Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 03]

by The Very Virile Viking

  “The two girls and one of the boys went to the mall with your grandma—the boy who was squinting at the food on his plate last night. Grandma thinks he needs glasses. The boy didn’t even know what glasses were. Can you imagine that? Magnus gave your grandma a pile of money and told her to buy clothing for him and all his kids. Betcha it was three thousand dollars. Jeans, T-shirts, sneakers…that kind of stuff. And deodorant. He sure does have a thing about deodorant. Your grandma measured everyone first…even traced their feet on pieces of paper. I’m surprised you didn’t hear all the giggling down here.”

  Angela blinked with astonishment at the rambling Juanita.

  Juanita took a deep breath, then continued: “The rest of the kids are over by the pond, fishin’ and playin’ on that ol’ swing. Guess I’ll hafta be makin’ lunch soon.”

  Angela couldn’t remember seeing Juanita this happy. All because extra work had landed in her lap, and children filled the house. She suspected her grandmother was feeling the same way.

  The problem was that they might be getting too accustomed to all this company. She would have to remind them both that Magnus and his children were just visitors. They would be leaving soon.

  She would have to remind herself of that fact, too.

  Lida smiled up at her and said, “Goo.”

  It was probably baby talk for “Who are you kidding?”

  Juanita was back to shimmying across the kitchen floor while singing “La Vida Loca.”

  The crazy life, Angela translated mentally. For sure!

  The Farmer and the dell…uh, vineyard…

  The sun was shining brightly overhead when Angela walked the half mile or so to the south fields, where she hoped to find her missing Viking. It was a pleasant stroll through aisle after aisle of “little men with outstretched arms.” That was how she’d always viewed the vines when she was a little girl, and the image had stayed with her.

  There were two hundred acres on the Blue Dragon’s gently rolling hills—a modest size by most vintners’ standards—and a dozen different grapes were planted. When they had been making their own wine, the grapes would have gone into highly prized blends of chardonnays, cabernet sauvignons, sauvignon blancs, pinot noirs, and zinfandels. Now they were sold to another vintner.

  The south field was where they grew their sangiovese grapes, an Italian import that could trace its roots all the way back to the Etruscans. Her grandfather had loved this particular grape, though it did not produce their most popular wine. He probably had an affection for it because it originated in his homeland. Or maybe because this grape carried a “fingerprint,” which usually meant a hint of cherry or cranberry flavor in its various blends.

  “Hi, everyone,” she called out when she saw Magnus, Miguel, and the two boys.

  Torolf and Jogeir were on their knees in the next aisle, along with several of the dozen full-time workers from the Blue Dragon. They were cluster-thinning the grapes with small curved knives to prevent over-cropping. This process would hasten the ripening process and would also prevent a weakening of the vines.

  Magnus had been listening intently to something Miguel was explaining to him. His knees were bent so he could be at the manager’s level and look through the magnifying glass Miguel was holding up to one of the vines. They were probably searching for any sign of mold or pests. Inspection of the vines was a daily task in any good vineyard.

  Magnus looked up at her greeting and straightened to his full, impressive, treelike height. Then he smiled.

  And, oh, what a smile it was! There was welcome in it. There was pure male self-confidence. There was innate sensuality. And, more than anything, there was an awareness of the intimacy they had shared the night before. It was a bone-melting, sexy smile, and it was directed right at her.

  What woman wouldn’t be flattered by that?

  He did the most outrageous thing then. He walked up, leaned down, and kissed her lightly on the lips before saying softly, “Good morning to you, m’lady slugabed.”

  He kissed me! As if he has every right in the world to do so! I’d better be careful or he’ll charm the pants off me…so to speak. Oh, God! “Uh…” Well, that was brilliant.

  Magnus smiled some more, as if he knew what she was thinking.

  He couldn’t possibly.

  Could he?

  Behind him, Miguel was chuckling. On all sides the vineyard workers were grinning. To the right, Torolf commented to Jogeir, loudly enough for them to overhear, “Whoo-whoo! I guess Father’s getting his knack back.”

