More important, there was a picture there of Jorund's sword, Bloodletter, which had been buffed in the grave. Surely that was a sign that he had returned home, for there was no duplicate of this specially crafted weapon.
Jorund was staggered by this news, and he could tell that Mag-he was, too, by the way she squeezed both his shoulders. Did this mean that he would never return home to his time? Or would he return after his father's death? Wouldn't he have removed the fallacious gravestone, if he had? On the other hand, mayhap he'd been too griefstricken to care. No, the most damning evidence was his sword. He would be returning to his time.
Mag-he leaned down and whispered in his ear, "We'll talk about this later."
"Oooh, oooh, oooh!" Beth exclaimed. "Look at what I found." She'd moved to another Webbing site. "'Rosestead: A Viking Village.' See. Some guy and his wife built an authentic Viking village in Maine. And it's a working village, too."
Picture after picture was shown of the inhabitants at work... building longships, operating farms, caring for livestock, weaving textiles, making soaps, crafting jewelry, brewing mead, pattern-welding swords. It was like gazing back in time, and yet all of this was apparently taking place today somewhere in this country. Amazing.
"'Tis odd," he commented tentatively, "but the icon marking each of these pages is identical to my family crest—writhing dragons wrapped around a cross. It represents the Vikings of my father and the Christians of my mother."
"It's probably just a coincidence," Mag-he observed.
"And that longship shown there. 'Tis called Fierce Raven. The ships my brother Rolf built all had the name Fierce in them, like Fierce Destiny, Fierce Pride, Fierce Dragon."
"That's probably a coincidence, too."
"Yea," he agreed finally. "If people have no compunction about robbing graves, they would not hesitate to steal a family crest or a ship name, as well."
Beth read some more and told them that the village was originally started to preserve the Viking culture, since there was no true Viking country today...
Iceland being more Viking in nature than Norway was. Because Vikings were assimilated into the countries where they conquered or settled, they had no real homeland of their own. In addition, Beth read that Rosestead also served as an orphanage for inner-city homeless kids.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a place like that for mental patients, like the ones at Rainbow?" Sue zee suggested from behind them, where she was still playing her game. She must have been listening to them and playing at the same time.
Everyone turned with surprise.
She shrugged. "It was, just an idea. Lots of the people at Rainbow aren't dangerous or anything, and look how well some of them are doing, just being around Joe, who's kind of a Viking."
"Who's kind of a Viking?" he protested. "I am most definitely a real Viking."
"Yeah, yeah," Sue-zee said, and went back to concentrating on her game.
"It's an interesting thought," Jorund remarked to Mag-he.
She nodded and appeared to be considering all the possibilities. Not that it was really possible. He would be long gone before any such project could be undertaken. Wouldn't he?
"They even have a visitors' program six months of the year, when outsiders can come in and tour the place. They're closed November through April," Beth went on. "Maybe we could go there for vacation next year, huh, Mom?"
"Maybe," Mag-he conceded, but her mind still seemed to be elsewhere.
For some reason the computer shut down on them momentarily, and when it came back on, they had lost the Rosestead Web site. But Jorund had seen enough.
"I must needs tell you something that I have just now decided. Methinks it will be glad tidings for you all." Jorund could scarce contain his excitement in making this announcement.
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at him expectantly. Mag-he tilted her head; she was a little suspicious.
He didn't know where the notion had come from, or why he was so convinced that it was the right thing to do. It just felt right.
"We're going to Maine."
Pandemonium broke loose. Joe was jabbering away excitedly. The girls were jumping up and down, thrilled at the prospect of a road trip with their beloved father figure. And Maggie was seething with fury.
"No!" she finally screamed to get their attention. When everyone calmed down enough to listen, she softened her voice. "We are not going to Maine." And she gave Joe a meaningful glower to indicate that it was cruel for him to have made the suggestion without consulting her first.
He just lifted his stubborn chin in defiance. The dunce didn't have the sense to realize his blunder.
