Chapter 7 #2
Even more ridiculous, out on the beach some distance away, Britta saw a man being led on a leash by a dog who pulled him hither and yon, then squatted down to deposit his waste on the sand.
The ridiculous thing, though, was that the man used a small metal scoop to pick up the deposits and place them in a bag.
Then the dog led him off again. What was the man going to do with the dog leavings? What a strange land this was!
Britta and the three women from her past spent an hour catching up on old news, mostly her telling them all that had happened after Hilda left The Sanctuary or how Norstead and Amberstead fared these days.
Britta assured Hilda that The Sanctuary still thrived.
..alas, there would always be women fleeing abusive men.
..but not so many as when Hilda had been there.
As to the two estates, they flourished under the Ericsson cousins from Norsemandy, Thorfinn and Steven.
“We wanted to talk to you in private,” Hilda began, “about the time travel.”
Britta groaned her opinion. That again!
“There are some things you need to know,” added Kirstin, the sister to Torolf, Ragnor and Madrene, and a dozen others, or so it seemed.
Kirstin worked at a school for adults called You-Seal-Aye teaching Ancient History, the turn of the tenth century and beginning of the eleventh century.
Dark Ages, Kirstin called it, which Britta could understand.
Everything was brighter here, including the buildings with their magic lighting.
“Come inside, Britta,” Madrene suggested.
“Let me show you some things that should convince you that this is a different time.” Once in the scullery, Madrene demonstrated a large box which kept food cold and even made ice, another box with fire circles on top which cooked food, without flames, and a loud whirring hole where wet garbage was chewed up and washed away.
No middens here, apparently. There was even an object that sucked up dirt from the floor, as if a broom were not sufficient.
Madrene and her husband must have great wealth, although Britta was not impressed at all by the size of their keep. Compared to Norstead and the nearby Magnusson farmstead where Madrene and her family had grown up, this dwelling would scarce fill the great halls.
After a tour of the downstairs, they went up to Madrene’s bathing chamber where she showed Britta a vast array of woman products.
..flesh-colored face creams, cheek rouges, lip paints, eye kohl.
Laughing, the three ladies sat Britta down on the closed porcelain privy and showed her how to use the various items. Soon they had her hair unbraided and spread out in spiral curls.
The faint imperfections in her face—she’d had no idea she even had imperfections—were smoothed out with liquid “make-up”.
Her eyelashes were curled and colored a dark brown, making them appear extremely long and full.
And on her lips they applied red lip gloss.
While they worked on her, they talked.
“I do not understand,” Britta said. “Oh, I know, I keep saying that, but how did this come about? I fell off a cliff. One moment I was staring up at that lackbrain Sister Margaret, and the next I was staring at that lackbrain chieftain Uxley.”
“Yea, Uxley is a lackbrain,” Madrene agreed.
“As for me, I was in a harem in the Arab lands...do not ask, it is a long and not very interesting story...when a fierce lightning storm erupted. Somehow, when the storm ended, I was in a cave, still in the Arab lands, but a thousand years into the future. Ian rescued me.” She disclosed that last on a sigh.
“You already know I was caught in a mud slide,” Hilda said, squeezing Britta’s hand in empathy for her confusion. “When I emerged from the mud slide, I was also in another place and time...Malibu. Except Torolf was there with me. The sweet lout rescued me.” Another sigh.
“My family was on board a longship, caught in a strange fog,” Kirstin revealed. “We landed on a Hollywood movie set.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Kirstin grinned. “My Uncle Jorund arrived on a killer whale, naked, and ended up in a mental hospital. That is the most bizarre of our means of transportation.”
“So, you are saying that I must learn to accept that I have time-traveled.”
They all nodded.
“It’s important that you don’t discuss any of this time-travel business with anyone,” Hilda warned. “I barely escaped some mad men two years past. They wanted to cut me open and study my innards.”
Britta’s eyes nigh popped with horror. “Why?”
“Because they suspected I was not of this world, and they wanted to know how I was different,” Hilda explained. “Those particular men are no longer a danger to us, but there will always be others if word gets out.”
“Are we different?” Britta asked.
“A little bit. At first.” Every so often, while Hilda was talking, she would go to the window and scan the beach and deck area to make sure her husband had their son in tow. He did; they, like all the other males, were watching the meat cook.
Madrene’s other child, a babe, slept soundly in his own cradle in the next room.
“’Tis something about the blood,” Hilda went on. “But after we are here several months, it seems to become the same. Strange, I know, but then this whole time-travel business is strange, is it not?”
Strange is too small a word to describe this happenstance. “How many people have...um, time-traveled?”
“We do not know precisely. From the Ericsson family...Jorund, Geirolf, Magnus,” Kirstin said, “plus all of my father’s children. You are the only person outside the family that we know of, except of course when Torolf’s SEAL teammates went back with him, then forward again.”
More than a dozen! Good gods!
“Since we do not make our presence known, mayhap there are others out there who do not talk of it as well,” Hilda speculated.
Britta’s head spun with all the bizarre details. “Why? I mean, why us?”
“Since they could not come up with an explanation, my father and his brothers decided that it must be a miracle, ordained by the Christian One-God.”
“I suppose,” Britta said dubiously. “Like many of my country, I accepted both Christian and Norse religions. I assumed I was here because Zachary wish-prayed me here.”