  “What knack?” she asked Magnus.

  “I have no idea,” Magnus said, and shot Torolf a glare.

  Before she had a chance to pursue the subject, Miguel diverted her attention.

  “Magnus is a great student, Angela. He asks so many questions. Soon he will know more about the vines than I do,” Miguel informed her, laughing jovially.

  Jow raised his lazy head from where he lay nearby, watching the boys work. He had just come back from the hard rigors of chasing the other children at play by the pond and attempting to catch a fish himself.

  She walked the aisles with Miguel and Magnus then, inspecting the vines. There were neuron probes to measure the amount of moisture in the plants, but nothing could take the place of hands-on examination.

  “The Norselands, where I live, are not good for grapes,” Magnus said conversationally, as they walked. “It is too cold in the winter and the summer is too short. Still, I have wild grapes that I allow to grow in the fruit trees.”

  “There are still some small vineyards in France that do it that way…the ancient way,” Miguel said.

  “Miguel and I have been talking about all the similarities between grape growing and simple farming,” Magnus informed her, even as he laced the fingers of her hand with his. She was too stunned by his audacity to pull away. Heck, who was she kidding? She didn’t want to pull away. It felt so good.

  “Yet each man brings his own expertise and ways of doing things to the land. And each man is different. You have so many horseless machines and other marvels to lessen your work”—Magnus waved a hand to indicate the tractors and aerators beside the fields—“but in the end, ’tis the hand of man that makes all the difference. Without his hands, the land yields nothing.”

  She glanced down at Magnus’s hands, the one that was free, and the one still holding hers. They were big. And blunt. And callused. Short-nailed. Dirty today from hard work—honest dirt, her grandfather would have said.

  She thought they were beautiful.

  Magnus gazed off into the distance, as if caught in some old memory…probably of his own farmlands in Norway.

  Miguel leaned up to her ear then and whispered, just as he had the night before, “You picked good this time, little girl.”

  She wanted to tell him once again that he was mistaken.

  But she didn’t.

  The calm before the storm…

  Magnus had never felt more at peace in his entire life.

  And he had never felt more troubled.

  He was sitting at one end of the big kitchen table, and Grandma Rose was at the other end. Juanita and her husband, Miguel, sat on long benches across from each other near Grandma Rose. Angela sat on his right. All his children were in between, except for Lida, who was in a high chair at the corner between him and Angela.

  They had just finished a meal comprised of rigor-tone-he covered with a red sauce and big meatballs, which was delicious; a salad made up of greens covered with oil and vinegar, which was not so delicious (who ever heard of eating grass and weeds?); warm bread, fresh from the oven, covered with garlic and butter; and two double-layer chocolate cakes, which he and his children had devoured to the last crumb.

  He leaned back in his chair with contentment, gazing about him. Everyone appeared to be talking at once, but not in an unpleasant way.

  Storvald was ecstatic over the glass eye adornment that Grandma Rose had bought for him, after an examination by some eye healer
at the mall—a large indoor marketplace. The object, which fit over the nose and looped behind the ears, was called eyeglasses, and Storvald pronounced them a miracle. He claimed not to care how he looked in them. His closeup vision was much improved, and that was all that mattered.

  Grandma Rose had also bought Storvald some paints. So now he could put color on his wood sculptures, as well. Dagny had gotten a water paint set, and she was already showing some talent using it. Kirsten had purchased a palette of face paints, which did not sit well with Magnus, who had asserted, “I am not raising a harlot here.” But then Angela had explained that they were just pale lip glosses suitable for a young girl. At least Kirsten had not come home with a tattoo or a body ring.

  “Did you know that children in this country go to school from the time they are six years old—and earlier—till they are eighteen years old? Even girls,” Kirsten pointed out.

  “Never!” Magnus exclaimed with disbelief. “What is there to learn for”—he did a quick mental calculation—“twelve years?”

