy-looking flame that illuminated almost nothing, detached itself from its perch across the room, and floated upwards through the air toward him. It finally stopped, hovering right over him, and he squinted at it. He could barely make out a gnarled hand holding it, and then, still in deep shadow, an even more gnarled face, a face neither clearly male nor clearly female, a face that looked like a shriveled apple, all creases and lumps and crags. It was framed by a few thin wisps of white hair.
A voice with the timbre of an unoiled gate said, “Don’t sit up.”
“I’m not going to,” he said.
“Knocked your head a good one, you did. Shouldn’t get in a horse’s way, especially not Thorvald’s stallion. Bloody dangerous beast, he is. Bit the tip of my great-nephew Bjorn’s nose off, poor lad, all ‘cause he thought to offer him a bit of a turnip. Now he wears a clamp bit on his face.”
“Bjorn?”
“No, Thorvald’s horse. To keep him from biting. Doesn’t help poor Bjorn, but I s’pose it’s better than nothing.” The person with the lamp paused for a moment. “He has the devil’s own time breathing on account of it.”
“The horse?”
“No, Bjorn. Doctor tried to stitch his nose back together but it didn’t work, and he looks like he has a lump of putty in the middle of his face. Snores something terrible. Sounds like someone strangling a goat. Keeps the whole house awake at night.”
“That’s a pity.”
“It is that, stranger, it is that.” The voice paused again. “What’s your name, and where are you from? Your clothes are odd, and I’m guessing you’re not from Trondheim.”
“My name is Darren. Darren Ault.” He left a definite pause between the two. He hadn’t really minded being called “Darinauld” by Maíre and her family, but no sense encouraging the same kind of thing here.
The lamp-person gave a cackling laugh. “Darren Ault? Such a name. Darren Everything.”
“What are you talking about?” He squinted at the person holding the lamp, as if bringing the face into focus would make the voice make more sense.
“Alt. Alt means ‘everything.’” The voice cackled again. “So if you’re ‘Darren Alt,’ you’re ‘Darren Everything.’ Who gave you that name? Everyone?” This elicited a bout of laughter that only ended when it turned into a paroxysm of coughing.
“No,” he said, in a weary voice. “It’s just my name. I didn’t know that’s what it meant, and I didn’t choose it.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Carl.”
“A fine name. So, you are Darren Carlsson. No need for more than that.” The gnarled hand came down and patted his shoulder. “Well enough, Darren Carlsson. I am called Gerda Ingjaldsdottir. I’ll stay with you till sunrise. Sometimes these knocks on the head can turn evil, and always when it’s dark out, seems like. My granddaughter’s husband’s brother was kicked in the head by a mule, and he was fine at first, but that night he took badly and now all he does is cluck like a chicken. Terrible shame.” Gerda tsked under her breath. “But when it’s light out, if you’re still alive, I’ll fix you some food and a cup of hot broth to drink. Till then, sleep if you can, and try not to die.”
That seemed like good advice, and he closed his eyes, and despite the pain in his head and the clutching chill, he finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
• • •
Darren opened his eyes and turned his head painfully toward a source of cold, gray light that turned out to be a pane of glass so covered with grime that it was impossible to see through. He turned the other way, wincing a little, and saw Gerda sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, snoring softly, her lumpy chin resting on an ample, and equally lumpy, chest. She wore a loose-fitting dress of some coarse brown material, and had tucked her hands into the sleeves, so her entire body appeared wrapped in burlap. Another piece of brown cloth covered her head, with a few strands of wispy hair sticking out from beneath. She looked a bit like a cloth bag full of potatoes, with an oddly face-like, burlap-wrapped potato protruding from the top.
He sat up, which made the pounding in his head worse, and a wave of nausea swept over him. He considered throwing up, decided not to, and then swung his legs out of bed. His shoes and socks had been removed, and when his bare feet touched the icy-cold wood plank floor, he yelped a little and lifted them again.
The noise awakened Gerda, who snorted, coughed, and then opened her eyes, blinking sleepily.
“You didn’t die,” she said, and then yawned cavernously, exposing gums only sparsely adorned with teeth.
“Not yet.”
“Always could happen. Day’s barely begun.” She stood, moved closer and leaned over him, peering at him nearsightedly. “You look like you might be all right. You haven’t had any inclinations to cluck like a chicken, have you?”
“No.”
“What sort of clothes are those you’re wearing?”
He glanced down at Fischer’s sweatshirt and jeans. “What do you mean?”
“They’re brightly colored, like the fancy clothes nobles wear, but they don’t seem to fit you very well.”
“I borrowed them from a friend.”
“Ah.” This apparently satisfied her for a moment, but then she frowned and leaned forward again. “And what are those things?” She pointed. “On your face.”
“They’re glasses. They help me see better.”
“Do they? How?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it. But they work.”
“My eyes are none too good. Do you think they might help me?”
He shrugged. “Could be.” He handed them to her. She shoved them on her face, and then gave an exclamation of delight.