“Really?” Kirstin clapped her hands together with delight. “My father says he was wish-prayed here, too, by Angela’s grandmother.”
“You know what this means?” Hilda took both of Britta’s hands in her own.
“What?” She did not like the sly looks in all three women’s eyes.
“You and Pretty Boy are destined to be together,” Hilda announced.
“Soul mates,” Madrene concurred. “Best be careful, my father will have you wedded and bedded in a trice if he hears of the wish-praying.”
Britta laughed. “Zachary would turn green and run like the wind if he heard you say that. Oh, he wants to...you know, ‘rock my world,’ but just for a bit. Then he will swagger off to wave his dangly part elsewhere.”
“Rock your world?” Kirstin sputtered.
“Dangly part?” Madrene put a hand over her mouth to cover a giggle. “I have not heard it called such in ever so long.”
“Yea, swaggering is what men do best,” Hilda opined.
“Or mayhap you were sent to help Pretty Boy with his son, who is more than a handful, believe you me,” Madrene offered.
“Hah! I have already declined his offer to be nursemaid to his bratling.”
They all laughed, Sammy’s word-fame having travelled far.
She stood as they finished working on her. Looking in the mirror over the sink, she scarce recognized the face staring back at her. “Are you certain I do not look wanton with this face paint?” Britta asked, wanting to reach for a towel and scrub it off, but not wanting to offend her friends.
“Honey, you looked hot before,” Madrene said. “Now you are a hottie.”
Britta was not sure she wanted to be a hottie.
They were walking down the corridor leading to the stairs when Madrene asked, “So what was Pretty Boy saying to you earlier that had you turning red-faced, then stomping off?”
Britta waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, he was goading me, as usual. Said he wanted to give me orgasms tonight.”
Madrene and Hilda grinned at each other, then looked back at her. Kirstin just blushed.
“And? Are you going to let him?” Madrene inquired.
“Nay.” She was not about to tell them that she had brought the subject up to him first. “In truth, I do not really know what an orgasm is, except the women who share my sleeping chamber speak of it incessantly.”
“Oh, sweetling, do I have something to show you!” Madrene said, taking her by the hand, and winking at the others.
When they reached the solar, Madrene pressed a flat box she held in her hand. Instantly, yet another box, this one the size of a hearth opening but resting on a wooden stand, sprang forth with light.
Britta gasped.
“It’s a television,” Madrene explained. “I want to show you something. Check this out.”
Britta had no clue what Madrene had just said. But then it did not matter.
There were little people inside the box.
One of them, a handsome man with brown hair threaded with white, was standing over a body that appeared to be dead.
Leastways, the brown-haired man was cutting open the belly of the prone man, blood spurting everywhere.
Was he torturing a prisoner? And the women dressed in white at his side had huge breasts that pointed straight out.
“Oh, my gods! Can we not do something? There are four of us, and they are small people...dwarves, mayhap.”
Madrene, Hilda and Kirstin all laughed.
“You find humor in torture?”
“Nay, they are not real people,” Madrene said, patting her hand. “I wanted to show you this soap opera Light in the Storm, so you could see Pretty Boy’s father. He plays Dr. Lawrence Bratton on this show.”
“He’s really good-looking, for an old guy,” Kirstin said.
“I hear he has a mistress who is only twenty,” Hilda remarked.
“Well, that is just like a man, is it not?” This from Madrene. “Always chasing the young girlings.”
“Wait, are you saying that dwarf torturer there is Zachary’s father? I must needs console him, even if he is a lout. To have such a monster for a father has got to be a burden.”
The three women laughed again. “I’ll explain it to you later,” Hilda said, “But Pretty Boy’s father is not really in the tea-vee box. He may be an old lecher, but he is not a torturer.”
“Forget about that. This is what I really wanted to show you,” Madrene said. “My favorite program. Sex in the City. I have twenty shows on tape.”
Britta had no idea what Madrene had just said, and she did not care because, whoa, different people were in the box now.
Naked people. A man, whose buttocks could be seen pumping up and down, and a woman beneath him who was writhing and moaning and then actually screaming.
Before Britta had a chance to ask what that was, there were yet again different people in the box.
Three women, fully clothed, sitting at a table eating, and one of the women was the screaming one.
How had she dressed so quickly? And gotten to this other place?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Britta said. “What was that?”
“That was an orgasm, honey,” Madrene said, grinning. Kirstin and Hilda were grinning, too.
“It happened so quickly I scarce had time to study the...uh, process.”
Still grinning, Madrene pressed something on her hand-held box, and the same naked scene was happening again. This time she saw some kissing, too. Hard, passionate kissing. She would bet her best sword there were tongues involved.
Britta felt the same pearling of her nipples and weeping in her woman place as she did when Zachary touched her.
“Who are they?”
“Miranda and Jason.”
“Do they not have any qualms about doing it in front of one and all?”
“Apparently not.” Madrene was grinning, as if she had some great secret. Over and over, Madrene manipulated the magic box till they had witnessed the orgasm six times. “How many times can they do it afore needing to rest?”
“Oh, dearling,” Hilda said, “those aren’t real people. I know how it must seem. We all felt the same way the first time we saw television.”
“As for those orgasms...I see no appeal in all that writhing and moaning and screaming! Besides, you must admit, the man looked a mite ridiculous with his buttocks in the air. Yea, methinks I will abstain from that particular exercise in torture.”
For some reason, the three other women laughed hilariously.