Chapter 10

Linden looked up uneasily into the vaulted space above the longhouse's great room where the smoke from the tiki-torches they had brought in from the main patio was beginning to accumulate in a roiling cloud. The skylight window Rolf had propped open with a stick, after cutting away the overgrowth of sod from the roof which had lapped over the neglected frame, was not siphoning off the smoke as quickly as she would like.

That was not really Rolf's fault, Linden reminded herself, since they had never done this before and had had no idea if it would work. It was just that blaming Rolf for things that went awry had gotten to be a habit because it was statistically correct ninety-nine times out of one hundred.

It didn't help their make-shift chimney that the night was thick with a warm fog that was inclined to mist through the small opening and drift toward the floor, she thought with a silent sigh. It was simply too still and breathless outside on the hill to draw the smoke away from the grassy knoll that topped the sod-covered barrow. Short of standing up on the roof with a fan or forge bellows there was nothing they could do about the smoke.

It also had to be admitted, Linden thought charitably, as she examined the room with a critical eye, that the grey haze and the smell of burning wood and incense sticks, propped upright in the cups of the primitive andirons, added immeasurably to the uncanny atmosphere in the hall. Hollywood couldn't do better at setting the stage for an epic dark and dire.

And as long as the bedroom vents and doors were closed, and they didn't asphyxiate the guests with the thickening atmosphere, then all was well. She could always get Petr to scrub the soot off the beams later if it was too picturesque in the morning light. Petr didn't mind heights, not the way she did, and he still felt guilty for sending her away with Tranum, a fact she had every intention of exploiting to the fullest.

Linden felt a breath of air touch her left cheek and looked up hopefully at the descending pall of smoke. They usually had brisk winds in the late afternoon and early evening. Maybe tonight's wind had gotten a late start.

The cloud didn't dissipate but continued to hang about the giant spool posts that supported the timber framed roof. The posts grew out of the floor like a small fairytale forest with the post and pin beams overhead serving as the angular branches of the magical trees. It was a whimsical thought, brought on by the stagy setting, but perhaps one of them was Yggdrasil itself, holding up the heavens and all of creation in its strong arms.

Tranum certainly looked like the young frost giant Ymir, as he stood with torch aloft, she thought, looking back down to find the source of fresh air. Linden quickly hid a small smile of approval from the three profs that would have seemed inappropriately lustful when directed at her cousin Leif.

They had called an informal meeting after lunch and rejected the idea of putting Tranum in his native clothing that evening-- especially Leg-Biter, as there was the little matter of moving antiquities around without export permits and they were already having to keep straight about one lie to the profs; Linden didn't want to be making up any more explanations for how they came to have an iron age sword that the three men of learning might well recognize as authentic. Also, Rolf and Petr didn't have anything half so realistic to wear, and they were suppose to be Vikings, too. In the interest of peace and harmony Linden had declared Leg-Biter to be object non-grata for the duration of the professors stay.

Still, jeans, a scarred chest and a Thor amulet left Tranum looking, at least to Linden's eyes, suitably like a Dane ready for battle.

And Rolf, she thought, glancing away from Tranum and the smoky heavens of Yggdrasil's arms, as he lay reclining on the floor atop a fat, green cushion, might very well serve the part of the serpent Nidogger who slept curled around the mystical tree's roots. For like Nidogger, Rolf was ready to do his part for the forces of larceny and chaos by pouring mead into their guest's thirsty mouths and any needed lies into their ears.

Linden shook her head and went to pull up another chair. She was fussing needlessly but her nerves had been on edge all day and it was simply easier to keep busy than to try and calm herself. She suspected that nothing short of a glass of mead and a hot bath would have any effect on her.

The Friday night audience for the saga was small but certainly the most appreciative that had ever attending a Club Valhalla performance, and they were getting special treatment from the staff. There were the three linguists, nearly indistinguishable to Linden in their short, greying beards and loud shirts that belonged in Hawaii rather than Monterey, and quiet Edred, who they had been forced to take into their confidences about the Tranum-Leif situation, and at the edge of the room, mostly in shadow, a very curious Petr and Tabby.

Rolf, though dressed appropriately in primitive woolen trews and tunic, would play little part in the evening's entertainment as no translation was necessary for this small gathering; he would have his moment to shine on the next evening when he and Petr would toot the bone whistles at the regular Saturday night Mead Feed. Tonight he was merely a host and dogsbody, just like she was.

Tranum had been introduced earlier to the three professors, Borg, Llewellyn-- and of all the unlikely names--Faust, as Rolf's and Linden's cousin, Leif Kirstensen; Rolf had also explained that the persona their skald used while performing was that of a Viking called Tranum Svensen, and so great was his concentration that it was unlikely that he would answer to any other name during the course of his presentation.

