Travelling Light

She had woken with Lars very much on her mind. But in the bright morning sunshine his effect on her last night began to seem the product of fright and an over-active imagination. He was only a man, after all. She would visit the Viking museum with him, there was no harm in that, and then they would go their separate ways. Jauntily she crossed the street to the market.

On her way back she dropped into the post office, finding to her delight that there was a letter in general delivery from Paul, her youngest and favourite brother, to whom she had mentioned the possibility that she might go to Oslo. Kristine sat down in the sun on a stone wall near Harald’s street and tore the letter open.

Paul at eighteen was in love with basketball and women, in that order; he was putting himself through university on athletic scholarships and was now at a summer training session that happily was co-educational. After a two-page description of a centre-forward called Lisa, he reported on the duty visit he had made to their parents recently. Mum was the same; Dad was suing the next-door neighbour for building a fence that infringed on his property.

Kristine let the closely written pages fall to her lap and stared blindly at the ground. She had done the right thing to leave the farm two years ago; as far as her family was concerned she had more than paid her dues. Yet not a letter came from home that she didn’t feel guilty...

A shadow fell across the letter and a deep male voice said, ‘Bad news?’

Kristine gave a nervous start. Raising her eyes, she was presented with a close-up view of long muscular legs, navy shorts, and a shirt clinging to a flat belly. Lars. The gouge in his arm looked worse in daylight than it had last night. More guilt, she thought wildly, clutching at the thin sheets of airmail paper.

Lars sat down beside her on the wall, put an arm around her and said, ‘What’s wrong, Kristine?’

His solicitude unnerved her almost as much as the warm weight of his arm. She shoved the pages of Paul’s letter back into the envelope. ‘Nothing. Just a letter from one of my brothers...I haven’t seen him for two years.’

Lars glanced at the stamp. ‘You left Canada two years ago and you’ve been travelling ever since?’ She nodded, her head bent. ‘Are you running from something—is that why you travel light?’

She was conscious of an irrational longing to pour out the whole sorry story to him. But that would be breaking a self-imposed rule she had never before been tempted to break. ‘I’ve already told you my private life is off-limits, Lars,’ she said more sharply than she had intended. She got to her feet, moving from the protection of his arm to stand alone. It was, she supposed, a symbolic action. Despite a father, a mother and four brothers, she had been standing alone most of her life.

And glad to do so, she thought fiercely. Stooping, she picked up the groceries. ‘Once I’ve put these away, we can go.’

Lars leaned forward and neatly took one of the bags from her. Then he said in deliberate challenge, ‘Now you’re really travelling light. Because you’re letting me take some of the weight.’

‘That’s not what I mean by it,’ she flashed. ‘I travel alone, Lars—that’s what I mean.’

‘Not with me, you don’t! When you’re with me, we travel together.’

The wind was playing with his hair. He looked as if he had slept as little as she, and on what was only their second meeting he was pushing his way inside boundaries that Philippe, Andreas and Bill had never once breached. ‘Then we won’t travel at all,’ Kristine announced, her blue eyes openly unfriendly.

‘Yes, we will. Because you know as well as I do how we met—we met because you screamed for help.’

She glared at him, visited by the mad urge to scream for help again. ‘That’s all very clever,’ she snorted, starting off down the street, ‘but you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do!’

‘I never thought otherwise,’ Lars said mildly.

She stamped her foot in exasperation. ‘For goodness’ sake let’s talk about something else. Tell me about the Vikings, since we’re going to this museum. A good honest Viking with rape and pillage on his mind would be a lot easier to cope with than you, Lars Bronstad.’

He stopped dead on the street and gave her a comprehensive survey from her over-bright eyes to her slim, tanned ankles. ‘You certainly bring out the Viking in me,’ he retorted, and watched as the flush in her cheeks deepened.

‘Just don’t even think of acting on it,’ she threatened.

‘Not here. Not now.’

‘Not ever. Anywhere.’

A transient gleam of humour in his eyes, he said, ‘I have a philosophic dislike for absolutes.’

Disarmed in spite of herself, Kristine said sweetly, ‘You’d look really cute in one of those metal helmets with the horns on it.’

‘Historians have proved that Vikings didn’t actually wear those helmets,’ he drawled.

