Page 100 of The Last Viking

Many leave-takings had Geirolf experienced in his thirty-five years—from father, mother, brothers and sister, friends and lovers—but nothing had prepared him for the devastation of this leave-taking today. Even now, he strained for one last glimpse of Merry-Death standing at the forefront of the throng. Her proudly erect figure grew smaller and smaller as the distance widened between them. But then, to his horror, he saw her tightly coiled composure shatter as she collapsed to her knees on the ground. Thea and Sonja were immediately at her side, comforting her. He yearned to go back and soothe her himself, but his die was cast in another direction.

Too soon, the longboat passed a bend in the shoreline, and he could observe his beloved no more. A crushing weight slammed against Geirolf’s chest, and he, too, sank to his knees.

“Rolf, are you all right?” Mike asked, rushing to his side.

Embarrassed, Geirolf stood quickly and grabbed for the loose rudder, surreptitiously wiping his damp eyes. “I slipped on a wet spot,” he lied. “’Twould seem I must regain my sea legs.”

Mike accepted his explanation with a dubious nod and told one of the students to pick up the row calls. “Something weird is going on here,” Mike said, bracing his hands on his hips and throwing his shoulders back with defiance. Geirolf was dressed in the Viking attire he’d worn on his arrival, but Mike and the students wore shorts and T-shirts for this rehearsal. “How ’bout explaining what the hell this caper today is really about?”

“We’ve been over this before,” Geirolf said wearily.

Mike put up a halting hand. “No, don’t feed me any more bullshit about your staying alone on the ship overnight to test its watertightness. This boat is sealed tighter than a drum, and you know it. More important, you and Dr. Foster are acting as if you never expect to see each other again. What gives? Really.”

Geirolf stiffened. “Leave off, my friend. You tread recklessly into the realm of my personal life, and I do not appreciate the intrusion.”

Mike stiffened, as well. “I care about Dr. Foster, and I care about you, you son of a bitch, though you’ve been behaving like a horse’s ass the past few days—”

Geirolf raised a brow at the young pup’s audacity.

“Damn it, man,” Mike raked his fingers through his short hair with exasperation, “on the shore back there, you two looked like Bogart and Bergman in the last scene from Casablanca.”

He understood Mike’s reference. He and Merry-Death had watched a video of the famous moving picture last week. Merry-Death had insisted on renting a so-called “chick flick” after he’d compelled her to watch two hours of America’s Cup races.

“I am far handsomer than that Hump-free character,” he said with a laugh.

“If you consider me a friend, then don’t cut me out, buddy,” Mike insisted somberly, refusing to accept his attempt to change the topic of conversation.

Geirolf shook his head grimly. “Desist this line of questioning. There are things best left unexplained. I will say this, though, my friend, if e’er…if e’er any thing should happen to me, I trust that you will look after Merry-Death.”

“You know,” Mike said, cocking his head to the side as he studied him, “there are times when I almost think you’re a real Viking.”

“Have I e’er said otherwise?”

“No, but—”

“Enough!” Geirolf asserted; then he grinned at this newfound comrade whom he would miss sorely. “So, tell me true. Will you pursue this Sharon Stone creature till you gain the bedding? I heard that she phoned you repeatedly this past week.”

Mike glared at him, not wanting to drop the subject. But then his shoulders relaxed with resignation. “Nah.”

“Sonja?”

Mike shrugged. “I suppose.”

“But they are so different. Not that I’d argue in the stone wench’s favor. I suspect Sonja is by far the better choice.”

“Hey, sometimes a guy looks for a babe to put a little extra crispy in his corn flakes, if you get my drift,” Mike said, his lips twitching with amusement. “And sometimes he finds there’s just as much snap, crackle, and pop in his own backyard.”

Geirolf burst out laughing at that analogy. ’Twas one his brothers would enjoy when he relayed it to them…with a few medieval modifications, such as corn cakes in place of corn flakes. Yea, male thinking was the same throughout the ages, he concluded, though Merry-Death would have called it male chauvinist thinking.

Corn flakes made him think of his favorite food, Oreos, and that brought his thoughts back to his wife, who had chided him often on his “fixation” with the modern delicacy. As Mike returned to his duties and he resumed his steering—they needed only to go out about a half-mile—his mind wandered over the many important events that must fall into place in order to make the time-travel reversal succeed.

And, in the course of those meandering thoughts, he wondered idly if there might be some sign he could give Merry-Death from the past to let her know he’d arrived safely in his own time. With macabre humor, he came upon a most creative idea…leastways, he considered it creative.

He would have one of his father’s skalds record a saga about a wandering Norse knight called The Last Viking who had a passion for a mythical food of the gods called orioles. Of course, most listeners would think the name referred to the colorful bird of the crow family, but perhaps Merry-Death—if she were researching the old sagas as she was wont to do and if she came upon this particular one—would recognize the play on words as a coded message to her.

Hah! He was grasping at threads when what he needed was a rope to pull him from the abyss of desperation. He was destroying the woman he’d come to love with this time-travel adventure. His own life, once the mission was complete, would be worth naught.

What logic was there in this madness? Why had he been sent through time if he was to be catapulted back? Why had he been given true love for the first time in his ill-begotten life, only to have it yanked away? Why, why, why? The questions hammered away in his brain to the tempo of Mike’s rowing chant.