§ § § -- Lilla Jordsö, autumn 1092
"Are you sure you're all right, my darling?" Christian whispered urgently to Leslie, his hazel eyes wide with fear. "Please, say something."
Leslie nodded a little, clinging to him with fists like vises. "Can't…breathe," she managed, trying to suck in a gasp.
"Slowly," he advised her. "He gave you quite a blow. If he weren't my ancestor, I might have skewered him with that sword. It took everything in me to settle for making threats on his life. Breathe, my darling, don't try to talk." He caught her when she wilted against him; only her hands, fiercely clutching his sleeves, were rigid.
"So," Leslie murmured after several minutes during which he kept raking his fingers through her wild riot of flame-colored curls. "Seems like Father made sure you had a good solid reputation preceding you, so that your half-crazed ancestor wouldn't start wondering why we're here."
"Your father thinks of everything," Christian said, grinning. "You sound much better, my Rose. That's a relief. This hair you have…it keeps catching me by surprise. I prefer your natural hair." She giggled softly.
"That scraggly beard and the long hair look good on you, my love," she teased, and he snorted, making her laugh quietly and burrow into his arms. "What do we do now?"
Christian shrugged. "We can let Ormssvärd take the lead and follow whatever cues he gives us. I have something to ask him, which can wait a little while. I want to be certain you're completely recovered first." He tilted her head back and studied her, as if making sure she was the same Leslie in spite of the hair that framed her face. Then he smiled and said gently, "I love you, my Rose."
"I love you too, my darling," she said, just above a whisper, and he kissed her, unheeding of who might be looking on.
"Oh, is that your name? Rose?" exclaimed Marissa Karadimas from nearby, and Leslie and Christian broke from each other with just a trace of reluctance, turning to stare at her and Steve, taking care to return to character. "It's lovely, dear. And you—little wonder she sees you as a hero, the way you jumped to her defense. Thorsten Långsvärd—isn't that Longsword in English? I see where that came from. I'm amazed you haven't been mentioned in the sagas, not if you have the reputation they say you do."
Christian raised an uncomprehending eyebrow at her. "I seek no fame," he said, rising in a swift smooth motion and simultaneously pulling Leslie up with him. "Sagas hold little interest for me. I wish merely to have my own small domain and sire the next generation, and this is the place I shall do it. And you two? You seem to have appeared since the last landing we made aboard that scow full of raiders. You are not Irish…you are too dark to be of that race, as is the wench here. Yet I cannot place you."
"We're Greek," said Steve, looking slightly bowled over.
"Then you wandered some great distance, to have joined us so recently," Christian remarked. "Such stamina should be to Ormssvärd's advantage. With so few of us, we must needs find some way to maintain our hold on this land. And that brings to mind my query." With his arm around Leslie, he strode off in Ormssvärd's direction, pausing a few feet from him and waiting till he'd finished telling some bawdy joke.
Ormssvärd grinned broadly when his men laughed, then noticed Christian and Leslie standing nearby. "So you have revived the wench, then, Långsvärd."
"She is unharmed…to your good fortune," Christian said meaningfully. "Tell me, Ormssvärd, how you intend to maintain your dominance on this piece of earth. We are but a dozen and a pair of wenches. Should there be others already here, we may well find ourselves outnumbered, thus outmatched. Have you some plan?"
Ormssvärd shrugged nonchalantly. "If we find others here, they will be subjugated, and call me their ruler. If not, we shall exterminate them."
"How barbaric," cried Marissa Karadimas in horror. "You think ten men are going to be able to produce an entire population all on their own, with only one woman among them—and her already claimed by a man at that? You're starting to sicken me."
"Wench, you will close that mouth of yours, either on your own, by your man's command, or by force," Ormssvärd snapped. "I know not how large this bit of earth is, but I have little doubt there are others here, and they will know power and authority when they encounter it. Those who do not submit shall die, and well rid of them we will be. That should leave enough wenches for those who have not already stolen them from some grim castle in a strange land." He eyed Christian with a surprising twinkle in his eye.