‘So is this museum going to give me a whole lot of boring facts instead of romance?’ she riposted, and felt every nerve in her body spring to life at the answering laughter in his face. It was a good thing this was her last meeting with Lars, she thought. He was far more complex—and more dangerous—than any Viking could possibly be.

They arrived at the museum a couple of hours later, after a brief ferry trip and a leisurely stroll up the hill past houses with red-tiled roofs and gardens brilliant with roses and delphiniums. As they bought their tickets Lars said, ‘Just do your best to blank out all the other people,’ and then gestured to her to precede him.

The hall into which she walked had a high arched ceiling and long windows on either side. In the centre of the hall was a ship made of dark wood, a ship whose hull was a graceful sweep from prow to stern. A tall mast stood amidships. High above Kristine’s head the stem and stern ended in carved wooden spirals whose very uselessness emphasised their stark beauty.

She stood stock-still. Lars had told her nothing of what she might expect, allowing the full impact of the ancient vessel to strike her. She walked around it, then climbed the stairs and viewed it from above, with its oarholes and wide, slatted deck open to the elements; she wandered around the other two boats, the burial chamber, and the fierce wooden dragon heads. Finally, with a sigh of repletion she turned to the man who at no point had been far from her side and said quietly, ‘How brave they were, to set out across the sea not even knowing their destination...thirty men in an open ship.’

‘A ship shaped like a woman.’

‘And carved with images of death and war...’ Her face bemused, she smiled at Lars. ‘Thank you...I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.’

As if he couldn’t help himself, he ran one finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘I don’t—’ And then he stopped.

‘What is it?’ she asked in quick concern.

‘Nothing...a silly fancy.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘It’s time to eat.’

‘You know something? You’re a total mystery to me,’ Kristine said matter-of-factly.

He gave her a crooked smile. ‘I could say the same of you. Food, Kristine.’

They found a restaurant by the water and ate open sandwiches with prawns and lettuce—and argued about aggression and the roots of war. Kristine was thoroughly enjoying herself, for Lars’s intelligence was both wide-ranging and tolerant. It was only his emotions that caused her trouble, she thought wryly. That and his sheer physical attraction: the ease of his long-limbed body in the chair, the gleam of blond hair on his arms, the latent strength in his hand as he poured more water into her glass. She insisted on paying her share of the bill, and then they passed between the closely packed tables on their way out.

Lars curled his fingers round her elbow. Like a stone thrown into water the contact rippled through Kristine’s body. As they emerged on the street, he took her by the hand, another very ordinary gesture that filled her with a complicated mixture of pleasure and panic and reduced her to a tongue-tied silence.

They meandered along the streets until they came to a barrow selling cherries. Lars bought some, holding the bag out to Kristine. They were big ripe cherries like the ones her father used to grow before the orchard went into bankruptcy. She took one, biting into the dark red flesh, instantly transported back to the old farmhouse where as a child it had first become clear to her that something was badly wrong with her parents’ marriage.

Juice was trickling down her chin. Lars said, ‘Hold still,’ and with a folded handkerchief swabbed her face. Then, taking her by surprise, he lowered his head and kissed her.

His lips were firm and tasted of cherries and flooded Kristine with bitter-sweet pain and an ache of longing. She pulled away, muttering frantically, ‘No, no—don’t do that.’

He said with a calmness belied by the rapid pulse at his throat, ‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since last night.’ Then, as if nothing had happened, he offered her the bag of cherries again.

She fought to steady her breathing. How could she make a fuss when for him the kiss was already in the past? Anyway, she was twenty-three years old and both Philippe and Andreas had kissed her before she had made it clear to them that she was not interested in that kind of travelling companion. Determined not to let Lars know that the blood was racing through her veins from that brief touch of his mouth to hers, she helped herself to another cherry.

They took the ferry back to Oslo, past the crowded marina and the bulk of Arnhus Castle, and window-shopped near the city hall. In front of a display of hand-knit sweaters Lars said, ‘Where would you like to have dinner?’

‘I can’t afford to eat out twice in one day,’ Kristine answered lightly.

‘I was inviting you to be my guest,’ he said with a careful lack of emphasis.

Almost glad that he had presented her with a genuine excuse, she said, ‘I can’t do that, Lars. Because I don’t have enough money to return the compliment.’

‘Your company is return enough.’

Not sure whether he was serious or joking, she said, ‘You may think so, I don’t.’