Falling to the Viking Read Free Page A

large rocks and small monuments evidently marked objects that reflected Viking sites or items.
    By the time they entered the lobby, Kathryn was again able to pick up small items of interest from the long discourse that Aunt Halla spilled out ceaselessly.
    Kathryn looked at one item. It was not a weapon, but something used on fishing boats long ago. Her aunt explained that this name was one of the men lost at sea and related to them. Continuing to scan the objects, she thought, that is an actual Viking sword. Looking at a round piece of silver, she realized it was the metal band used on their heads. No, silly girl. Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets. Such a stupid idea.
    The museum actually had a metal detector set up inside the second door. Aunt Halla had a couple of large metal clips in her hair along with a pocket full of loose coins. This set off the alarm as a couple of local guards took her aside.
    The whole time they examined her, Aunt Halla never quit talking in English. She let her hair down and left the clips along with the coins for the guards to do with whatever they wanted. None of them spoke English, but they were polite and the pat down search was not invasive. Suddenly, the guards and everyone else was pointing at her, then one of them reached over to touch her hair. Shit, she really needed to give up and cut her hair. Now that it was loose, it reached to her waist. Bright red and curly, it was attracting way too much attention.
    In Denmark, there were plenty of blonds of all shades, including many caramel or brown, left over from the ancestors of the north. Finally, she and Aunt Halla were in the elevator going to the top as she tried to tuck her hair into the back of her jacket. Evidently, there weren’t too many redheads.
    She would have to look up to see if there had been any contact with the red hair colors of Scotland in Viking history. From the reaction, though, she guessed there had not been much interaction. She did know the Vikings went into Britain. The History Channel said they even went into Russia, but this had nothing to do with her learning about her parents.
    Oh, but it gave a whole new topic for Aunt Halla to rant about. No redheads in the family, no matter how far back you looked at the records . It had to be on her mother’s side, tainted blood. Blah, blah, blah, all the way up her aunt mumbled in a strange elevator that someone in a separate building really was cranking it by hand.
    They were about two hundred feet up when the elevator box jerked to a stop and they could exit onto a deck that allowed them a magnificent view of the entire area. It was breathtaking. To her eyes on one side, it looked like virgin forest. There was the water on two sides. Far off in the distance were boats or ships, but too far away to identify.
    The sun was brilliant and warm, offsetting the chill of the wind. In the west, she could see the layout of the small city as it spread out of sight wrapping around the edge of the channel along the sandy shore. The back edge disappeared into the forest. Here, she could also see the gardens. These were well-tended plots laid out with the black rich earth showing through the dark green tops of plants growing tall in neat rows. She had expected many more. It was obvious that some were small for family use, but others were large growing items for sale in the city or for neighbors.
    Kathryn had now shut out the voice of her Aunt. She just wandered the balcony, looking down at the small relics from ancient times, wondering if it was that different when others lived here.?
    “Kathryn, I am going down to get Mikkel to order us lunch. He can drive into town and be back in a short time. You waste too much time. We have so much to see, but I expect it. I will try to reset my plans of where we are going for the next few days to conform to your slowness. Don’t take too long and …” Aunt Halla’s voice drifted away as the elevator door closed on her and Kathryn was alone