Page 70 of The Last Viking

One sheet listed SCA Activities. Wait a minute here. When did the Society for Creative Anachronisms get involved in this project? When she’d asked for their help last month, they’d been uninterested. To her amazement, the schedule listed hands-on workshops, lectures, exhibits and whatnot on such things as Saga Telling: A Skaldic Tradition; Tenth-Century Costume; Quern-Made Bread; Soapstone Crafts; Medieval Fabrics; Viking Handheld Looms; Pennanular Brooches: A Norse Trademark; The Pattern-Welded Sword; Dragon-ships and Sea Wolves. And they were all to be held on her property over the next few months.

There was a sealed envelope on the table with her name, “Merry-Death,” written in almost childlike pencil handwriting. With her heart thudding, Meredith opened it to find a carefully folded sheet of notepaper with only one sentence on it. “I love you.” There was also an erasure at the bottom that she was able to decipher—one that Rolf had wisely decided was inappropriate in this circumstance. “Did you buy more mead?”

Tears filled her eyes. Oh, Rolf, you are going to be a very formidable foe in this battle of wills.

She forced herself to stop daydreaming and move around the clearing. “Hi, Jerry, Pete, Frank,” she called out. Having been in Maine the past three months, she knew many of the students by name.

“How’s it goin’, Dr. Foster?” they replied, setting down their axes and wiping their sweaty foreheads with bare forearms. Most of them were shirtless, a fact not missed by a number of female students, whose eyes followed their every movement with appreciation.

She waved them back to work and watched for a few moments as they engaged in the ancient method of clinker shipbuilding. The boys, all athletically fit, were energetically splitting logs along the radii to create wedge-shaped planks—as many as sixteen from one log—much like the slices from a round cake of enormous height. These “clove boards” would be overlapped to form the sides of the longship.

“You’re home, Aunt Mer,” Thea said cheerily as she ambled up to her, a toddler on one hip. The baby wore denim coveralls and the cutest little black-and-white checkered athletic shoes. At Meredith’s uplifted brows, Thea explained, “This is Teddy. He belongs to one of the SCA ladies.” She pointed to the other side of the clearing, where several women were stirring a huge caldron over an open fire.

Holy cow! That kettle would hold enough stew to feed an army, which it appeared she was accumulating here. “Dinner?” she asked.

“Nah. Soap,” Thea said. Her niece was wearing a long gown in the Viking style, the white chemise covered with the open-sided apron. Her dark hair was neatly plaited into two braids, and not a speck of makeup marred her perfect complexion. All this was a great backdrop to her nose ring.

Soap? she mouthed silently. What did soap have to do with the building of a Viking ship? But whoever was responsible for this transformation in Thea deserved a huge hug.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, she suspected who the big lug was, and no way was she going to risk giving that lug a hug, big or otherwise. Not unless he agreed to stay here in the present or take her with him to the past.

“Would you mind holding Teddy for a while, Aunt Mer? He weighs a ton. And I hafta go check on the boar.”

Gladly, Meredith took the child into her arms. He gazed up at her, blue eyes wide with curiosity, thumb stuck in his adorable mouth. Meredith closed her eyes. Babies always made her feel this way. Teddy, meanwhile, was tugging on her hair, causing the pins to come loose. He giggled as one side of her upswept hair flopped down. “What boar?” she squeaked out finally, opening her eyes to see Thea eyeing her new hairstyle with amusement.

“It’s not really a boar. There were none in any of the butcher shops we called this morning, can you believe that? Not one single boar! But Rolf said boar tastes similar to pig. So, we’re having a pig roast tonight,” Thea announced joyfully. “It’s been cooking all day in a pit we dug filled with hot stones and wet leaves. I’m so glad I came here, Aunt Mer. I’m having such a cool time.”

Thea started to walk off, but Meredith grabbed her shoulder with her one free hand. Teddy’s sticky fingers were working on the neckline of her cotton knit sweater, stretching it out as far as it would go. “Whoa, Thea, hold on. Where are Mike and Rolf?”

“They were here till about two o’clock. Then Rolf said he had lots of shopping to do.” Thea averted her eyes with those last words.

“What kind of shopping?” Meredith asked suspiciously.

“Gee, how would I know?” Thea exclaimed, but she still wouldn’t make eye contact.

Meredith took Thea’s chin in her hand and forced her to face her. “What’s going on, Thea?”

“Is it true that you and Rolf are gonna tie the knot?”

“No!” she said too quickly and too vehemently, her cheeks immediately heating with embarrassment.

“Rolf said I could be, like, a witness. That’s the same as a bridesmaid in a Viking wedding, you know.”

Meredith groaned.

“Did you see the roses yet?” Thea’s voice was hushed with awe.

Uh-oh! “The…the what?”

“Roses.” Thea pointed to the back of the house. “That’s, like, the most romantic thing in the whole world. I told Phoebe and Cora in Chicago this morning, and they said it was, like, totally buggin’, even better than the time Brad Pitt…”

Thea’s chatter droned on, but Meredith had already spun on her heel and was stomping toward the back of the house, the side facing the ocean. Teddy, propped on her hip and hanging on by one hand around her neck, had managed to work his other grubby little hand inside her shirt, tugging gleefully till one bra strap broke. The neckband of her shirt had lost its elasticity under his insistent jerking and now hung off one shoulder.

Thea scurried after her, informing her in a rush, “Oh, and I totally forgot to tell you. Mom up and took off this morning. She just left a note saying she was, like, called out of town on an emergency. She said she’d be back, but, you know Mom, maybe she will and maybe she won’t.”

Who cares what my sister does now? Who cares if this baby turns my clothes to shreds? Who cares if half of Maine is overtaking my yard? I have more important worries.

Meredith stopped dead in her tracks when she turned the corner. Dozens, literally dozens, of rosebushes had been planted around the patio and the wood foundation of what Meredith feared was going to be a Viking longhouse. The plants were large and small, budded and full-flowered, everblooming and late blooming, long-stemmed and climbing, but already the scent of roses filled the air. And Meredith couldn’t stop the tears that overflowed her eyes.