Chapter 5

Linden had been blackmailed into this vacation-- but that was okay. It felt great to be on the road and leaving the proverbial dust of Club Valhalla behind for a few days of fun in the sun. Tabby was absolutely right, she did need a break from the stress of having worked for the last two years without a let up of any kind; and waiting around for Rolf to show up with his tree was likely to have pushed stress all the way from a case of minor indigestion and disturbing dreams to a full-fledged brain hemorrhage.

Besides, she had never had a chance to show a tourist around anything except Monterey-- And what a tourist!, she thought with a smile as she glanced at her companion. He was as foreign as any Martian could be!

Only there was nothing little or green about Tranum's hands or left forearm, which was the only part of him that she could see as he poured over the map of California he had found while exploring the glove compartment of the van. Those visible digits were both strong and lightly scarred, but quite normally male otherwise.

He had taken his first ride in a gas powered vehicle very much in stride, she thought with a touch of totally unaccountable pride. He had studied the van's workings for several minutes until satisfied that he understood them, smiled at Linden, and then had turned his attention to the glove compartment in front of him while she handled the driving.

The latch to the glove compartment had taken less than two seconds to master, and to unfold and orient himself with the maps-- A slightly more difficult task but surely it had taken fewer than ten heartbeats for him to master-- and he now had about him an air of pleased self-sufficiency, a hardness-- No, that wasn't the right word... perhaps a purposefulness-- in his study of this second item of interest that had caught his attention. She wasn't entirely surprised by his interest in the map. After all, a sailor had to know how to navigate and she imagined that one map was rather like another. But his immediate and concentrated study suggested a discipline that she herself practiced-- and had never known in the other men who peopled her life. Tranum went at study as though it was a matter of life or death that he understand the things around him.

With a will like that, she had no doubt that Tranum would master twentieth century California in no time at all... Only she would rather that he not master driving in her van!

Linden dragged her mind back to the road and held tight to the steering wheel as they curved around a particularly sharp, blind turn. They were traveling northward on the scenic coastal highway and slowly working their way to San Francisco. She had chosen the road for its beautiful landscape, but it seemed that she needn't have bothered. Mere ocean could not compete with the wonders of a color coded diagram Tranum held tight in his hands. Maybe it was a man thing. She personally didn't care for maps. A road had to lead somewhere; and it was easier to ask for directions when you got into the proper neighborhood. She liked: Go left at the white house, instead of: Turn north at the north, north- eastern divide.

They actually were on their way north instead of some other direction because Tranum had expressed a desire to see some of the ships in Rolf's reference books. A Spanish galleon, a Roman lanteen, or an aircraft carrier was beyond her capabilities to produce, but Linden recalled that the Balclutha was ported along one of San Francisco's many piers near Fisherman's Wharf. There was also supposed to be a submarine docked nearby that she wanted Tranum to see-- if she could ever pull his attention away from his study of her map. He had to have the whole thing memorized by now.

"Tranum?"

"Hmph?"

"Look out your window. That happened last spring." There were raw wounds in the soft red cliff face left from a large mud slide that had shut the highway for many days. "We had a lot of heavy rain last winter. It was nice after all the years of drought, but it also caused a great many problems on our roads. It didn't do the houses any good either."

Tranum studied the embankment as they rode by. Then he turned and peered out her window at the refracting silver waves that many tourists found impressive.

"The giants have been here, too." He nodded at the foaming waters that were strewn with stray rocks.

"Giants?" Her eyes flicked left, then back to the road. "Try earth shakers. We have them often in this part of the world."

"Yes?"

Linden entered a straight stretch and only then spared a longer glance for the huge boulders in the bay. Earthquakes had thrown out enormous debris through the ages, fractured limestone cliffs and rolling rocks of granite among the softer, ubiquitous stratified sandstone. It was one way that the land along the continental shelf built itself up; and the thousands of winter winds and rains, and abrasive salt tides were what wore it back down again.

