must teach me to read your kind of English,” he pronounced with his usual arrogance, slamming the book shut.
Tomorrow. Like in one day, he expects to learn to read a language. Hah! If he thinks I’m going to waste my day pretending to give an impostor English lessons, he’s got another thing, coming. And even if he can’t read English, what would make him think he could learn an entire foreign language in one day? Next he’ll be telling me he’s Einstein…a Viking Einstein .
Walking around the small den, Rolf picked up one book after another, poring over them, caressing their covers, murmuring soft words of disbelief or admiration. Finally, he came to a book—one written by a colleague of hers at Columbia, The Vestfold Dig: Deathof a Viking Prince . He opened it to the center illustration and turned bone-white with shock.
“What? What is it?” she asked with alarm.
“’Tis my sword,” he said. “How can that be?”
Meredith stepped closer.
“See, the engraving is the same as that on my belt clasp.”
Meredith scrutinized the color illustration of a Viking sword taken from a burial site. Its ornate hilt had an engraved design of stylized animals that was, indeed, identical to the clasp of Rolf’s belt. The base of the hilt also had several runic symbols scratched onto it. She pointed to them, asking, “What do they mean?” She immediately chastised herself for asking the question. How could this jokester decipher the futhark alphabet?
“This weapon, Brave Friend , belonged to my beloved son, Geirolf Ericsson,” he replied in a stony voice.
She was stunned. “Amazing,” she commented, more than impressed that he could read runes, and that his words duplicated the caption at the bottom of the picture.
He flipped the page and gasped. There was a double-page illustration of a magnificent Viking longboat with a dragon prow. “Who did this? Who made a painting of my ship?”
“ Your ship?”
“Yea, ’tis the dragonship I built last year. Fierce Dragon . All my ships have the word ‘fierce’ in their names. I intend to call my new one Fierce Destiny .”
“I don’t understand,” Meredith said, rubbing the fingertips of one hand across her forehead.
“I share your bafflement, my lady,” Rolf said, turning a page. “Look, look at these.” He pointed to the silver armlets taken from the site and held out his arms to show the similarity of the etched motifs to his own adornments.
On and on Rolf went, examining the pages of the book, his frown growing deeper, his growls more pronounced.
And Meredith felt a ripple of fear sweep her. What was going on?
Rolf finally turned on her. “What is this book? Who wrote it? And why?”
“ The Vestfold Dig: Death of a Viking Prince , is its title, as I said before. It’s about an archaeological dig that took place about five years ago in a grave field in Norway. Vestfold was a region of southwestern Norway.”
“I know where Vestfold is,” he said impatiently. “I live there.”
“You do?”
“And why are men digging up sacred burial sites?”
Meredith shrugged. “Archaeologists do it all the time. Thousands of Norse graves have given us the only insight we have into the way people lived a thousand years ago, since no written documents survive.” She flinched when she saw the look of revulsion on Rolf’s face.
“If they were Christian graves, the holy priests’ hue and cry of sacrilege would reach the high heavens. Are Norse graves fair game because we are ‘heathens’?”
“No, when it comes to greed…or, more often, the search for historical knowledge, graves become a sort of public domain.”
He hugged his arms around his chest as if suddenly cold and mumbled, “Thousands of graves opened…who could have predicted such? ’Twould have been better if all Vikings followed the tradition of death burning.” Then he seemed to remember something else. “What did you mean about this death of a Viking prince?”
This whole
Tomorrow. Like in one day, he expects to learn to read a language. Hah! If he thinks I’m going to waste my day pretending to give an impostor English lessons, he’s got another thing, coming. And even if he can’t read English, what would make him think he could learn an entire foreign language in one day? Next he’ll be telling me he’s Einstein…a Viking Einstein .
Walking around the small den, Rolf picked up one book after another, poring over them, caressing their covers, murmuring soft words of disbelief or admiration. Finally, he came to a book—one written by a colleague of hers at Columbia, The Vestfold Dig: Deathof a Viking Prince . He opened it to the center illustration and turned bone-white with shock.
“What? What is it?” she asked with alarm.
“’Tis my sword,” he said. “How can that be?”
Meredith stepped closer.
“See, the engraving is the same as that on my belt clasp.”
Meredith scrutinized the color illustration of a Viking sword taken from a burial site. Its ornate hilt had an engraved design of stylized animals that was, indeed, identical to the clasp of Rolf’s belt. The base of the hilt also had several runic symbols scratched onto it. She pointed to them, asking, “What do they mean?” She immediately chastised herself for asking the question. How could this jokester decipher the futhark alphabet?
“This weapon, Brave Friend , belonged to my beloved son, Geirolf Ericsson,” he replied in a stony voice.
She was stunned. “Amazing,” she commented, more than impressed that he could read runes, and that his words duplicated the caption at the bottom of the picture.
He flipped the page and gasped. There was a double-page illustration of a magnificent Viking longboat with a dragon prow. “Who did this? Who made a painting of my ship?”
“ Your ship?”
“Yea, ’tis the dragonship I built last year. Fierce Dragon . All my ships have the word ‘fierce’ in their names. I intend to call my new one Fierce Destiny .”
“I don’t understand,” Meredith said, rubbing the fingertips of one hand across her forehead.
“I share your bafflement, my lady,” Rolf said, turning a page. “Look, look at these.” He pointed to the silver armlets taken from the site and held out his arms to show the similarity of the etched motifs to his own adornments.
On and on Rolf went, examining the pages of the book, his frown growing deeper, his growls more pronounced.
And Meredith felt a ripple of fear sweep her. What was going on?
Rolf finally turned on her. “What is this book? Who wrote it? And why?”
“ The Vestfold Dig: Death of a Viking Prince , is its title, as I said before. It’s about an archaeological dig that took place about five years ago in a grave field in Norway. Vestfold was a region of southwestern Norway.”
“I know where Vestfold is,” he said impatiently. “I live there.”
“You do?”
“And why are men digging up sacred burial sites?”
Meredith shrugged. “Archaeologists do it all the time. Thousands of Norse graves have given us the only insight we have into the way people lived a thousand years ago, since no written documents survive.” She flinched when she saw the look of revulsion on Rolf’s face.
“If they were Christian graves, the holy priests’ hue and cry of sacrilege would reach the high heavens. Are Norse graves fair game because we are ‘heathens’?”
“No, when it comes to greed…or, more often, the search for historical knowledge, graves become a sort of public domain.”
He hugged his arms around his chest as if suddenly cold and mumbled, “Thousands of graves opened…who could have predicted such? ’Twould have been better if all Vikings followed the tradition of death burning.” Then he seemed to remember something else. “What did you mean about this death of a Viking prince?”
This whole
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