Page 7 of The Caged Viking

Madrene’s first husband, Karl, had divorced her because she was barren. Not so barren now, though. Obviously it had been Karl who’d been sterile.

Not wanting to get her father started on the subject of Karl and his misdeeds, Kirstin asked, “Do you miss amber harvesting?”

“Nay!” He shook his head for added emphasis. “I am a farmer at heart, and raising grapes satisfies that yearning. ‘Tis important for a man to be satisfied with his work.”

And a woman, too. That’s why I’m a professor, and not a wife and mother. Although…no, that’s another subject to avoid with my father.

They sat on cushioned wicker chairs facing the rail of a wide wraparound porch that overlooked the neat rows of Blue Dragon Vineyard grapevines. For a while, they just sipped at their coffees and admired the view.

It was that special time of the year, a fleeting week or two in mid-Spring called “Bloom” when the developing flowers got fertilized, and the air was redolent with subtle but tantalizing aromas of the goodness to come. This was not a heady scent like that in an orange grove or a peach orchard. It was more elusive. Fresher, because of its understatement. Like the first slice of a Honeycrisp apple, or the skin of a pear still on the limb, or an ice-cold melon cracked open and oozing sweetness on a hot summer day. She must have read that description somewhere.

Inhaling deeply, she noticed her father doing the same, his eyes closed to enhance the sense of smell. She understood how he felt.

She lived in Los Angeles, and was home only for the weekend family gathering for Easter Sunday, which fell this year the day after her birthday, that all important one, a turning point for most women. She would rather not have a fussy party or anything, but it was no hardship coming home. In fact, she looked forward to her time at Blue Dragon, which managed to stay the same in a world changing too fast.

It wasn’t just the property that was comforting, she noted as she glanced around, but the old Victorian style house, too. A mansion, really. Her family had moved here more than twenty years ago when their father had married Angela Abruzzi, who stemmed from a long line of California vintners.

And a good thing it was that the house had been so big, Kirsten reflected. Magnus had eleven children, including Kirsten, when he’d arrived in America; twelve, after he’d married Angela. To say that her father was a “very virile Viking” would be a vast understatement. Or very busy, to say the least, she quipped to herself with a smile. Enough on that subject!

Still, it was ironic that her father had probably had ten children by the time he was her age, and she not even one. Nor did she have a prospective mate on hand, or even a sperm donor, not that she was thinking of anything like that. Yes, she’d had that on again/off again relationship with Navy SEAL Jacob Alvarez Mendozo, JAM, but it had ended last year, amicably from both sides. Turned out that it was not the perfect match they’d thought it would be. Part of the reason for that breakup and others was her not wanting any children of her own, ever. Not that she didn’t like babies—other people’s babies—just not for her.

She knew why her mind was veering in that direction, though. “The blasted man came to me again last night,” she blurted out, before she had a chance to bite her tongue. Then, in for a penny, in for a pound, she elaborated, “I can barely sleep anymore with these nocturnal visits.”

“A man came to you last night? Here? At Blue Dragon? Was it one of my workers?” Her father started to rise with paternal indignation. She wouldn’t be surprised if he went off to get his sword from the hall umbrella stand. Thirty-five years old, and Daddy was going to protect her virtue!

She laughed and put up a halting hand. “No, no! I didn’t mean in the physical sense. This guy could hardly do me any harm. Nope. My Viking is in a cage, for heaven’s sake!”

“A Viking? Did you say a Viking? In a cage? Impossible!”

Kirsten rolled her eyes at the vanity of a Viking. Truly, you could take the man out of the Norselands, but he would always be a Viking.

Her father, who was close to sixty, wore his gray-threaded, light brown hair in a long single braid. Hard manual labor in the vineyards kept his large body fit. He still wore etched arm rings on his upper arms. Despite the jeans and Blue Dragon T-shirt and athletic shoes, he was Viking to the bone, and always would be.

“Not only is My Viking…that’s what I call him…in a cage, but he’s about a thousand years old,” she told him with a laugh, then added, “Like us.”

Her father gasped, knowing exactly what she referred to. More than twenty years ago, her family had, unbelievably, traveled from 1000 AD Norway, best known as Hordaland back then, to modern day Hollywood, California. They’d melded into this society and rarely spoke of their experience. A miracle, something ordained by God, or the gods, had been the consensus back then, and still was today. There was no scientific explanation. Besides, if they told anyone about it, they would be deemed crazy. The whole family might end up in some secret facility for scientific experiments. Considering the secrecy and shenanigans of some government agencies, that prospect wasn’t as far-fetched as it might first seem.

“Another time traveler? And he came to you here…but, no, you said he was in a cage.” Her father frowned with confusion.

“It’s a dream. Sort of. And I think it takes place in a Saxon castle, probably a royal one, about the time of King Aethelred.”

“That idiot! He was called ‘Aethelred the Unready’ back in the day. More like ‘Aethelred the Dunderhead’ if you ask me. Hey, that rhymed.” Her father grinned at his own wit, then took a long sip of his coffee, before asking, “How could you tell?”

“Daddy! I’m an expert on that time period. I’ve written books on the subject. Don’t you think I would recognize the architecture, the tapestries, the furnishings, even the weapons?”

“Sorry, sweetling. I meant no insult. It’s just…a Viking in a cage?”

“I know, but that’s what I’m seeing.”

“I have to admit, it’s the kind of thing Aethelred would have done,” he conceded. “Remember what we learned about the St. Brice’s Day Massacre after we left? An outrage, it was! You probably know more about that event than I do.”

She nodded. “Wait here a sec. I want to show you something.” She went into the house and came back with a pad and pencil. Quickly, she sketched a design of writhing birds, one beak nipping at the tail feathers of the other in a circle. “The man in my dreams has arm rings with this raven design on them.”

“Those aren’t ravens. They’re hawks, and I know who your Viking Man must be. Hauk Thorsson…spelled H A U K. in Old Norse, not H A W K. He was from Haukshire in the northern sector of the Norselands, farther north even than our farmstead. He was known as Hauk the Handsome.”

“It can’t be the same guy because my Viking is far from handsome.”

“Are you sure about that?”