Then she noticed, shining wetly among the harmless rounded domes, some half submerged fangs of harder stone thrusting up through the churning waves. They were huge spikes that had broken from the cliffs during more recent cataclysms, but instead of wearing into the gentle mounds, they had sharpened themselves into giant knives in the cold, surging waters.

She was not surprised by the lack of surfers and sailboats along this stretch of coast. The stony, shark-toothed barrier would discourage all but the most foolhardy.

"So, you like the map?" she tried again some minutes later.

"It is a wonderful map. Do you have more?"

"We can find them when we get to San Francisco." Linden let go of the wheel long enough to stab a finger at San Francisco Bay.

"This is where the ships are?"

"It is one place. It is the best one for old ships-- ships with great histories. The other ports are just for shipping. The boats are big but ugly. You'll like the ones at San Francisco more."

"This is good... You are enjoying the car, Linden? You are not weary from guiding it?" He had asked her this before. She suspected that it was more than solicitude that prompted him at ask again.

"I'm fine," she assured him immediately, ignoring the hopeful look and tone. There was no way-- not even if she had two broken arms and both legs in traction-- that she was going to let Tranum drive. She wouldn't do it on a nice straight interstate, and she certainly wouldn't try it on the coastal highway... But, she reflected, there was no point in explaining to her over-confident Viking about laws against uninsured motorists, when he hardly knew about motors and definitely didn't know about insurance... Though just how this could be possible in the age of television, she still did not entirely understand.

Perhaps while she was rounding up maps, she should try and lay her hands on one of Denmark. She really would like to know exactly where this anachronism called Svenborg was located.

Things were quiet again as Tranum subsided back into the folds of the map and the coastline grew more rough with each passing mile, with deeper and still deeper gullies cutting in among the boulders, and sometimes even touching the road.

They broke their journey at Half Moon Bay where Linden had decided to cut inland to the 280. It was a lot faster highway and still attractive if Tranum should suddenly develop a taste for scenery.

They were fortunate enough to find the tides at low ebb at the marine sanctuary off of the 92, which she had to show Tranum on the map before he would be coaxed from the van.

The crowds were not bad for the end of summer vacation. The sanctuary, hidden among the homes of a small residential area, was not well known among California's tourist attractions and they were able to park in the official lot, which meant that they had only a short scramble down to the beach on a picturesque little trail, decorated with spills of vibrant lavender rock-daisies that tumbled down beside them on the crumbling, sandstone cliff.

Soon the drone of the bees' labour at the blossoms was replaced by the hissing waves and they effectively drowned out the other tourists' chatter, leaving Linden with illusion that they were all alone on the barnacle encrusted rocks.

They ventured out to the far end of the slippery reef where the cool wind buffeted them freely and they were able to admire the sea life that lived at the far reaches of the tidal zone. The expected slow starfish and delicate sea- anemones were there in abundance, as were the more mobile hermit crabs. There were also mussels and clams and assorted snails.

Linden watched Tranum carefully to see his reactions to the different sea forms of the Pacific, hoping that he would be pleased and interested. But whether they were not dissimilar enough to merit a response, or she was as yet unable to read his serious face, she saw nothing more in his tanned visage than mild pleasure at the warm sun and fresh breeze. Nor did he say anything out loud that would tell her of his thoughts.

Maybe, she thought with a sigh, he had spent so long at sea that he was no longer impressed by it. Whatever the cause, he had shown more interest in her vegetable garden.

"Tranum?"

"Yes, pretty Linden?" he answered without turning his head. He often called her that, and for some reason, she didn't mind the casual endearment coming from him.

"Would you be interested in seeing some of the farms here? Half Moon Bay is quite famous for its pumpkin fields and they should be beautiful about now."

"Pump-kin." Linden found that she was no longer bothered by the frequent reiterations of their speech. How else was Tranum to learn English?