Linden hoped they swallowed that one and that it would cover any mistakes they made while addressing Tranum during the linguist's stay. Her own tongue absolutely refused to bend itself around the name Leif, and Edred didn't win any prizes for dissimulation either. Linden figured it was safest to keep the Swede busy eating when the professors were in the vicinity and leave the telling of the real whoppers to Rolf.

The linguists had at first been sceptical of seeing or hearing any performance of merit, though too polite to say anything outright to their host and hostess while being shown over the inn, but they had since heard Tranum giving some instructions to Petr in his odd Danish and their ears were all but quivering with excitement now that he was prepared to begin the telling of the sagas.

Tranum cleared his throat once and told the assembly that he had decided to begin the evening with excerpts from the Eddas, a short but non-repetitive recounting of the giant Ymir who arose from the great emptiness of Ginnungagap between Niflheim, the land of ice, and Muspellheim, the land of fire.

It was a well known mythological tale but none of the people in the room had ever heard it performed by a true skald in old Danish. They were waiting breathlessly for the tale to begin. Linguistic history was about to be made! Or that was the impression that Linden had.

Tranum, finally satisfied with the lighting, took a seat near the fireplace and fixed his torch in the iron bracket that usually held the hearth tools. More smoke curled ceilingward behind his head and looked like ghostly vapor rising from the aura of firelight that surrounded his loose, silvered hair.

Ymir at sundown, Linden titled the scene without mockery, and then shivered a little. The theatrics were evocative enough to have her feeling fey. She almost expected to look up and see one of Odin's harbinging ravens perched in Yggdrassil's arms. But that was nonsense.

Tranum began. He did not speak in a loud voice as he recited the tale from eons ago, but his every rhythmed syllable expanded rapidly into the silent, shadowed hall and whispered in the darkened rafters before being caught in the thick grass above where it went as mute as the grave.

Linden looked up again. One could lay on the hill, listening at the skylight, and they would never hear a word through the thick root fingers that snared Tranum's voice and kept it from reaching any of the old gods that might still be listening. She found herself wishing that her fertile imagination had never conjured up the image of some listening at the skylight; it was too easy after that to imagine eyes looking down on them.

Gooseflesh gathered and spread along Linden's arms under her light blue tunic as she watched her Viking-- a seemingly real Viking-- give an accounting of the Ragnarok, the destroyers of man's world. No English translation was needed of the simple, terrible words of the Norse tale.

Old was the age when Ymir lived. No sand, no sea,

no waves were there, no mountains, no fields, no heaven, nothingness.

Genesis, Linden thought, only bleaker.

Tranum paused and leaned forward to stare at his audience with his wide cat eyes, then spoke on softly about the lesser gods, the fire giant Surt and the frost giant Ymir, and of the maggots that grew into dwarfs inside the giant's bodies and became the beings of North, South, East and West that held up the corners of the world.

But it was not a creation myth that he was telling, not a Genesis. This Eddas was all about destruction. And death. Linden decided that, linguistic history or not, she hated it.

Tranum told of the wolf, Fenir, with his jaws agape as he pursued the sun and finally caught her, and of the dead that burst from the other-world and crossed the moat of ocean in the ship, Naglfari, that was made from dead men's nails, and the final horror of the worlds end when the serpent from the depth spewed forth molten poisons over the world.

...And his immobile audience, three of them with pen and notebook in hand-- having been firmly denied permission by Rolf to electronicaly record the skald. There might be money in it later-- was both entranced and terrified by the nearly living images Tranum called forth with his story, his breath giving the Norse gods new life in a century that had forgotten all about the pagan ones.

Linden had to admit that the Christian Armageddon had nothing on the Viking Ragnarok. With a shudder of fascinated revulsion, she listened with new understanding to the story her grandfather had told her of Hel, the goddess of death, and the blood smeared Garm, the guard dog that stood over Gjoll bridge, where the dead that were denied Valhalla because they had not died in battle, must pass before arriving at the hall of the rotting Hel, who dined on a plate called Hunger and carved her fleshy meals with a knife called Famine. The hideous goddess was attended on her palette, Bed-Ridden, by a slave named Senility and a bond-maid, Dotage, that stood by the curtains of Woeful Wan.

The tale, while never pleasant, had not previously horrified her. It had seemed no more than another gruesome fairytale. Now it did scare her, because it wasn't a mythological abstraction. Now it seemed real. Tranum's voice, soft and intimate in the twilight of the great hall, made it so. She wished that it would not be childish and cowardly to cover her ears with her sweaty hands and screw her eyes tightly shut, or leave the room until the saga was over, but she was hemmed in all sides by Tranum's new thralls and held a mesmerized prisoner by her Viking's low voice.

