Page 106 of The Last Viking

“Wh-what?” Geirolf hadn’t heard anyone come up behind him. He turned, then took a step backward.

Standing before him was a tonsured priest of indeterminate age. He wore the traditional brown robe of the monastic community, with sandals and a cowl hood. The skin of his face was smooth and translucent, his eyes a penetrating blue.

“Where did you come from?” Geirolf snapped. The tour group was up at the castle, which stood on a dramatic outcrop of stone on the other side of the island. In the distance, he saw the structure glistening like a proud jewel in the midday sun, framed by a steep rock face bright with thyme, valerian, mallow, and gillyflowers.

The holy man just curved his lips upward in a slight smile of mystery.

“Who are you?” Geirolf wished he had his sword with him. The abbot was regarding him in a most unsettling manner. And, after all, it was a well-known fact that many priestly men were as bloodthirsty as the most hardened warriors. Besides, they had good cause to hate Norsemen.

“Aidan,” the man replied.

“Aidan?” Geirolf choked out. “St. Aidan?”

“Well, I know naught about sainthood,” the man said, his ethereal eyes twinkling as if at some jest.

“Are you the monk who started a religious order on Lindisfarne?” Geirolf couldn’t believe he’d actually asked such a question. If true, it would mean that the monk had lived here more than thirteen centuries ago. Ridiculous!

But is it any more ridiculous than my traveling here from the tenth century?

Geirolf put a hand to his throbbing head.

“Why dost thou trouble thyself about matters thou cannot control, my son?” the man inquired with compassion, his misty eyes seeming to pierce Rolf’s soul. “Nothing will happen but what God wills.”

Geirolf raised his eyes hopefully. Perhaps this priest, whoever he was, had the answers.

“I believe you have something for me,” the monk said, holding out a palm.

A shiver passed over Geirolf’s flesh. Without hesitation, he undid the clasp on his talisman belt and removed the sacred relic. He placed the crucifix in the monk’s hand, which immediately closed over it. Then, with a sigh, the monk said, “It is done.”

“What’s done? Who are you, really? And why am I here?”

Once again, the monk just smiled softly at him. “When time comes full circle, the line will continue.”

“Huh? What kind of riddle is that?”

He made the sign of the cross in the air before Rolf. “Bless you, my son.”

“But…but…what am I supposed to do now?”

“Fulfill thy destiny.”

“Destiny? What destiny?” Geirolf cried to the monk’s departing back.

Just then, a gusty breeze came up, whipping his long hair across his face. In the second it took for Geirolf to brush the strands from in front of his eyes, the monk was gone.

“Fulfill thy destiny,” the monk had said, but Geirolf had no idea what that destiny could be…until his gaze, still scanning the windswept coastline for the monk, snagged on a red object nestled amongst the craggy rocks. How could he have missed it?

Stepping closer, he saw a single red rose growing amid the ruins. Hunkering down, he sniffed the air permeated with the flower’s scent. And then he smiled. It was a sign.

Geirolf now knew what his destiny was.

Merry-Death.

“Professor Foster, we have another applicant for the captain position,” Mike said, poking his head into the doorway of her office at the end of the day.

Meredith’s head jerked up from the papers she’d been grading, and she glanced quickly at her watch. Six o’clock. She would have to leave soon to pick up Thea after soccer practice. She was surprised to see Mike here so late. Since he’d begun dating Sonja, he didn’t hang around evenings anymore. And why wasn’t he at the longship site?

But she was even more surprised to hear him announce another candidate for the longship job. They’d filled the post, albeit unsatisfactorily, the week before with a young boating enthusiast from Michigan.