"Yes. They are a large, bright orange squash. We use a lot of them for pies in the autumn, but they are most famous for their use in the Halloween celebration-- The one you would call the week of spirits. We only have one day here-- in some places, like New Orleans, two days. They are All Hallows Eve and The Day Of The Dead." Linden cleared her throat and wondered if she was sounding too pedantic. She was supposed to guide, not lecture. "Do you want me to go on?"

"Yes, pretty Linden." This time Tranum did turn to smile at her. His silvery hair whipped about his face. "Tell me everything about pump-kin while you play in the water."

"I'm not going to play in the water. It's too cold," she answered, lifting a wet shoe out of a watery hollow. "The pumpkins are carved into scary faces, to frighten away evil spirits. Children dress up in costumes and go from house to house saying 'trick or treat'. This is a demand for a food or gift from the owner of the house or else the child goblins will play tricks on the people who live there. We usually have a bonfire on the Night of Specters. That's the one we call All Hallows Eve or Halloween."

"And the Christian church approves of these celebrations?"

"We have a lot of different churches. Some approve, some do not. Many of the churches have given up on us Americans, I think. We are simply too irreverent to ever be the good sheep that they would like us to be."

"Sheep," he said. "That is good description. We forgot how to be Vikings. In Denmark we went like little lambs to the slaughter. Charlemagne did this. The Christians have not been good to Denmark. It turned our kings into thieves who stole our land and bonded our people. Our free men were enslaved and our religion stolen."

The church had also done a great deal to clear out the thick fog of mysticism that surrounded the average pagan mind, Linden thought. Of course, the new rationalism carried back to Scandinavia by the converted kings also brought centralized government, religious intolerance and serfdom with it, too. Maybe ignorance had been closer to bliss for the average peasant.

She remembered reading that at the time of Queen Margrete's ascension to the throne, only ten percent of Denmark's people were still working their own farms. The great land-grabs were on all over the Christian world and the Valdemars had not wanted to be left out... And that wasn't all the church did, not by a long shot. They had the rest of Europe to run amok in, too, and there actually were places that suffered more than Scandinavia.... Though Good Emperor Charlemagne of the book learning and letters, did hold the record for the largest single slaughter in Scandinavian history if she remembered correctly.

"The church wasn't real great for women either," Linden commented drily, shoving her own restless hair aside.

"No?" he asked. And then: "Ah! Valdemar! He was cruel."

"Not just him. The whole church! The inquisition killed nine million people before they were through. Almost eight million of those were women. Most people don't know that." Linden looked up at the incongruously cheerful sky. It was a clear, translucent blue, spoiled only by a single white vapor-trail of a south-bound jet and to the west, by a fat line of grey that marked the waiting bank of evening fog.

She went on quietly: "And the same stupid men decided that women were to be forbidden from healing, so that many people again died in the plagues that followed. The Bishops even had a vote to see if women should be allowed to have souls. Thanks to an Irish priest we kept them-- by one vote... But none of that was God's fault," she reminded him and herself. "That was just the politics of greedy, fearful men and the morality of the age. It wasn't the first time that a holocaust happened-- and it certainly wasn't the last."

Tranum was silent but she got the impression that he was thinking hard about what she had said. Linden felt a small stab of guilt for dragging the shades of another continent's past unhappiness into the first hours of their vacation. There were lots of amazing things that she wanted to share with Tranum, places that were important in California's short history; there was no need to focus on the ugliness of Europe in the Dark Ages.

"The tide is turning... Shall we go on and see some pumpkin fields?" she asked, turning back toward the shore and the few stunted trees that grew inward in an effort to escape the endless Pacific breeze. "There is also a nursery-- a kindergarten for plants. Perhaps you would enjoy that more."

"I would like to see nursery... When did all this happen, Linden? When did everyone die?" Tranum's voice was calm and uninflected as he walked beside her. She was almost fooled into thinking that the question was casual-- But how could any question betraying such an ignorance of his country's history be truly casual?

"The middle ages, that's what we call them. It started with the spread of Christianity around the time of the Valdemars," she said, trying to frame an answer in terms of Danish antiquity which he appeared to know. "And it didn't end until... around seventeen hundred."