Next came the valiant story of the fatal battle of Odin's warriors, when they filed in from the hall of the slain and fought mankind's last war at the end of the world where none fled and none survived.

Was that the only reward for a life well led? she wondered. To battle and die and then be resurrected to battle again? It was horrible-- all of it! And absolutely effective.

Borg, LLewellyn and Faust were getting their money's worth and then some, Linden thought grimly as she looked at their perspiring faces and still pens. It was not only the monks of Europe that trembled at the Viking's call. On this night Club Valhalla was also mute and stricken.

Only Linden noticed when Tabby pulled away from Petr and left the hall. Petr watched her go with concerned eyes but he did not follow. The tale might be horrible, but it was also completely engrossing to the males. Linden wondered briefly if Tabby left because she was sickened, or if she had simply not understood Tranum's archaic Danish and was tired of the smoke. She hoped it was the latter as it could be fixed by a few breaths of fresh air because she needed Tabby's help with the feast.

Reluctantly, Linden turned back to the fire to wait for the end of the tale when she could make her own escape from the smoky room. It would be soon, for the mythical battle was all but over and the audience was straining in their seats and gripping their hands. No one looked like they wanted to endure much more.

Tranum turned suddenly from the linguists to Linden and offered some words of salvation.

The world did not fall on Yggdrasil, he assured his Valkyrie. One woman and one man survived to begin creation again.

Adam and Eve, she thought, staring into his eyes. Or Noah's ark.

But at the moment when she was prepared to draw a relieved breath at the change of subject and tempo, however uncomfortable she was to be the sudden focus of seven pairs of speculative eyes, Tranum shook his head slightly in negation of her thoughts and went on to the heart of the saga that told about the plight of man in a world far harsher than one they lived in today.

In its own way, this part of the story was worse for Linden than what had gone before. The gods would do as they wished and man was forced to follow without control or blame or guilt, but this story was not about the gods. It was about the imperatives of survival and the hard, cruel choices that her ancestors had made when they chose to go on living in the frozen lands.

Adam and Eve had merely been kicked out of Eden and into the real world. The Vikings must have felt like they'd been sent straight to Hell-- or Hel, as the case was, Linden thought, with a spurt of morbid humor that was a precursor to nervous hysteria. She had always been more inclined to laugh than cry when something upset her, but she knew that neither response was appropriate or reasonable on this occasion. Her emotional overload and personal problems were simply over-flowing into an exaggerated reaction of a gruesome fairytale.

And nobody was peering at her through the skylight! Nobody!

Out of the grey twilight they came, across rivers

swollen by thaw, hunters of mammoth and reindeer.

Slush oozed between their toes as through the thickets of Bearberry and white birch they ran in haste.

There was game in the forest, wood for fire, and flint.

Axes of stone they made, and daggers of iron, cross-bows

of strong wood. And with these they went forth and threw

themselves on the dark, comfortless lands where they

battled relentlessly to survive.

Linden shuddered again and closed her eyes. It was all to easy, in the flickering firelight, to imagine her ancestor's fight for survival in the harsh, cold lands of the north. She did not need to hear about the early Danes surging down on their Iron Age enemies and killing them until all that remained of the other tribe was the stench of hardening leather and blood drifting over the soiled snow. Survival had belonged to the ruthless, but she didn't want to hear about it.

Linden tried to block out the words from an old English folk song scrambling around in her head. The lyric was speaking of a hare fleeing before the coursing hounds, but its message still applied: He is running for his dinner, (the hare said of the hound,) I am running for my life.

So had the English and Irish and French run from the northern invaders. And to as little avail.

Linden exhaled slowly and tried to calm her thudding heart. These had been her ancestor's hard and bloody choices --not hers! The sins of the fathers might be visited on the children unto the seventh generation, but surely she and Rolf were long past that branch on the genealogical tree. No blood could possibly still cling to their hands. No cosmic guilt.

But what of Tranum? she asked herself. He embraced this history and tradition. He believed in its philosophies, didn't want salvation... Not that Christian hands weren't equally bloody from the slaughter of pagans, Muslims, and the natives of the new world! Genocides happened with horrifying regularity. Give a dog a bad name-- and hang him, the saying went. Bad names were so easy to come by.

Again, as though sensing her that her discomfort had grown to be unendurable, Tranum's voice eased as he sang on about the Vikings that had come to the new world seeking a better life for themselves and their families:

We search now for lands of ripe wheat, with fish

in the sea, and a beautiful woman for our beds. Our healthy children will rock in the cradles there.