"And should you be fortunate, you might then find one willing to warm your back at night," said Leslie, softly but with a barbed note to her voice. Ormssvärd peered at her, then brayed out a laugh.
"Have you some name, then, wench? When I do find the one who warms me in the night, I should like some way of distinguishing her from you, lest Långsvärd entertain the idea that I am unduly interested in his woman. I would say that I hope the wench I find has even half the spirit that you do." He looked at Christian. "Once I am king and have something to cast my authority upon, perhaps I shall marry you to her."
"I ask no more," said Christian with a nod of the head and a slight, reserved smile.
Leslie stared up at him. "You would marry me, then, you great oak of a man? I knew not that Vikings were even aware of the institution."
"Think you that we are so backward?" Christian returned, that eyebrow going up again. "I was blunt with you merely because there was no time for gentleness. We have yet much to do before we have any spare moments, but yes, I would marry you."
Ormssvärd roared with laughter. "So begins the new kingdom, then! We go now to seek out others, to assure their fealty to me and to be certain that there is in fact something for me to rule. Little as I like to admit it, you are correct, Långsvärd…an empire that consists of a dozen fools and a pair of women will last only as long as it takes the final one to perish. Onward, so that we may conquer and then prosper."
"I'm in," Steve said out of the blue. "Whatever you do, count me in. I have my own wife to protect here too. Anybody got a spare sword?"
"Steve," Marissa gasped, eyes huge. "You're going out to rape and pillage like these… these savages?"
"Woman, it seems to me you would be wise to heed Ormssvärd's warning," Christian told her, not unkindly. "Your man does what he must to assure his survival, and thus your own. We have no spare swords," he said to Steve, "but there are always axes, and these you may put to multiple uses. If you examine that worthless vessel that barely brought us here, you should find something to your liking." Steve nodded and started back towards the beached skiff, which they could see even from here had taken on enough water to fill the entire bottom of the boat.
"You will watch your back," Leslie said sternly to Christian. "Later, if time permits, I might even go so far as to find a sharp stone and hack some of that mane away, so that you have clear vision with which to watch that back."
"What," Christian teased, "you did not then harbor the belief that we were monsters, with eyes that could see forward and behind at once? There is yet hope for you, my Irish wench. Remain here with the other, and perhaps together you may find something worth eating around here. Watch for me: I will return." So saying, he kissed her, just enough to make them both long for some private haven to retreat to, and then smiled before striding away after Ormssvärd and his band. She stood and watched him go, smiling to herself, enjoying the role-playing and thinking it might be fun to marry him a second time in these strange, wild surroundings.
"Rose, I think you're falling in love with your 'great oak of a man'," Marissa teased gently, catching her attention.
"Think you so indeed?" Leslie asked tartly, but she grinned. "Ah, but I suspect you are correct. I suggest we search for something more edible than the stone slabs they attempted to feed us on that scow this morning. Are you with me?"
"By all means," Marissa said, patting her shoulder; and they started off to search, not noticing Steve sprinting after the Vikings wielding a battered axe in both hands.
‡ ‡ ‡
It was early afternoon before Ormssvärd and his band returned; Marissa looked anxiously for Steve and was deeply relieved when she saw him, toting his axe and looking winded but oddly exhilarated. "We need not forage, nor live in the open like savages," Ormssvärd said grandly. "I have subjects in the nearby village, and it is here we shall establish our foothold. On this spot I now proclaim to one and all: I am your ruler, and you are my people, whom I shall watch over and protect from all who think to take what is ours." He glanced around and saw the boat, now half submerged. "Bring that fully onshore. As worthless as it now is, it brought us here to this place we now call home, and it deserves that much honor. It will stand as the marker and the monument to the spot we landed."
The tall Viking, Thorsten Långsvärd, detached himself from the group and pulled Rose to his side in a protective gesture. "That will not last forever, Ormssvärd. Think you not to carve some stone marker, that your future dynasty knows this is the spot you came to shore and staked claim on their homeland?"
"We have no time for such niceties," Ormssvärd said. "I am well aware that this bit of wood will have rotted before my grandchildren are dead, but so much the better, think I. If it is believed that we swam the entire distance from that scow, I shall not leave a record to dispute the assumption." He smirked, and his men laughed and cheered. Marissa saw Långsvärd exchange some unreadable glance with Rose, but neither spoke.