  “Reading, writing, history, math, science…and much more,” Angela told him, a puzzled frown on her face. “Surely there are similar education requirements in Norway. Aren’t there?”

  “There are not,” he declared scoffingly. “Unlike some men, I have no objection to women learning…even learning to read and write, but…” Magnus could see that not just Angela, but Grandma Rose, Juanita, and Miguel were staring at him incredulously.

  “We’d better hope Carmen doesn’t bop in for a visit,” Juanita said with a chuckle.

  “She’d whack him over the head with her NOW manual,” Grandma Rose said, also with a chuckle.

  Magnus continued, despite their obvious scorn for his opinion on the subject. “What is there to learn from a teacher for all those years that cannot be learned from doing? Like managing a household or a farm. Fighting wars. Building ships. Forging weapons. Tell me, for it seems a mighty waste of time.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Angela said at his side, even as she attempted to mop up the tide of red sauce that Lida kept slathering on her face, the high chair, the floor, and everywhere about. “Have you ever been to college?”

  “I think not. Is it near the Rus lands? Or the Orphrey Islands? Methinks I heard of a place there by that name.”

  Once again, she exclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  Before he had a chance to react to Angela’s comment, Torolf brought up an equally perplexing notion. “Do you know what I learned today, Faðir? In this vast country, they have only one all-king, which they call a press-a-dent. And, although there are many military troops—arm-he, knave-he, mare-eens—they all serve only one chieftain, Mist-her Bush.”

  “Is this true?” Magnus asked Angela.

  She nodded, gazing upon him as if he’d grown two heads.

  “And the laws here! Whoo-ee!” Torolf continued. “People cannot purchase an ale or wine till they are twenty-one years old, even though they may drive on the highways at sixteen and serve in the military at eighteen.”

  “Who told you such nonsense, Torolf?”

  “Juan Franklin. One of the vineyard workers. He is a student at You-See-Ell-Aye.” His son was sipping at his third glass of iced tea as he spoke, a delicious beverage served in this country with many of the meals.

  “They can die for their chieftain, but they cannot have a cold mead at the end of the day? I cannot fathom such illogic.”

  He turned to Angela, who was still gazing at him as if he’d grown two heads…actually, three heads now.

  “By the way, Juan invited me to a concert next week in Ell-Aye. Can I go?”

  Magnus was tired of always having to ask what certain words meant. Njal, who sat next to Torolf, saved him from the embarrassment by piping in, “What is a concert, lamebrain?” Apparently lamebrain was a new word he had learned…probably from that Bart Simpson character.

  “A performance put on by musicians, half-wit,” Torolf answered, giving his brother a friendly jab in the shoulder. “In this case, No Doubt.”

  “No doubt what?” Magnus asked.

  “No Doubt is the name of the musicians,” Dagny explained.

  “I saw them on Em-Tee-Vee.”

  “Are they the ones who sing ‘Don’t Speak’?” It was Kirsten speaking now.

  His children were watching entirely too much tell-a-vision.

  “Let me see if I understand you, Torolf. You want to go hear some musicians called No Doubt who want to preach you a song message of ‘Don’t Speak’?”

  “Exactly!” Torolf beamed at him.

  Magnus threw his hands up in surrender. “You people are demented.”

  Lida threw her hands in the air, imitating him, which prompted everyone to laugh.

  Best he be careful what he did around the little imp.

  “One other thing,” Torolf said to him.

  Uh-oh!

  “I would like to purchase a Hog.”

  “A hog? A hog? I can hardly credit what I am hearing. Must be I have a buildup of wax in my ears. Are you not the same fellow who would have naught to do with the hogs back on our farmstead?”

  “Oh, Faðir, not that kind of hog. The Hog I refer to is also called a moat-or-sigh-call. It is a horseless vehicle, like a car, except it has only two wheels, and it goes at excessive speeds.”

  “Nay.”

  “Nay?”

  “You heard me, boy. ‘Twas bad enough when you talked me into that Saracen stallion last year and broke your leg. I will not countenance your ‘galloping’ off on a moat-or-sigh-call.”