The voice coaxed softly, urging her to open her eyes and look kindly on the speaker. Unable to resist the plea and understanding the hunger behind it-- for was that not the reason that all the immigrants had come to America?-- Linden allowed her lids to lift and she managed to offer her Viking a small smile of reassurance.

Tranum, pale eyes still intent, finished his story as the traditional manner demanded, but the power and the persuasion was gone from his words. His voice flattened as if he had in his heart rejected the hopelessness that came with them, or perhaps was wary of attracting the notice of the relentless gods in his new home with too fervent a prayer for battle. Instead we awake, not to the sweetness of wine or the whispers of our women, but with the crying of the sword.

Fate does not daunt us and we all hope to die in

great deeds of valor that men will remember after

we have gone to Valhalla to feast at Odin's table.

Tranum's head bowed and he ceased speaking. The silence that followed was almost deafening for a count of three seconds, then Rolf jumped to his feat and gave a shrill whistle and began to applauded. The others, except Linden, followed close behind in explosive rush of loud air.

Borg, Llewellyn and Faust began to babble furiously as they hurled questions at the still silent Tranum.

Linden stayed seated letting the tension drain from her knotted muscles. She needed a second of two to gather herself before facing the throng over the baked meats.

It had occurred to her about half way through the violent saga, that this wasn't, for Tranum, some exercise in linguistics or history, but his actual cultural belief and religion-- And it was horrifyingly alien to her.

Maybe too alien. It spoke of a fatalism that stretched even beyond the grave. A religion without redemption. Did he truly believe in it? Would he always? Was she playing Eve to his Adam, only to have him taken away by some mythical belief in a future call to arms?

Again a breath of air featherered at Linden's cheek, chilling her heated skin. Above the tumult of voices, she could almost hear the beat of raven wings as Hugin and Munin fled back to Odin's hall to spread the news that the old ones were being immortalized in the new world. She did not look up again. The feeling of being observed was gone.

Linden's hand touched lightly, protectively, over her abdomen in an absent-minded but revealing gesture that only Tranum saw.

"Hey, Sis!" Rolf's voice interrupt her unhappy thought. "How about if we lay on the grub? Our skald deserves a horn of mead and some of that ever-lasting boar that never gives out at Odin's groaning board."

"Okay." Linden rose quickly, grateful for the distraction of a mundane task. She even managed a dazzling but empty smile for her chattering guests. "If anyone still has an appetite after that little tale, follow me to Odin's board!"

She didn't see the sharp look that Tranum sent her way as she retreated from the room, but she heard Rolf say to Tranum: "Your after-life sounds like an great reason to die in battle. Who'd want to end up living with Hel?"

And her Viking answered: "Yes. It is an excellent reason to die in battle."

Linden shuddered. She did not believe in tempting fate, which was what this Eddas seem to do. And she did not like the idea of loving someone who wanted to die in battle.

Linden lay in her bed that night too tired to move. She was alone. Tranum and Rolf were still pouring over boat plans and making modifications to Wave-Walker.

Everyone else had finally quit eating and babbling about Odin and Freya legend, the Russo-Scandia linguist root, and great ways to make mead, and had gone to their beds so she and Tabby could clean up the mess from their feast.

Linden had managed a flying visit to Dr. Byrd that afternoon before their guests arrived, but the results of her appointment were far from satisfactory, now that she had a quiet moment to reflect on their conversation.

She could not begin taking the pill right away. She had to wait for the first Sunday after her next period to begin the cycle of the little peach tablets that ticked off the days of her fertility... Linden cringed a little at the memory of the doctor's lecture and her brain skipped off on a more comfortable tangent.

How did they go? Tuesday belonged to Tyr, the god of legal contracts. Wednesday was Wodin's day. Thursday belonged to Thor. Friday to Frig-- or was it Freya? Saturday to Sif? Or else she was Sunday.

Sunday was the key, she thought, locking back onto a relevant thought. Until that safe Sunday, if it wasn't already too late, the doctor strongly recommended the use of a spermicidal foam and condoms.

She could just imagine Tranum's reaction to the spermicidal foam. He had a very refined nose and he'd probably rate it right up there with maggoty dwarfs and poisonous sea-serpents. The foam also had the little problem of needing to be applied several minutes before making love--She and Tranum rarely had several minutes of sane time before they were grappling on the floor in lustful frenzy. But she couldn't explain this to Doctor Byrd.

Linden sighed and rolled over. It didn't help that she was half in love with the idea of having a child. She would in an instant if...

If. There were some big ifs. If Tranum stayed. If he loved her. If he would understand that she wanted her children to be Christian. If... If! If! If!