"Huh…so that's how the legend got started," Steve muttered to Marissa in amusement. "Say…I've always heard that Princess Anna-Laura's a historian. You think she knows the truth behind all this? If not, we could scoop her."
"She wouldn't believe a word of it," Marissa said, but she grinned. "We can put our own account in whatever papers we leave behind us, and anyone who discovers it can always pass it on to the present-day royal family. Or…we could keep it our little secret."
Steve glanced at the Vikings standing nearby, watching three of them solemnly place the leaky little skiff at Ormssvärd's feet. "Should've brought a camcorder."
Marissa had to choke back her giggles before she could speak. "Steve, you're a nut. It was a nice idea…too bad you didn't think of it before we left Cambridge. How far away is that village he was talking about?"
"By my admittedly poor estimation, maybe half a mile from here or so," Steve mused. "I have a feeling it's going to be the site of the present-day village of Ormssvärd's Landing, and if that tree there looks as familiar as I think it does, this is probably right about where the royal cemetery is located. There's one huge, ancient elm in the cemetery, and I bet that's it right over there. We really are seeing the origins of an entire country, honey. Maybe this is the place for us after all. It'd be a privilege to see history unfold before us."
Marissa smiled wistfully. "But the barbarism…"
"Aw, they didn't kill that many," Steve said, looking a little uncomfortable. "Maybe fifteen or so men at the most. Once the villagers saw the lay of the land, they surrendered peacefully for the most part. But if Ormssvärd's ego's as big as I think it is, he won't let the sun set on us without at least announcing that he's going to recruit all able-bodied men to start chopping stone blocks for his monster of a castle."
"Don't forget, Steve, he started out with only eight rooms," Marissa reminded him. "For this day and age, that was extravagant. I think even he'd have been horrified by the size of the thing now." Steve chuckled and looked up.
"There they go," he said. "Off to the village. At least there we can find our own little house, with any luck, and maybe get some decent sleep, so we can decide if this is the place for us or not." She nodded, and they fell in behind Långsvärd and Rose as they always seemed to do.
The march to the village was made in silence; everyone was hungry when they walked down the one narrow dirt lane that comprised its main street, and six or seven men veered off to join wary-looking women standing in doorways watching, some with children. Ormssvärd, oddly, was not one of them; but as he and his remaining band neared the end of the lane, there was a shriek of terror and a loud slap that stopped them all in their tracks. Then a pretty blonde woman stumbled from the door of a small hut at their left, cringing as a man chased her out with fists upraised. Ormssvärd stepped neatly between the man and the woman, surprising the former and making both stop short.
"How is it that we missed you on our first trip here, then?" Ormssvärd inquired conversationally. "For I should have noticed any man who treats a helpless wench in such a fashion. Is this how you prove to the world that you are a man? If so, you fail mightily."
"You will not meddle," the man said, breathing heavily. They could see he was drunk on something. "The woman is mine to flay as I choose."
Ormssvärd smirked. "Easily done, for you know a wench is not a match for you. If you wish to show all and sundry that you are a man, then you should fight a man. And lo, here we have several! To save them the trouble, I volunteer myself."
"Your sword, Ormssvärd," Långsvärd said quietly.
"Think you I had forgotten it? Think again, my friend," Ormssvärd said with a grin and unsheathed a sharp, shiny blade. "I hope you are well prepared to defend yourself, you drunken waste of a man, for otherwise your life is forfeit and your wench is mine. For all that, I will take the wench anyhow, even if I let you live."
The drunken man let out a bellow of outrage and rushed Ormssvärd with fists in the air; Ormssvärd merely lifted his sword, and the man ran directly into it. Marissa felt the bile rise in her throat, whirled aside and lost whatever little she'd eaten that day. Steve winced; in front of them, Rose buried her face in Långsvärd's fur jacket just before impact, and Långsvärd himself lowered his head, turning aside at the same moment. Even the other Vikings muttered uneasily and shifted their weight.