"Is that when the Amish came to this land?"

"Yes!" Linden was a little startled but pleased that he knew at least a little about history outside of Denmark.

Of course, he had probably only learned about them after he had asked Tabby what Rolf's sister was raving about. She hoped that Tabby hadn't been too thorough in her explanations about the Quaker immigrants. A Norseman-- who considered himself to be a true Viking-- would be quite insulted by the suggestion that he resembled a pacifist.

As they picked their way carefully over the slick reef, Linden tried a very casual question of her own.

"Where... Did you go to school, Tranum?" She didn't look in his direction, but she could feel the light green eyes searching her face.

"Did you go to school, Linden?" he answered with another question, in the great-- and frustrating-- tradition of Socrates.

"Yes. Everyone must until they are sixteen. It is the law in California. Most go until eighteen and a great many until twenty of twenty-two. Some, like doctors or lawyers, go even longer," she answered truthfully. After all, fair was fair when you were being nosy.

"That long?" The question was involuntary and horrified. "When do they have time to work and live?"

"They work and live at the same time. School is just for a few hours every day."

"Even so, I see now why you have not married. It would be difficult to go to school and still grow enough food to feed your family, even here where it is warm." The voice was thoughtful. "But now you can read the writing in Rolf's books?"

"Yes." Linden slid on a patch of seaweed but was saved from a dunking by Tranum's quick reflexes. His hands were indeed very hard. She smiled up at him. "Thank you. English looks very different from Danish, doesn't it?"

Tranum nodded. "I recognized only a few of the runes."

"Runes?" Not letters. She deserved an Oscar for this performance of casual unconcern. "We call them letters. There are twenty-six of them in English."

Tranum nodded again. "I have seen these same letters in the church, but they are Latin... Are they difficult to learn?"

Linden felt her heart kick over and stopped dead in her tracks. She had heard this question before when she had worked in an after-school day-care that offered adult reading and English language classes for the working parents.

It was a question that required a lot of courage to ask. It was usually the mothers who came first, tentative and embarrassed; and then later, sometimes, the husbands would come. But not many. Men, who seemed to find the task of asking for directions to be constitutionally difficult, often found admitting to illiteracy to be nearly impossible.

She turned carefully on the slick stone and looked up at her blond Viking. His face was quite serious, but he seemed at ease standing there in the surf and sun. Was he making an actual appeal for help-- because he had a need and trusted her to be kind?-- or was he just asking her about this, as he did so many things, out of avid curiosity?

And, she reminded herself, he was not entirely illiterate. He could read ancient runes... all sixteen of them. It wasn't much use outside of Viking graveyards, but it gave her a base to work with.

"Not if you really want to learn. I have some books-- both Danish and English. If you would like to try..." she offered, firmly resisting the urge to hug him. Tranum had made it clear that he did not care for protective gestures, and that's what the urge was... wasn't it? Or some sort of a reward for his intellectual courage?

"Yes." Then he smiled one of his rare, stern smiles. "I will learn to read Rolf's books. And you will show me, pretty Linden."

"Yes." She felt her heart roll over again and realized that, wisely or not, she was in danger of starting down a very slippery emotional slope with their visiting Dane. And admiration alone couldn't account for it.

Linden was suddenly nervous. This was not part of her master plan for the nineties. She couldn't-- and didn't really want to remove all men from her life, but she was not getting emotionally involved with any of them ever again. She didn't need to be singed twice to get the message. Traveling men with their restless souls were the ones not for her.

"I will be glad to show you-- pretty Tranum!" she answered with forced gaiety, and then she turned and dashed away.

Tranum did not chase her down, that would be too much like playing, but his long strides soon had him at her side as the toiled back up the sandy path between two houses that led to the parking lot.

"That is not correct Danish," Tranum said calmly. "You may call me handsome Tranum, or brave Tranum, or even my love, Tranum-- but I am not pretty."