"Mom!" Suzy and Beth whined.
"No!" she repeated, more firmly this time. "It's out of the question."
Then to Joe, she said, "Number one, it's too far away. Number two, we have to be here on New Year's Eve—remember, we promised to be at the talent show at Boot Scootin' Cowboy to support Natalie. Number three, that Rosestead place isn't even open in the winter. Number four, the girls have to be back in school the day after New Year's Day—that's only nine days from now. Number five, it's cold—very cold—in Maine this time of the year."
"We could get a couple days off of school," Beth argued. "They're allowed for educational purposes. And this would be educational, I bet."
"You never let us do anything," Suzy added.
"Girls, I want you to go upstairs and take your baths."
"It's, Christmas. Why do we have to go up so early?' Suzy protested, tears welling in her eyes.
I thought we were going to watch A Christmas Story on TV tonight," Beth added. "You said we could, Mom. Remember, that's the movie about the kid who wanted a BB gun for Christmas? It was so funny when he got those footed bunny pajamas, and when that kid's tongue got stuck to the flagpole."
Maggie remembered. She didn't need Beth's nervous jabbering to jog her memory. Did Suzy and Beth really think she would be so harsh? She wasn't about to let their Christmas end on such a sour note. "You can come back down after your baths," she said gently, pushing some loose strands of hair off of Beth's face and behind her ears. "Joe and I need to talk... alone."
Once the girls were gone, Jorund knew he was in big trouble. But before he let that trouble hit him smack in the face, he had something important to do. Walking resolutely to the door leading from the den to the hallway, he shoved Rita out with a whisk of his foot, closed the door with a loud bang, then turned the key in the lock.
"What are you doing, Joe?" Mag-he asked, backing up slightly. She was wearing tight black braies, which were appropriately called tights, and a big, loose black tunic, caught in at the waist with a twisted rope belt of red and green. He hoped to hell she was wearing no undergarments, because he didn't have that much time before the girls returned.
"What am I doing?" he repeated, already yanking his Proud to Be a Viking T-shirt over his head. "I'm about to give you the best Christmas present you've ever had."
"No."
"Yea."
"We can't. I told you that I wouldn't do this with the girls in the house."
"Surely there must be an exception for Christmas."
She wavered. He could see it in her eyes. He would warrant she'd missed their lovemaking almost as much as he had.
"Mag-he, you are killing me with all these new... emotions. Not just our lovemaking, or being amongst twin girls again, but the whole Christmas season. I need... I need..."
She waited for him to finish, but he could not. In truth, he had closed the door to the den chamber in hopes of a quick swiving. He had not intended to spout such nonsense—at least, that was what he would have called it at one time— but the words just came out. Perhaps it was not just a quick swiving he was after... or not the only thing he was after. Why does everything have to be so complicated in this land?
"You need what, Joe?" Mag-he asked softly.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them, staring at her bleakly. "I need to b
e touched," he confessed.
"Oh, Joe."
She was ripe for the plucking now, if he wanted to take advantage of her vulnerability. Somehow Jorund could not do that. He did not want to seduce her tonight. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.
She bit her bottom lip with indecision and reached a hand out, cupping his jaw.
That touch that mere touch was almost his undoing. He moaned and turned his mouth to her palm, kissing it gently.
She moaned, too, a soft, feminine sound of capitulation. "I need your touch, too," she admitted. "I have missed you so much this week."
He nodded, waiting for her word to proceed. Jorund was a warrior. He knew when to advance and when to delay. Now his instincts said to wait for her cue.
"They'll be back too soon for us to do anything."
"Not for what I have in mind."
She arched an eyebrow. Yes, she was interested, despite herself.
"Something I heard about on the TV world box," he answered, backing her up against the closet door, beside the glittering Christmas tree. Even as he brushed his mouth over hers, restraining himself from deepening the kiss, he was already at work, loosening her belt. "A wall-bang-her."