And thanks to her carelessness the night before, their hypothetical child might already be a fact. The timing was certainly just about as dead on as it could be, if Doctor Byrd knew what she was talking about-- and it was probably too much to hope that she was mistaken in her arithmetic. No fancy algorithms were needed. The days best for conception could still be counted on her fingers. She didn't even need both hands.

That could make some of her ifs into whens, since she had emphatically refused the doctor's reluctant offer of a morning-after pill.

Linden rolled over and pounded her pillow in frustration. It was hard to accept, but at the moment there was nothing she could do. Either she was pregnant or she was not... and she wouldn't know if she was for another couple weeks.

The best things she could do for herself that very moment was to calm down and get some sleep... and to make darn sure that Tranum didn't catch her in another weak instant. There was no point in compounding her stupidity, tempting fate, or doubling up on the odds of conception for the next five days.

At least, not if she was being sensible, mature and responsible. Linden closed her eyes and chased by worry and exhaustion, slid down into sleep's peaceful oblivion. She didn't stir when Tranum joined her in bed.

Tranum looked down at Linden. The thick swath of her golden hair was spread out on her pillow and across her nearly bare shoulders. Her eyelashes made twin fans above the lightly shadowed eyes. Her sweet mouth was relaxed with sleep.

His Valkyrie was exhausted. It had been a long, hard day for her. He should just let her rest, make no effort to rid her of her sleeping garment and then make love with her. It was doubly important to resist the compulsion since he had as yet had no chance to speak with her about the idea of a legal marriage and Linden was clearly troubled in her thoughts.

But that was a difficult thing to do, he thought clenching his fists. It was hard to leave her untouched when he knew that he could have her relaxed and ready for him without rousing her from her dreams-- and he wanted her so! Needed her near him.

Tranum undressed and lay down on the bed.

"Sleep, pretty Linden," he soothed as she snuggled comfortably against him, murmuring in her dreams.

He reluctantly allowed his hands to slide over her garment and glide once by her soft breasts. His traitorous fingers shook with pleasure. Tranum told himself that he had far too much self-discipline to let a little thing like the urge to feel smooth skin weaken his resolve. His body disagreed--emphatically! His disobedient right hand journeyed back south to the hem of her short tunic looking for a way in.

Gently, softly, he traced the line of her hip, the crease of her bent leg, then the crisp hair that nested there. Linden muttered and shifted, opening a bit more. His fingers crept closer to their goal as Tranum watched his Valkyrie's face.

Her eyelashes fluttered at the first touch against her heat. She moaned softly and cuddled closer, opening her legs still more.

Desire and triumph raced through him leaving fire and tightness in its wake as his muscled tensed and swelled beneath his flushed skin.

"Tranum?" the voice whispered, as the sleepy eyes opened.

"Yes. Put your arms around me, pretty Linden," he commanded softly. "Hold me tightly." But when her hands moved, it was not to his back or hips. Her fingers slipped under the sheet, found him, tightened and then caressed his heavy flesh. She sighed contentedly.

Unable to bear the waiting any longer, he braced himself over her and pulling her fingers away, guided himself into her tight body, squeezing forward slowly, shuddering with the pleasure of being inside her again.

"Tranum." Linden's eyes were open now. Her hands found an anchor in the steel of his biceps as he pushed into her. He felt thick and unbearably hot to the touch as he thrust into her tightness. It was a sensation somewhere between pain and pleasure until she relaxed her tensed muscles and stopped resisting the sensual invasion.

"Yes, Linden." Hard hands gripped her bottom and began working her up and down his shaft. He speared into her again and again, bringing pleasure every time he touched the mouth of her womb.

Her womb. Linden frowned, tensing again, pulling back. Her womb.

"No, Linden!" he scolded, pleaded, his hands gentling their grip. "Do not!"

At the near anguish in his voice. Linden again relaxed. This times her arms came around him, urging him closer.

Clasping her legs, he lifted her limbs higher, going deeper. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her ankles and taking more of his weight. His thrusts grew more rapid and hard. Fingers dug into the cleft of her bottom, as a fast climax inexorably overtook them.

Tranum called out her name, his voice filled with passion and pleasure. To her passion fogged brain it sounded almost as pleasing as I love you.

But it wasn't. Not quite, she thought fretfully as she closed her eyes and went back to sleep in her lover's arms.

That night she dreamed again about the ship that came in the storm and left her behind on the barren beach. This time a raven chased her down the deepening sands while lightning danced around and the tormented air screamed as it was torn in two.

Club Valhalla

Copyrighted (c) 2002 Melanie Jackson

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