  “I never get what I want.”

  Magnus raised his eyebrows in a manner that indicated the subject was closed, and if it was not, Torolf was going to lose some of what he had already gained, like No Doubt.

  “If Torolf gets a moat-or-sigh-call, I want Rollerblades,” Njal injected.

  “I would be content with a bye-sigh-call,” Hamr said.

  “Can I have a pony?” It was Dagny speaking now.

  “See what you started, Torolf? No one is getting anything, and that is that.”

  All of the children glared at Torolf, except for Lida, who drooled red spittle down her chin.

  Grandma Rose must have decided to change the subject, for she asked him, “How do you like the purchases I made today, Magnus?”

  He smiled at the old lady, who had been so kind to him and his family since their arrival. “Wonderful. Did I give you enough money?”

  “Oh, yes, although we may have to make another trip in a few days.”

  “Can I go? Can I go?” all his children chimed in.

  “Goo? Goo?” a red-faced Lida asked, too. She had a marvelous new stroll-her device, which would make such a trip possible, not that the little one knew that. She would be just as happy riding his shoulders.

  He and all of his children were now wearing den-ham braies, which he had to admit felt comfortable. On top, their attire varied from tea-sherts to tanking-tops to soft fabric sherts that tucked inside the braies. Lida’s garment was also den-ham but it was something called a coverall. Around her neck was a cloth mantle called a bib, which caught all the baby’s slop and drool.

  The most amazing thing to him was the fastening devices they used in this land. Zip-hers, they were called. He did not think he would ever be able to explain their workings to his sewing women back in the Norselands. Buttons, on the other hand, were such a simple concept that he wondered why people had not thought of them earlier or why news of them had not spread from this country to his.

  And that was the problem.

  This land—Ah-mare-ee-ca—was more than strange to him. In the back of his mind an uneasiness kept niggling at him. Something was wrong, and he could not figure out what it was.

  It was not apprehension at discovering a new, possibly dangerous land. Vikings, and adventurers from other countries, had been discovering new lands since the beginning of time, though he did not think they had discovered lands so fully populated
. He was willing to accept that he had come across an already settled country that no one knew about. Somehow his longship had gone so far off course as to enter territory never seen before.

  But all the marvels that this land held…they did not just boggle the mind—they were unbelievable. Impossible, really.

  Magnus had never been a fanciful man. He’d always disdained the old Norse legends of enchanted isles beyond Greenland and the unknown places north of the Rus lands, but if this Ah-mare-ee-ca did not count as an enchanted isle, he did not know what would.

  That was the problem he had to puzzle out.

  Was this journey a dream? Or was it real?

  Was it permanent? Or would they suddenly awaken back on his longship off the shore of Vinland?

  Why had he been called here by the elderly woman?

  What exactly was his destiny?

  And where did Angela fit into this madness?

  Chapter Eight

  Still calm, but picking up steam…

  Angela swung back and forth slowly on the old swing near the pond, watching her guests with newfound admiration and progressing alarm.

  She admired Magnus for the way he cared for his children. While loudly protesting what a bother they all were, he calmly kept them in line and taught them good life lessons. Right now he was lying on his back in the newly mown grass near the pond with a barefooted Lida waddling around him. Lida was picking wildflowers, which she kept carrying back to him one at a time. Each of them he praised as if they were precious objects and she were the most talented girl in the world.

  Lida had learned a new trick—kissing. Every time someone said the word kiss, she would cheerily place a slobbery smack on lips or cheek or whatever skin surface she could reach. Right now Magnus was saying kiss every couple of moments, which would cause Lida to halt in her busy tracks, turn around, waddle back, give a smiling kiss, then continue on her merry way.

  To give Magnus credit, he was a good father. She admired the work ethic of his children. Dagny was inside helping Juanita clean up the kitchen. Afterward the cook had promised to show the young girl how to make homemade pizzas…“better than Domino’s.”