Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 03]

by The Very Virile Viking

  “And about the money…we need to talk about that.”

  “Nay, we do not. You may consider it a gift, or you may consider it a payment for my inevitable effect on your contract with Dare-All. Better yet, you may consider…” He chuckled as he let his words trail off.

  “Yes?”

  “…me the answer to your prayers.”

  More trouble…

  Magnus had been working all afternoon with the boys and Miguel and the Blue Dragon laborers, clearing out the dead vines. Miguel seemed to think the rootstock on most of the vines could be saved for another year, which was good news.

  Fatigued and more than ready for that nap he’d mentioned to Angela, but knowing there was too much work to allow a rest, he leaned against his rake and stared down the hill.

  Carmen’s automobile was still there; she must have spent the day visiting. Poor Angela! Poor Grandma, as well! In his opinion, a person could take only so much of a person like Carmen. She reminded him of King Olaf’s middle daughter, Ilse. Ilse swept into any great hall she was visiting like a big wind, carrying with her gossip, criticism, and general discord. What women like that needed were strong men to tire them out in the bed furs and strong hands to hold them in their places when not engaged in the primary activity for which females were born—sexplay. Mayhap he would share that thought with Angela later…if he could find a battle shield first, he thought, laughing aloud.

  Just then Magnus noticed another automobile drive up. Even from this distance, he could tell it was a man who emerged and approached the front door of the house.

  A premonition of danger swept over Magnus, and the fine hairs stood up all over his body. Jow’s ears flared up with alertness, and he began to bark wildly even before he started galloping down the hill, despite his limp.

  Magnus took off after the dog…not so much because he wanted to prevent the animal from doing harm, but because he feared this new visitor posed some threat to Angela.

  When he got to the house, he found everyone gathered in the front hall. Juanita was trying to hold Jow back by his collar, but the dog was wild with excitement. The sharp words being exchanged could hardly be heard over his barking.

  Magnus took the dog in hand and shoved him into the pantry, closing the door behind him. The barking could still be heard, but not so loudly.

  He returned to the hall, where he found Grandma Rose, Angela, and Carmen speaking with a man dressed in an impeccably tailored gray garment known in this country as a suit. Not a strand of his whitish-blond hair or mustache was out of place. Even his fingernails were perfectly trimmed and dirt-free.

  “What the hell’s wrong with that damn dog? Someone ought to put the beast down, if it’s that dangerous to people,” the man complained.

  “Anyone touches that dog, and he will find out what real danger is,” Magnus said, stepping forward.

  The man, who was of medium height, craned his neck to look up at Magnus. And gulped.

  Magnus knew how he must look in his grimy work clothes to this well-groomed man, but he did not care.

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “What business is it of yours what business it is of mine?” Magnus countered.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me. State your business and be gone. I will not abide anyone threatening those under the protection of my shield.”

  He heard Carmen murmur under her breath to Angela, “Maybe this brute isn’t so bad, after all.”

  “Magnus, this is Gunther Morgan.”

  Instead of extending a hand, Gunther said in a snarl, “What shield?”

  “The one that goes with this sword,” Magnus said, drawing his weapon out of the pottery jar in the corner.

  “I need a cigarette. Badly,” Grandma Rose said, and scurried away to the kitchen.

  “I need a cigarette, and I don’t even smoke,” Carmen said, and followed Grandma Rose.

  That left just him and Angela and the stranger.

  “I could have you arrested for assault,” Gunther threatened, puffing his thick chest out in a bullish manner.

  “’Twould be hard to prove when you are trespassing, would it not?” Magnus said in an equally threatening manner, even as he fingered the sharp blade on his sword.

  “Now stop it, both of you,” Angela insisted, stepping between them. “Gunther is a neighbor. He heard about the fire, and…and…”

  “And what?” Magnus addressed his question to Gunther.

