He heaved in a breath. Lucy held hers. “My mother named me Galen in the words of my father. It means . . .” He searched for the English word, then said it in Latin.
“We would say ‘bespelled.’ ”
“Ja, bespelled. She hoped I would be mighty in drcræft like my brother.”
“Drycraft?”
He used the Latin.
“Oh, magic. Your mother thought you’d have magic powers and take your brother’s place.” Boy, is that a lot to put on a kid.
“But I have no magic. Beasts love me, but I do not speak to them as my mother did. I am not Eric. The magic died with him. Always I was not what they wanted. I saw it in their eyes. ”
“Your . . . your parents were disappointed in you?”
He heaved another breath. Her head rose on his chest and fell. “They loved me. They were good kin. But I knew. And wherever I went in the land around, all knew.”
“How did you bear it?”
“My father teached me to wield a weapon. I watched him bind the people together, Saxon and Danir, and learned from him. But I was unstill. When I had seventeen years, I went vikingr, first to trade up the Seine and then up the Volga to fight for the king there. In the language of the Volga, we are called Rus. The land we controlled, they called Russia. It was a hard time. I was put in a carcern in Kiev.”
Carcern. Incarcerated. “Prison.”
“Ja. I was gone many years. When I gewend to the Danelaw, my mother was dead, my father feeble. I labored for that part of the Danelaw that held my mother’s people and my father’s. At first Guthrum does not trust me. It is hard. I am half-Saxon. But I fight good. At last Guthrum takes my counsel. The scalds sing of my deeds. Yet still the songs tell of the one the Norns say will save his people, the one I am not. And will not be.”
What a thing to live with. Belonging to neither people, living in the shadow of a dead brother, knowing people expected you to be magic and you weren’t . . . Her heart went out to him. What could she say? She had expected him to be ashamed of some terrible act of carnage. The scars on his body said he’d lived through many. But he was a product of his time. He was proud of fighting and killing for the king of the Danelaw.
She had wanted to go back to a time when magic was possible. Galen certainly believed it was possible. He was ashamed he didn’t have any. Maybe there was no magic in the world, then or now. You couldn’t count on anything outside yourself to save you.
“Being a good man is enough,” she said quietly. “There are too few of those.”
“Nay, Lucy. Life is hard. Men need . . .” Here he had to ask in Latin the word for “hope.”
“Men looked to me to make life better. To protect them. I could only fight like other men or help in little ways: a bridge, a new saddle for horse.” He had to ask the word for “saddle.” She could feel him getting impatient with himself for not knowing all the words. “They ask me to say the right of the matters they bring to me. So I say which thing is right.” He held her more tightly to his side. She made the leap in her mind. He could not protect his people with magic, or a woman. Was that why he had leaped so blithely from bed to bed, lingering in none? He wanted no responsibility. Yet he fought for Guthrum to unite the kingdom against the invasion only he foresaw coming from the Normans. He struggled to do what he could do, far more than most men could, always believing he was not enough. Was that not the definition of courage?
She glanced up. His expression was so bleak. What comfort was there for such a man? And then she knew. “There are all kinds of magic, Galen Valgarssen. What we had here tonight is magic.” She scooted up to look him in the face, surer now. “You said the night wanted what happened here. Is that not magic? Is finding each other across a thousand years not magic?”
His eyes softened. Then the heat started in them. “You are magic, Lucy.” She realized her breasts were pressed against his side, his good arm around her shoulders. She breathed in the feeling of peace as it hovered in the room again. The light had dimmed in the cabin. Clouds must have obscured the moon. But she and Galen were still here. His gaze roved over her, hungry for her. And she felt . . . beautiful. Who cared if it was a lie?
“No.” She smiled. “But we can make magic together.”
“Now,” he rumbled, kissing her forehead. “More slow this time. I will show what I know of women.” His hand found her breast. “You will yell for me tonight many times.”
“You may yell yourself, big fella,” she murmured into his mouth as he kissed her. The throbbing had begun between her legs, insistent. She was suddenly very glad that the vernal equinox meant there were twelve whole hours of night.
Chapter 17
Brad watched the cranes move into place on the asphalt between the parking structure and the hospital, anxiety churning in his breast. The army engineers had determined just where at the base of the machine to hook in and winch it up onto the flatbed truck over the rollers set in front of it. But that didn’t mean the torque might not still damage the machine further. They’d waited until dark to attract as few eyes as possible. But still gang members, old people, and the local prostitutes were way too interested in the goings-on. Arc lights nearly eclipsed the light of the full moon rising over the bay.
Brad turned to where giant I-beams formed a new entrance to the parking structure. The rollers clattered, signaling the movement of the machine out into the glare of the arc lights.
Now if only he was sure he could fix it. They might never find Lucy and the diamond and the book. She was probably busy fucking that Viking hunk’s brains out. The thought made Brad sick and strangely excited. If he ever caught up with them, he’d do what they did in Viking times with women like her. He’d have her stripped naked and whipped through the streets with crowds yelling, “Whore!” and pelting her with stones and refuse.
Or maybe he was just imagining that’s what they did back then. It didn’t make a less attractive prospect. And as for the Viking . . .
“Watch out there!” he yelled as a workman who was pushing the machine across the rollers stumbled and went down. “You damage that, you’re . . . you’re toast.”
The guy in overalls picked himself up, glaring.
“Bet he’s frightened of that threat. I sure am.”
Brad whirled to find Casey standing, haggard and hard-eyed, behind him.
“Well, at least I’m holding up my end of the bargain. I’m getting the machine back to the lab. I don’t see you finding my little whore of a girlfriend and her tenth-century boy toy.” He wasn’t quite sure how he had the courage to talk like that to Casey. But then Brad had changed a lot since he found out Lucy had betrayed him and ruined his career into the bargain.
“I know who knows where they are,” Casey said. “That’s something.”
“The manager?” It seemed impossible that an old guy wearing huaraches and a serape had made them disappear into thin air. “That old coot?”
“He’s more than that.” Casey stared at the machine as it was pushed up to the base of the ramp that led to the flatbed.
“What is he?”
“Not quite sure. But he’s not working for any government agency. Had to call in some favors to find that out. Some coincidence that he happened to be the girl’s landlord. But since he’s not official, I can ask him directly where the girl is.”
“I want to be there.” Brad was already breathing hard at the possibility of finding Lucy.
“Might be kind of messy. Better take a pass.”
Brad swallowed. “Well . . . I should supervise the machine getting back to the lab anyway. Call me when you find out where she is. I want to see her face when the marines come over the hill.”