Maggie gasped with surprise. He wasn't sure if it was because of what he intended to do, or because he'd already lifted her off the floor, shoved her tights down to her thighs—and yes, he had been right... thank the Lord... she was not wearing undergarments—and pulled his braies down far enough to release his erection... which was immense again. Oh, for the tears of Thor! It resemble a tree limb. What is happening to my male parts in this land? I ne'er thought I would say this about my virility, but "tis embarrassing. Before she could blink, or raise some objection, he adjusted her legs to hug his hips, and plunged inside. Luckily, Mag-he had gone back on something called birth-control pills, and the condoms were no longer necessary.
"We can't." Maggie was already wrapping her arms around his shoulders and adjusting her legs more tightly about his hips, locking them at the ankles behind his back.
"We can," he said, then beseeched her in a raw voice, "Touch me, Mag-he. Touch me, touch me, touch me."
She undid the rub-her band holding his hair back and ran her fingers through the long strands lovingly. She traced the line of his jaw and his eyebrows with a forefinger. She rubbed his shoulders and caressed his back. Everywhere her hands and fingers could reach, she touched him.
Only then did he begin the long, slow strokes that he knew she enjoyed so much.
The friction of her inner walls tugging at his staff on each backward stroke was sweet agony to him.
With one hand under her buttocks to hold her up, Jorund reached his other hand under her shert and began to massage one breast. He lifted its fullness from underneath, then palmed the whole, rubbing in a circular fashion till the tight bud in the center stabbed at his flesh. Mag-he had the most sensitive breasts, and it was only seconds before she was moaning aloud, and peaking around his pounding erection.
He wanted her to continue peaking for him till he came to his own release. So, even before she stopped her erotic spasms, he was fluttering his thumb against her sex-bud... a continuous, rapid, back-and-forth motion that prompted another orgasm from Mag-he. The whole time, he continued his long strokes, which were becoming shorter and faster as he approached his own imminent exploding point.
"I love you," she cried out in the midst of her ecstasy, still alternately clutching and caressing his shoulders. Then, "Tell me, tell me, tell me," she begged.
He knew exactly what she wanted to hear, and perhaps it was the sex, or perhaps it was the Christmas spirit in the air, or perhaps he was finally surrendering to the inevitable, but Jorund couldn't help himself then. "I love you, heartling. I love you, I love you, I love you." He said all this to her as his seed burst into her body.
And for that moment, at least, Jorund's life seemed to have come full circle. He was complete.
"I said no, and I mean it," Maggie said, straightening out her clothes.
There was no afterglow period to their lovemaking this time, as much as she cherished Joe's words of love. She didn't blame him for the wild sexual interlude. She had needed his touch as much as he'd apparently needed hers. It had been as beautiful in its spontaneity as some of his long, drawn-out loveplay often was. But now Maggie felt awful, unable to savor what should be such a special moment. She couldn't seem to help herself. The girls would be back soon, and she had to settle the absurd question of their taking off across the country to some tourist attraction that wasn't even open to the public during the winter.
Joe stared at her, his eyes desolate and pleading. "Why is it so important to you?"
"I don't know. It just is." He'd already adjusted his clothing. Now he went over to unlock the door. When Rita rushed in, he made a disgusted sound. Turning back to Maggie, he reached out and took one of her hands in both of his. "My instincts tell me that this is something I must do."
Maggie pulled her hand from his clasp. She couldn't think when he touched her in any way. Besides that, her skin was still extrasensitive from their lovemaking.
Pacing the room, she tried to get her emotions under control. "You want us—me and my two daughters—to take a fruitless, two-thousand-mile trip, all based on an instinct?"
"Yea, I do."
She noticed a familiar expression on his face. "Oh, don't you dare throw that trust business in my face again. This isn't about trust. It's about a whim."