  “I made an offer to purchase Blue Dragon, if you must know. It’s not the first time, but frankly it’s foolish for these two women to hang on here. Everyone knows the place is in financial ruin, and that fire last night should be the last straw, I would think.” His words dwindled off as he realized that Magnus and Angela were staring at him with hostility.

  “How convenient—and offensive—that you would make another offer the day after our loss!” Angela said with a snarl.

  “I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “If you want to be helpful, get your sorry arse out of here,” Magnus said. “Angela doesn’t need your money.” If Magnus knew for sure that this man was responsible for the damage last night, he would attack him with his bare hands. But he needed proof…proof he would get eventually. For now he demanded, “Depart, or you will do so on the tip of my boot.”

  “Who the hell are you? A new foreman?”

  “Nay, I am…”

  He saw the fear in Angela’s eyes that he would reveal they were lovers. That subtle insult he would have to ponder later.

  “…I am Angela’s…new investor.”

  A woman’s world…

  That evening Angela found herself in a most uncomfortable position. She was teaching two young girls about sanitary protection.

  Magnus was out in the vineyard with the boys and some hired security personnel, setting up twenty-four-hour patrols for the property. Grandma was rocking Lida to sleep in the adapted nursery…which was the former sewing room. And she was in her own bedroom instructing Dagny and Kirsten on the differences between tampons and sanitary napkins. They seemed awfully young, but even twelve-year-old Dagny had already had her first period. It must have been hard for both of them, not having a mother around at that important time.

  “These are so easy to use,” Dagny said, coming out of the adjoining bathroom. “And you say that we can just throw the soiled ones into the trash…wrapped in some toilet tissue?”

  Angela nodded.

  Kirsten was turning the tampon over and over in her hands, trying to figure out how it correlated with the instructions that came in the box.

  “Maybe you should save those till you’re a little older,” Angela advised. “Just use the napkin.”

  Kirsten seemed relieved that she wouldn’t have to use such an invasive product.

  The girls, both of them, were adorable, really, with their blond braids and wide blue eyes. Even in jeans and T-shirts, they were Norse to the bone.

  “What did you girls use before, if you didn’t have sanitary napkins?”

  “Rags…which have to be washed over and over. Or leaves, if there are no rags about. Sheep’s fleece, too, but that is more rare, and a waste of good wool.” Kirsten said this with a straight face, so Angela knew she spoke the truth.

  The procedures were so primitive, they could only have been practiced by women in…Oh, let’s say the tenth century.

  With a thumping heart, she asked both girls, “Do you know what year you were born?”

  “Nine eighty-six,” Kirsten said.

  “Nine eighty-eight,” Dagny said.

  Angela narrowed her eyes at a sudden thought…an incredulous sudden thought. “What grade are you in school, Kirsten?”

  “School? I have never attended school. The only ones who attend schools that I know of are monks and healers…and not all of them do.”

  “What? And, you, Dagny?”

  She shook her head.

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “�
��Tis the way of our land…naught unusual,” Kirsten said. “Besides, Father Patrick—our grandmother’s priest—taught us a little book learning and writing…on occasion. And we girls are instructed in all there is to know about running a household of three hundred. The boys master farming and fighting, or building ships, like Uncle Geirolf.”

  Angela shut her jaw.

  “Our father told us not to discuss this with anyone,” Kirsten was quick to add.

  She gasped, not because Magnus had cautioned his children not to discuss their past, but because the dates and schooling information that Kirsten and Dagny had supplied reinforced their father’s outrageous time-travel claim. The girls must have misinterpreted her gasp, because they rushed to their father’s defense.

  “Father meant no harm. He told us not to discuss those things to protect us.” Dagny wiped a tear from her eyes as she spoke.

  “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean—”

  “He is the best father in the world,” Kirsten elaborated. “I know from watching the tell-a-vision and from talking to Lily that men like our father are looked down on here. They are considered crude and uneducated.”

  “Father grumbles mightily about the troubles we bring him, but he protects us always,” Dagny added.

