Page 97 of The Caged Viking

Underwear! Absolutely, several sets of underwear, and maybe some fabrics and elastic and fasteners to make more. But, no, she shouldn’t do anything to alter history.

Tampons would be so convenient, and she wondered if she brought some as samples whether primitive ones could be made. And even though she wasn’t much of a gardener, she could take packets of seeds, all kind of vegetables. Her father would know which would grow there.

She even researched methods for making soap with rudimentary materials, like ash, the way people of that time period already did. She also learned how to add scents to soap.

She had to remind herself that this was all just a game, not something she was actually considering.

But then one day, her brother Kolbein, the priest, came to visit. While they had a few moments alone when her father had to meet with a distributor and Angela started dinner, they decided to walk around the property for exercise. It was chilly…it was, after all, December, even if it was northern California…and they both wore fleece jackets.

“Will you be here for Christmas?” Kolbein asked.

The question surprised her. “Where else would I be?”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Kolbein! You of all people have to believe that my return here was an act of God.”

He shrugged. “Probably, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go back if you really want to, God willing.”

“I can’t believe you are even suggesting such a thing.”

“It’s obvious that you’re miserable.”

“I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it.”

“Pff! Let me ask you a private question, sister. When you were in the past with your husband…and, yes, I refer to him as your husband…weren’t you afraid of getting pregnant? Wouldn’t that have precluded you from coming back? I doubt you would have taken the chance if you carried a child.”

“None of this was my doing, the going or coming back,” she reminded him. Or my not being pregnant. I was playing Russian Roulette with sex, and I knew it. “It was all God’s doing, or so we’ve always believed when it came to our time-travel experiences, Kolbein. That’s why I say God must have intended me to return to the future.”

Kolbein considered her words as they continued to walk. Finally, he seemed to come to some conclusion, and he stopped to look at her. “Has it occurred to you that God deliberately kept pregnancy from you…even when you returned, and still could have carried Hauk’s seed…so that you would be free to return. I doubt you would ever risk taking a child on such a trip. The choice is all yours. God is all about free will.”

Kirstin felt a wave of dizziness pass over her.

Should I go back?

Can I go back?

“Maybe we should both pray,” Kolbein advised.

They did. On their knees, even.

That night, for the first time since her return, Kirstin dreamed about Hauk again. He was not in the cage, of course, but he was not happy. The loving expression she’d last seen on his face was no longer there. Instead, he flashed her a forbidding scowl. Was that a sign that she should go back, that he needed her, or a sign that he no longer wanted her?

She did not know.

Chapter 22

Dashing through the snow…

Hauk was having a good time at the moment, which surprised him. He wasn’t happy, or even contented, not all of the time, leastways, but he was mostly all right with his world. For a certainty, he was no longer mooning about like an orphan calf, as Frida had once accused.

Speaking of his opinionated cook, he had to give her credit for the wonderful job she’d done preparing for the Jul season. Signe, too. His keep had never appeared better, and the vast array of foods he’d seen when passing through the kitchen would equal that in any royal household.

In essence, he was proud to be the jarl of Haukshire, something he’d never expected when growing up, or during the years he’d deliberately stayed away. Mayhap it was something related to what Egil had said to him yestereve, “All evidence of yer father living here are gone. ’Tis yours now, not his.”

In any case, he walked into his great hall, where the three center hearths blazed with warmth, and the walls and tables were festooned with red-berried holly and evergreen boughs tied with ribbons of many colors he’d found for Signe in the treasure room. Mistletoe hung here and there in remembrance of the death of Baldr, killed by an arrow made of mistletoe. The tears of Baldr’s mother supposedly turned the red mistletoe berries to white, forevermore. A ceiling-high pine tree stood in one corner decorated with small carved wooden statues of various gods, candles, ribbons, and bits of hardy food strung together, like dried apples and nuts. A huge wreath hung on the wall behind the high dais.

The air even smelled festive.