“Jesus and all the saints!” she said. “It’s like being young again!” She looked around the room, her face a study in wonder. “I can see every crack in the wall!” She frowned. “And every speck of dirt. I guess no blessing comes without a curse.” She took the glasses off and handed them back. “Just as soon not know how filthy this place is.”
He put his glasses back on.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “Good sign you’re not imminent to die, if you’re hungry.”
“I’m famished,” he said, with feeling.
“Well, that’s good. I’ll get you breakfast.” Her brow furrowed. “Don’t take a bad turn and die while I’m gone.”
“I won’t.”
She was gone for only five minutes, and returned with a wooden bowl containing something steaming. She handed it to him, and he saw, with some dismay, that it was filled with porridge.
Jesus Christ. Why couldn’t he get sent to a place and time where people knew how to make a decent breakfast? How hard was it to fry an egg? But he was hungry enough that he dug in, and finished the entire bowl in short order. Afterwards, his stomach seemed as if it were accepting of what he’d given it, and his headache was abating a little.
He handed the empty bowl back to her, and said, “Thanks.”
She gave her cackling laugh. “Good appetite. It’s a good sign.”
“Do you know someone named Per Olafsson?”
Her wrinkled face crumpled. “Per. Poor Per. Yes, I know him.”
“Why do you call him ‘poor Per?’ He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Well, as far as I know. I haven’t checked on him this morning.”
“Good. But what’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, he’s a poor, sad young man. He’s got the second sight, you know. He’s always sighing and
pining for what he thinks should have happened. He’s never satisfied with what he’s got. Makes himself miserable, poor thing.”
He frowned. That sounded significant. Maybe Per was a Monitor? “Wait. What do you mean, ‘what should have happened?’ How does he know what should have happened?”
“Well, that I don’t know. He gets these fits. In church one week, he suddenly burst into tears, poor dear. He said that he felt like it was all wrong, that he should be somewhere else. But where else he would have been, of a Sunday morning, I don’t know.”
“Did he have any idea of what he should have been doing?”
“He said something about a wife, a wife he should have had.” She leaned forward, and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “He’s not married, you know. Never has been. I think that’s part of his problem. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but if a man’s secret parts don’t get used, they kind of spoil, and the rot backs up into his brain and makes him crazy.” She gave him a grin that exposed two yellowed teeth. “That’s why I made sure to give my husband, rest his soul, plenty of opportunities.”
Great. Now he was nauseated again.
“Anyway,” he said, “did Per ever tell you any details? About what he thought should have happened? I mean, other than he should have been married.”
“No. He seems sad all the time, poor thing, and goes on and on about how everything should be different than it is. But of course, you can ask him yourself, as soon as you feel up to it. He lives only a mile away.”
“Do you think he’d mind? Would he be upset that you told me about his, um, obsession?”
“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t. He goes on and on about it to everyone who will listen. I think that the only danger will be to your spirits. He’s a bit… a bit melancholy, as they call it.”
• • •
After a second bowl of porridge, Darren felt as if his strength had returned sufficiently that he could venture out. He cleaned a spot on the window, and looked out into a muddy road with a field of brown grass and leafless birch trees stretching off into the distance. A few disconsolate-looking goats grazed in the field. The sky was a uniform gray, like dirty cotton. The wind was still blowing, rippling the grass, and rattling the pane. He could feel it slipping its fingers through the cracks in the wall, making him shiver. The whole place looked cold, miserable, and generally uninviting.
“Here’s a jacket you can wear,” Gerda said, as he was steeling himself to open the front door. “It belonged to my husband, rest his soul. He’s no use for it now, being called forth into the Fields Of Lilies To Sit At The Feet Of Jesus.” He could hear the capital letters.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Oh, it’s all right. In the midst of life, we are in death. But, in any case, no sense hastening your own travels into the next world. You can’t go out there clad as you are, or you’ll catch a chill and die.” She handed him a battered coat, much worn, but lined with what appeared to be sheepskin. It looked deliciously warm, and he put it on and tied the front snugly. It was a little short in the arms but otherwise fit well. He decided that he would wear it from now on, even indoors, unless he was still in Norway when the weather warmed up.
“Thanks,” he said. “I really appreciate your taking care of me. Thanks for everything.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s the least I could do,” she said. “It was wonderful having someone to care for, and to keep me company. Ever since my dear husband died of the plague last week, I’ve been that lonely.”
He goggled at her. “Your husband died last week? Of the plague?”
“Yes, and such a terrible wrench it was. He didn’t suffer long, poor thing. Died in that very bed you slept in last night.” She sniffed a little, and dabbed her eyes with the end of her head scarf. “So sad. He was a good man, Jon Haraldsson. A good man.”
Shit. It just wasn’t fair. First he survived getting shot by a homicidal physicist, and then being speared by a crazy Viking, only to catch the plague from fleas. Would the lightning-fast microprocessor get him back in time for a doctor to give him an antibiotic before he died of the Black Death?
He looked down at the coat and suddenly felt as if the sheepskin was crawling with fleas. He knew it was his imagination—well, he was almost certain that it was his imagination—but the feeling was maddening. He nearly took the jacket off and gave it back to Gerda, but when he looked at her ugly, kind face, he thought, You can’t do that. She wouldn’t understand. And it wouldn’t be nice.