  “You may not know this—and Father would not like my telling you—but half of us are probably not even his blood kin. People—especially women—take advantage of him by dumping babe after babe at his feet. He resists and complains loudly, but in the end he never turns any away. That is the way he is.” Kirsten lifted her chin, as if defying Angela to disagree.

  How could she?

  Magnus was a grown man who might lie to her, but these girls were too young and innocent to have fabricated this tale. They were telling the truth.

  “I won’t say anything,” Angela said as calmly as she could, so as not to alarm the girls, but her thumping heartbeat kicked up a pace.

  Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!

  In a world that had become very uncertain to Angela, one thing became crystal-clear: She had some things that she needed to settle with Magnus. But first she needed to settle those things within her own mind…and heart.

  A short time later, as the girls went off to the den to watch a movie and she was about to go downstairs, she passed the “nursery.” It was not Grandma who was rocking Lida to sleep, but Magnus, who softly sang a song to her in a language she did not understand…probably Old Norse. As he crooned to her, Lida kept tugging at his war braids and saying, “Fa-Fa,” baby talk for father. It was the newest addition to her vocabulary, next to “Goo.” Even as he sang, Magnus would intermittently lean down and press a soft kiss to the baby’s fine hair.

  The sight of the big man and the tiny girl touched something deep within Angela’s soul, and she accepted something then that she had known, deep down, for some time.

  I love him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Girls just wanna have fun….

  A week had gone by and there had been no more attacks at the Blue Dragon—thank the gods!

  Despite the relative calm, everyone was restless and unhappy over what seemed like a forced confinement…though it was a wonder to Magnus how anyone could feel restricted on an estate this size. His children were getting spoiled, without a doubt, by all the niceties and conveniences of this land. They seemed to forget that just a short time ago they were content with privies and hearthfire cooking.

  The girls especially seemed to want more and more, particularly after their visits with Lily, which had continued the past few days. If he heard “the mall” mentioned one more time, he just might scream. Or boys. Or makeup. Or shaving one’s legs, which he had forbidden until Angela convinced him otherwise. Just so she didn’t suggest that he shave his legs.

  He, on the other hand, was restless and unhappy with good reason. Lovemaking with Angela had been off the menu since their return to the Blue Dragon, and he missed it mightily.

  They had just finished eating a magnificent feast prepared by Grandma Rose and Juanita. He went out on the lawn with Lida to play a game of run-and-run—then run some more, if she had her way—in hopes of tiring her out before bedtime. Usually he was the one who got tired out first. His old knees were not accustomed to this type of activity.

  In any case, it was no surprise that Kirsten and Dagny followed him outside to plead their latest causes.

  “It is just not fair,” Kirsten started out.

  “When females say that thus and so is ‘not fair,’ a man does best to sit down, and preferably call for a horn of ale, because he is in for a long tongue-lashing.” Magnus plopped down to the grass with great drama, lying flat out on his back with one forearm over his eyes.

  “Faaaa-ther!” Dagny said in her newest long-suffering voice.

  Lida giggled, thinking it was a game, and flung herself atop him. “Fa-Fa, Fa-Fa, Fa-Fa!” she kept squealing as she pounded on his chest.

  Angela walked up to them then and said, “Here, Magnus. I bought you a present.”

  If you only knew what I am thinking, wench! His arm was still over his face. “I hope it is what I think it is,” he said in his best long-suffering voice…an imitation of Dagny’s.

  “Not that, you fool,” Angela retorted. “I bought this for you today when I was out shopping for groceries.”

  He removed his arm and looked up at her. She was handing him a frosty amber glass bottle. He lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “It’s beer.”

  I am thinking of her woman-honey, and she offers me honeyed mead. Ah, well! Magnus sat up and took the gift from her. “You bought me a horn of ale…well, a bottle of ale? What? Didst read my mind? Must be you are a Valkyrie. ’Tis the second-best thing you could have done for me.”