"A vastly unfair fight that was, my liege," one ventured.
"You saw him, preparing to beat me senseless with his fists," Ormssvärd said tonelessly, tugging his sword out of the slowly collapsing corpse and wiping it clean on the man's tunic. "I merely defended myself; I did not even thrust." He turned to the one who had spoken and gave him a glare that dared him to challenge further. "I am ruler here, and if you try my patience and your luck any further, you will join this one in the grave."
"Frontier justice, Viking-style," Steve muttered, watching a very pale Marissa slowly straighten up and turn back towards him, gasping and clutching her stomach.
"I say we go on to the next destination when it's time for us to leave," Marissa said in a hoarse whisper, unable to look at the carnage. "I can't take this." Steve reached out and gently rubbed her back in long, slow strokes.
The blonde woman eyed Ormssvärd with trepidation. "He was my last chance at a husband," she said in a shaking voice. "What think you to do with me now?"
"Last chance?" Ormssvärd repeated, looking her up and down. "You hardly seem like a hag to me. You are not snaggle-toothed nor sagging, and you seem to be clean enough. How many winters have you seen?"
"Twenty-nine," the woman said dejectedly. "Far too old to find a man."
"Old you may be, but not so old that you do not appeal," said Ormssvärd with appreciation, "and you appeal to me. What think you of the prospect of becoming queen? For I am your new king, and this village is the first settlement in my kingdom. Upon your acceptance I shall have a grand stone castle built for us and our children, and our children's children, and their children for centuries hence. I myself have seen thirty-two winters and am certainly no ancient. If crone you are, then you are my crone."
The woman stared at him, then essayed a very tentative smile. "I see you are scornful of drunkenness, and of beating women, and you seem clean enough also. Perhaps it should not be a hardship to be wife to you, and that you are king cannot detract from this."
"Only watch him well," Långsvärd suggested unexpectedly, with a thread of humor in his voice, "for he has the habit of laying hands on that which does not belong to him."
"I have no need for such any longer," Ormssvärd replied in the same spirit. "You, young Irishwoman, may rest easy. I have found the one who shall warm my back at nights." Rose gave him a dirty look, and they all laughed, even Marissa. "Now, take that garbage away and toss it into the sea, that the monsters in the depths have something to dine on this night, and I shall take up residence with…" He paused. "What do they call you?"
"I am Gerda, my liege, and if I may ask your name?" she inquired shyly.
"I am Magnus Ormssvärd, ruler of this land and soon your husband," he told her with a wide grin. "We are well met this day, and we shall be well wed on the morrow. Perhaps alongside my friend Långsvärd here and his wench, the nameless one, eh?"
"Think you that you have need for my name now that you have acquired a betrothed wife?" Rose said mischievously. "If you are to have your way and become ruler over all in this domain, you will cease to allow us the use of your own name. Why, then, should I give you mine?"
Ormssvärd regarded Långsvärd with a sorrowful look. "My sympathies lie with you, friend, that you must deal with such a sharp-tongued wench."
"She has not honed that tongue on me," Långsvärd said wickedly, "but I shall remedy that this night." He gave Rose a significant look and she narrowed her eyes at him, making him burst into a surprisingly contagious laugh. Marissa giggled weakly.
"When we go back," she said softly to Steve, "I'm going to ask Mr. Roarke if he knows whatever happened to Thorsten Långsvärd and his Rose. I hope they get married and live for the next fifty years in peace and happiness. They're such a good fit."
"But they're not enough to make you want to stay here and see for yourself?" Steve asked curiously under the continuing laughter of those around them.
Marissa glanced behind them and shook her head. "No…after what I just saw here, I don't think I'm up to life in this culture either. There was teamwork and cooperation here, but there was barbarity too—a shocking degree of it. No, let's move on."
"You got it, honey," Steve acquiesced, then grinned. "But I gotta admit, in all honesty, it's been really stimulating. You know, this is the first culture of this whole trip that I got actively involved in, and it was fun."
Marissa sighed. "Your idea of fun baffles me." Steve laughed and slid his arm around her, leading her away to a small hut so she could rest.