The Wanderer

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`So, John. Do you still think the Vinland Map is for real?’

Emilio’s dark blue eyes glinted with amusement as he laid the trap for Nancy’s husband to lumber into. They were only on their third bottle of wine, dinner was still bubbling in the kitchen, and the sun had not yet set behind the village perched on its hill just above the house. It was still a little early in the evening for Emilio to bait John.

The three of them had polished off two bottles at lunch, and Nancy had felt an incipient hangover when they had sat down on Emilio’s terrace, but his fine red wine, the produce of the tiny vineyard lazing beneath them, had soon sorted that out. John and she never drank that much back home. She was rather enjoying it.

‘I’m darned sure it’s real, Emilio,’ said John. ‘You Italians have got to face the facts: the Norsemen discovered America, not Columbus. All the evidence points that way. The Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The sagas. You know all that; you’ve just got to accept it.’

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