  He took the open bottle from her and immediately took a long swig of the cold brew. It was delicious. “Aaaah! Drink of the gods!”

  “What is the first-best thing?” Dagny wanted to know.

  How could I have forgotten that I have children about? Especially since I always have children about. “Never you mind, M’lady Curious.” He chucked Dagny under the chin.

  “I know what it is. ’Tis all boys ever think about.” Kirsten wrinkled her nose with disgust.

  He and Angela turned startled gazes to Kirsten.

  “Kissing.”

  Whew! He and Angela smiled at each other.

  That was Lida’s cue to come up and give Kirsten myriad kisses.

  “Yech! She tastes like grass. Have you been eating grass, Lida?”

  Lida just grinned at her, revealing two tiny front teeth, and said, “Goo.”

  “Do you not even want to know what I consider unfair?” Kirsten asked.

  Not especially. “Of course, sweetling.”

  She slanted him a scowl that pretty much said, Do not patronize me, Father. “Girls my age should go to school.”

  “I agree,” Dagny said.

  “’Tis only fair that you hire a tutor for us now, then enroll us in school come fall,” Kirsten went on. “And we need a proper wardrobe if we are to go to school every day.”

  “Every day! There is not enough to be learned to require daily schooling.” Besides, who knows where we will be come September? This is only July.

  “Also, I think my bedtime should be eleven o’clock, like Storvald’s. ’Tis not fair that I should have to go to bed at ten, just because I am female.”

  “Well, I want a pair of jogging shoes. Njal says I am getting fat. I need to start jogging.” Dagny blushed as she blurted out her needs.

  “You are not fat, Dagny,” Magnus told his daughter. “And since when do you listen to the opinions of a person who thinks it is attractive to let snot run down to his chin?”

  “I will tell you what is really unfair,” Kirsten continued.

  Holy Thor! She is getting as bad as Madrene. Blather, blather, blather.

  “Torolf gets to go to concerts…well, one concert, but I am sure there will be others. Lily is allowed to go to the m
all whenever she wants, and she dyes her hair, and she has a boyfriend, and I want to go to her house for a sleepover, but you keep saying no, no, no. And if I do not get a tiny little tattoo on my hip, I think I might just die.”

  “Is that all?” Magnus asked as drolly as he could manage.

  Dagny and Kirsten actually had tears in their eyes.

  “Dost anyone care to hear what I think is unfair?” Magnus grumbled.

  Everyone looked at him, and none of them asked “What?”

  “Well, I will tell you. There is something that I have sorely missed since we left the Norselands, and does anyone ever ask me what I want? Nay. It is, ‘Give me this. Give me that. This is not fair. That is not fair.’”

  “What is it that you want, Magnus?” Angela asked, putting her hand on his.

  He took her hand in his, twining their fingers, stared into her eyes steadily, and told her what his heart’s wish was.

  “A cow.”

  The reason dumb-men jokes were created…

  Magnus caught up with her just before she reached the house.

  “Angela, dearling, why did you storm off just now?” I will ne’er understand women. Ne’er, ne’er, ne’er.

  She stopped so quickly he almost ran into her. “Don’t you ‘dearling’ me, you dumb dolt.”

  I am a dumb dolt. But why now? “What? What did I do?”

  “A cow? Your dearest wish in all the world is to get a cow? Puh-leeze.”

  That does sound a mite dumb. “You do not like cows?”

  She told him something really foul that he could do with his cows. He guessed she must be angry about something…something beyond his comprehension. He was beginning to understand why women in this country told dumb-men jokes. Still, dumb man that he was, he decided to try to explain himself anyway. “I am a farmer, Angela. It is all well and good here at the Blue Dragon, but I miss the care of my milch cows, the satisfaction of seeing my gardens bear fruit, the regeneration of the earth year after year, springtime plowing, autumn harvests, the smell of fresh-mown hay—”

  “Bullshit!” she said.

  “That, too.”