Finding a little belated discretion, Linden wisely declined to comment on any of his suggestions as they leaned against the van and emptied the sand from their shoes. They pulled off the narrow road onto a dirt shoulder about half a mile from the nursery. There was a quarter mile long field of packed brown earth in the half circle of shrubbed, grey foothills where the pumpkins rested, stripped from the vines and ripening in the hot sun. Row upon row, acre upon acre, thin and fat, tall and squat, they lingered, cheerfully bright in their dull surroundings. They were waiting for the pumpkin festival and the October journey to the neighborhood patches to begin.

Tranum and Linden were only a couple of miles from the coast but already the temperatures were beginning to climb into the high eighties and the air was too still.

She remembered a line of poetry from a lit class. It went something like: Autumn is the summer's last, loveliest smile.

The same might be said of these happy, fall fields of orange as they baked in the hot sun, Linden thought with pleasure.

"Pumpkins. It is a good name for them. May we buy one?" Tranum's voice suggested an interest that he had not had for the tide pools. He tested a tine on the barb-wire fence. "I would like to look inside one and perhaps make a carving. I have only carved wood before."

"Yes, we can get one-- but not here," she said firmly as Tranum again tested the wire. "There is a place near the nursery where we can stop. Or we can wait for Halloween and go to our own pumpkin patch. I am growing some at the inn," she explained. "They are not as grand as these. Mine are darker and flatter. They are called Rouge de Stompe. It is a French phrase that means stomped red pumpkin."

"I am certain that your pumpkins are excellent. Your garden is very fertile. You make a wonderful home." It was a compliment and quite sincere. Should she mention that most women did not care to be praised for their skills as a housewife?... No. She actually was a housewife of sorts-- on a rather large scale.

Besides, he was praising her gardens, and those did deserve lavish comment, given the condition of the soil she had to work with and the effort it had taken to track down the heirloom seeds that grew there.

"Thank you... We had better hurry. I would like to stop for lunch before we get to the city."

"Where shall we eat?"

"McDonalds?" she suggested.

"But that is too far and in the wrong direction," he objected. "No, it's not. We have McDonalds everywhere. There is one in town. But if you would rather have something else--"

"No. I will have french-fries and milk-shake," he said cheerfully. "How many McDonalds are there? Do they all prepare food?"

"Yes, they all prepare food. And there are hundreds," she answered with a smile. "Maybe thousands... And I think perhaps I should introduce you to another food as well. It is a popular one called hamburger."

"Hamburger. This has a good sound," he answered, diverted from his questions about the large McDonald family whose members all liked to cook.

"It does, doesn't it?" Linden smiled as she closed the van door. She couldn't have explained why, but she was feeling on top of the world. The mild waves lapping on the wood could not be heard above the crowd until they were below decks on the Balclutha, a square-rigged sailing vessel built in 1886, and even then the sound was due more to the gentle groaning of the old ribs than lapping water. Linden laid a hand against the side of the cargo hold and tested the wood gingerly. It seemed solid but she wasn't putting any great faith in the old braces and planks; One good wave and they would probably stove in before she made it back to the safety of the dock.

It was now apparent to Linden that she did not like big ships any more than she did airplanes. They shared many of the same problems. They were both small enclosed spaces, she was not in her natural element-- meaning safe on the good earth-- and she was not in control of the outside factors. A storm on land did not bother her; in a boat or on a plane-- that was another matter entirely.

"Being in a ship is like being in jail, except you have a chance to drown," she quoted Samuel Johnson. "Danish, Linden." But Tranum was hardly listening. He had enjoyed the C.A. Thayer, a northwest schooner that had been built to carry lumber from the north down to San Francisco Bay, but the Balclutha had his mouth watering. He looked like a jewel thief who had finally gotten a glimpse of a treasure trove and was attempting to come up with a plan for a successful heist.

She smiled a little at his enthusiasm and translated obligingly. Tranum shot her one slightly amused look.