Fine. Be nice, then, and die of the plague. Gerda would be upset that he died, and say about how nice a guy Darren Everything was, and wasn’t it sad how he got the plague, but now he’s Sitting At The Feet Of Jesus, so it’s all okay. And then she’d offer the Flea-Infested Bed of Death to the next hapless traveler who came through, and it’d all happen again.
But maybe it would be okay after all. Compared to being skewered by a Viking, the Black Death was at least potentially survivable. He’d survived the Vikings, he could survive this.
Maybe Fischer was right. Maybe all of this was making him more confident.
He said his goodbyes to Gerda, who gave him a tooth-challenged smile and a sincere farewell—”Stop back any time. Don’t die in the meantime.”—and went out into the cold April morning to try to find the depressed, second-sighted Per Olafsson—and see if he might have a clue as to what was supposed to happen in a day or two that so decisively changed everyone’s timeline.
• • •
Wrapped in the late Jon Haraldsson’s warm jacket, and trying to ignore the feeling that he was being bitten by dozens of fleas, Darren walked down the road toward a cluster of low buildings in the distance that Gerda had pointed out as the home of “poor, sad Per Olafsson.” The wind was incessant, the mud ubiquitous, and the sky a uniform dull gray color. He had seen photographs of Norway, and remembered their depicting crystal-blue skies over sunlit bottle-green seas, and steep hillsides lined with trees in full leaf. Those photographs, he decided, weren’t taken in early April.
A twenty-minute walk brought him to the buildings. They were dismal and brown, like everything else here, huddled together like cattle in a blizzard. Several of the buildings had no signs, and appeared to be homes. Another was clearly a tavern of some sort.
The last one in the row had a wooden plank hanging from a post in front, with words carved into it. He blinked at the sign, and had the peculiar feeling that he was looking at words in another language, a language he didn’t speak.
But he realized, with some perplexity, that he could nevertheless read them. The sign said “P. Olafsson. Goldsmith, Blacksmith, Silversmith.” Somehow he was reading words in Norwegian, but some hitherto-unrecognized part of his brain was simply translating them into English without any conscious thought.
It was no weirder than his ability to understand and talk to people who weren’t speaking English. He remembered the futile struggle of trying to learn French in high school. However Fischer had accomplished this, it’d be nice if it was permanent.
The house was long and low, but had a partial second story with windows on the two sides he could see. The front was cross-timbered, made of old, cracked, unpainted wood, and there was a window in the front wall with a large oil lamp, burning steadily even though it was daytime. A greasy streak of soot trailed upwards along the glass. The whole place looked gray and downcast. But then, so did the whole country, or at least the part of it that he had thus far seen.
He pushed on the door, which was attached to the frame by a pair of intricately-wrought black iron hinges. It swung open smoothly and soundlessly. The dim interior was hung with metal objects of all sorts, from the functional—knives, axes, ladles, spoons—to the decorative—twisted silver knots and scrollwork, bracelets, necklaces, buckles—and everything in between. There was no doubt that however depressive the mysterious Per Olafsson was, he was a master of his craft.
There was a noise, and a man of about Darren’s age came out
from the back of the shop. As the leather curtain moved aside for a moment, there was a gust of warm air, and Darren caught a glimpse of a fire, anvils, tongs, and hammers. But the person who stood in the doorway, a curious look on his face, was about as opposite to Darren’s mental image of a blacksmith as it was possible to be. This man was scarecrow-thin, and what muscles he had stood out on his arms like cords. His hair was straw-blond, raggedly cut, and looked as if it hadn’t seen a brush in months. His pale blue eyes looked out at the world with a mixture of guardedness, pessimism, and resignation that made Darren’s generally neurotic outlook seem positively buoyant by comparison.
“Can I help you?” the man said, in a neutral, uninflected voice.
“Are you Per Olafsson?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Why?”
Well, that was a good question. What was he going to ask him? He certainly couldn’t launch in with the I-came-from-the-future thing. Then he thought of Gerda’s mention that Per was thought to have some sort of supernatural abilities, and wondered if that might provide an opening for conversation.
“I’m told you have the second sight,” he said.
“You’re from the church, aren’t you?” Per said. “Because if so, Father Sven already has talked to me and he says that I’m not committing a sin unless I say something that upsets everyone. And I haven’t done that in months.”
“No, I’m not from the church.”
“Then why do you care?” Per’s voice was flat.
“Because I’m interested.”
Per raised an eyebrow. “No one is simply interested. Everyone has a reason for what they do.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. He got the impression that here was someone who would know immediately if he was being lied to, evaded, or otherwise deceived. Per Olafsson seemed to view everyone with suspicion, and any confirmation of that pessimistic view of humanity by his own behavior would lead to Per’s clamming up completely.
“I’ve been sent here by a man named Fischer, who also has the second sight.” This small bending of the truth was so close to reality as to make no difference. “There is something that is going to happen, in the next few days, that has to do with you. I don’t know what it is, but it may involve a man I know trying to place you in danger. I’m here to try to stop that from happening.”
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