"Mayhap it's about control, Mag-he. Mayhap you just can't bear to give up some of your precious control. I admit that I should have discussed this with you first, but I did not do it to usurp your authority. I was so excited over the idea that I blurted it out."
She took a deep breath. "Listen, Joe, we can go next summer when the girls are on vacation—"
"Next summer! What makes you think I will be here next summer?" His words were angry and bleak at the same time.
Maggie felt as if a vise were squeezing her heart.
"I'll go myself then. I will reserve a seat for myself on a gray dog."
"Gray dog?" Maggie laughed briefly. "You mean Greyhound... like a Greyhound bus?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "That is what I said, is it not?"
The idea of a tenth-century Viking boarding a modern bus and traveling a great distance to a place where he knew no one was so outlandish that Maggie hurried to convince him he was being unreasonable. "I can't let you do that."
His eyes threw flinty sparks at her, as if to say, Try to stop me.
"Joe, try to understand. I'm the only one who drives. Even if I could drive nonstop, it would be two days going and two days coming back. With at least one overnight stay in a motel, we're talking three days each way of driving alone.
Were you planning that we would go, examine the closed-to-the-public village from the outside, then turn around and come right back?"
"You know I have made no specific plans. It's just something I want to do—nay, something I need to do."
As he needed my touch? No, don't think. You're softening, Maggie. Whatever you do, don't soften. "Don't you think you're being selfish?"
He seemed to give her question serious thought. "Nay... yea... it does not matter."
"And there's another thing: do you think it's wise to go so far away from the point of your time travel entry? There's a chance you'd cut yourself off forever from returning to your time."
"On the other hand, Thora may have traveled north to colder waters. Mayhap she awaits me there. Mayhap that is why it is so important to me."
That prospect staggered Maggie. "You think that this might be a sign from Thora?"
"Mayhap."
"And you would abandon me and Suzy and Beth in Maine?" Maggie hated the pathetic tone of her voice.
"Not willingly." He drew himself up resolutely. "Heed me well on this, m'lady: I am going to this Rosestead village, but your arguments make good sense. So I will offer this compromise, though it ve
xes me no end to think of doing it."
He had her full attention now.
"We could go on one of those flying longships."
Flying longships? Flying longships? Oh. "By airplane?"
"Yea." His face was pale as a ghost at the possibility.
He plopped down on the sofa, pulling her down next to him. "I cannot credit that this love we have just discovered is destined to end here. Come with me, heartling. Please."
The girls burst through the door then, smelling of shampoo and lilac bubble bath. "Well?" they both asked expectantly.
Maggie barely hesitated a moment before informing them with forced brightness, "Looks like we're going to see snow this Christmas, after all."
"If ever I make it back to my time, I am going to have some fantastic stories to give to the skalds," Jorund grumbled.
Sitting next to the window in an actual flying machine, for the love of Freyja—he was as rigid as a Saxon soldier with a Norse Made at his private parts, and twice as frightened. The only thing different was the lack of piss running down his legs... so far.
The airplane had the whimsical name of United. He supposed that was not so unusual, considering the names some Vikings gave their longships and favorite weapons.
Mag-he sat totally at ease in the seat next to him, trying to assure him of their safety with such ludicrous words as, "Only one plane in about a million ever crashes." As if that were any comfort to him. This metal container could very likely be the millionth one.
Once the craft was airborne, he released a long breath and continued his complaints. "Truly, my sagas will be retold through the centuries: how Jorund the Lackwit Warrior not only rode naked on the back of a killer whale, but landed in a madhouse, then willingly flew through the skies in a magic machine called an airplane, thus proving his madness."
Steve had loaned him his new SEALs jacket in anticipation of the low temperatures they would find in Maine. Mag-he and the girls, who sat in the eats behind them, wore layers of sweat-hers under their jackets.
While the girls were excited about the trip, he was tense, waiting for something—he knew not what—to happen next. Not an airplane crash. No, it was something else, he was certain. Mag-he, bless her trusting soul, was simply resigned.