"You do not care for this ship?"

"Not being below decks. I prefer to see the sky. You know-- Give me a tall, tall ship and a star to steer her by-- I think that is how the poem went."

"Yes, I also prefer to see the sky. But this is a very clever design, Linden. She draws too deep for use between islands, and she could never be dragged overland, but for an ocean journey, she is a very good ship."

"So they say... Well, how about if we go see the submarine? She is called the Pampanito." Linden didn't mention that she was also a World War II relic, since she didn't want to recite the history of the Second World War. Or the first one.

"It is like this ship?" he asked hopefully. He hadn't been overly impressed with the Eureka, an old automobile ferry boat, except to say that it would have been useful for transporting horses on a raid.

Linden hadn't been able to think of an appropriate comment. She didn't think Tranum would appreciate her first reaction which was-- Well thank God the Vikings hadn't had them!

"No. It is very different. It is made of metal and it travels under the water."

"This is not the time for play, Linden," Tranum scolded. "I am very interested in these ships. If I am to--"

"I'm not playing. Come on!" She took his arm and tugged him toward the ladder. "You aren't going to believe this until you see it."

And he hadn't.

Linden made it is far as the vertical iron ladder, took one look inside at the enclosed, cheerless space and then opted to remain on the conning tower platform, and pretend to admire the five-inch deck guns.

Tranum did not linger below in the cramped quarters.

"This is ugly, Linden," he said solemnly when he ended his quick tour.

"Yes. Many of the ships built for war are. But they do have their uses. It made sneaking up on the enemy a lot easier... until they learned how to track the subs below water."

"Sneaking up on the enemy..." And his mind was off again. He was probably imagining a barbarian horde descending on Copenhagen and attacking King Valdemar's palace.

Linden glanced at her watch.

"Have you seen enough? There is still so much to visit..."

"Yes. We will come here again?"

"Sure, but maybe next time Rolf will come with you. He knows all about these ships." Linden headed for the pier quite happy to be leaving the sub behind. "I saw an ATM up the street. Let's go there before we head back to the van."

"Atte-em?"

"The magic money machine," Linden grinned at him. "I'll show you how it works. If you decide to stay here we'll have to see about setting you up with something... We could just put you on our account, I guess, at least for now, but something more permanent will have to be done. Maybe Rolf will have an idea..."

"Danish, Linden," he said automatically.

Linden was speaking to herself and so absorbed in her idea that she didn't notice the expression on Tranum's face. It was roughly similar to one that Alexander Graham Bell wore when he found out his telephone worked; a mixture of pain and surprise and elation.

It was followed swiftly by a look of pure calculation as Tranum began thinking about Linden's words.

If you decide to stay here, we'll have to see about setting you up with something...

It hadn't previously occurred to Tranum that he had any choice in the matter of where he went. He had assumed that everyone went on to Valhalla. But if that was not so, then he would have to think carefully about this idea of remaining in California. It would be crazy to give up his place in Valhalla but...

This America was a place of religious freedom, Linden said, and a place obviously visited by people of many different times and places. Never had he seen so many colors of hair and skin.

He looked about himself, taking in first the calm water and the ships, and then turning to watch Linden as she headed for the old stone wall where the clover, ivy and moss all battled for a niche in which to grow. The bright greens made an attractive background for her flower-pink shirt and shimmering hair.

He turned for a last thoughtful glance along the pier.

They had beautiful ships here and Linden's brother liked to build them.

The people were not thralls.

The food was fabulous.

It was blessedly warm.

And there was Linden, his pretty Valkyrie.

Yes, he would have to think very carefully about this... And there was still time before he would have to make his decision about leaving. Time to see and enjoy everything that Linden's world had to offer while they built the boat.

Tranum turned around and set off at a brisk pace after Linden's shining tresses.

The next thing he wanted to see was this magic money machine. He did not approve of magic, but if it gave one money...

Club Valhalla

Copyrighted (c) 2002 Melanie Jackson

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