the word that much, she could call him Viking rather than Norseman or Ostman.
“I can picture you as a Viking,” she said suddenly, and then pursed her lips and added, “Well, except that you should have long blond hair instead of short dark hair.”
“Aye, the lasses in my day preferred their men blond too,” he said with amusement, and then realized his speech had slipped into his old accent and cleared his throat before adding, “At least, the blond part. My hair was long then.”
“Really?”
“Really what?” he asked mildly. “That the women preferred blonds or that my hair was long?”
“The blond part,” she said with a faint smile.
“Yes. In fact, most of us poor men unfortunate enough to have been born with dark hair used a strong soap with a lot of lye in it to bleach our hair. Some used it on their beards as well,” he informed her. “Handily enough, aside from lightening our hair, it killed lice, so that was our excuse for using it, but the truth was it attracted the ladies.”
“Hmm,” Allie muttered, looking a bit disgruntled, and then she assured him, “Well, dark-haired men are better-looking anyway in my opinion.”
“You just finished saying I should have long blond hair,” he pointed out on a disbelieving laugh.
“Well, yes, because that fits the image of a Viking better. But I wouldn’t want you to actually be blond now. It wouldn’t suit you.”
Magnus smiled crookedly at the claim, and then noted the appreciative way her eyes were sliding over his features and damned near blushed. Something he hadn’t done since he was a lad, if then.
“Anyway,” he said to change the subject, “my family had a prosperous farm. I grew up there, learning to farm and fight, but in the summer of 793, I ran off to go a’viking.”
“Why?” she asked at once. “Was it rebellion or to escape cruel parents or something?”
“No. My parents were good people,” he assured her, and then admitted, “In truth, it was because of a female. I had a fancy for our neighbor’s daughter, but—”
“Wait a minute,” Allie interrupted him sharply. “You said you were born in 779.”
“Yes.”
“Then you were only fourteen when you went a’viking?” she asked with disbelief.
Magnus grinned at her expression. “We lived much shorter lives and grew up much quicker back then.”
“But fourteen?” she asked.
“Lots of boys my age were already married and having children by then,” he told her. “And all of us were pretty much married by fifteen.”
Allie stared at him with something like horror for a minute, and then shook her head and prompted him with, “So you were fourteen and fancied your neighbor’s daughter.”
“Yes,” Magnus said, but paused briefly before continuing. “I wanted to take her to wife, but she said I was too poor.” He smiled wryly at the memory. It had stung at the time. His pride, mostly. Shrugging the memory away, he said, “A friend of mine had gone a’viking the summer before and come back with many fine treasures.”
“So you ran off to go a’viking in the hopes you’d be similarly lucky, and could come back and win your lady love,” she suggested dryly.
“Yes,” he said, unembarrassed. It had been the way of it back then.
“I’m guessing things didn’t turn out quite the way you planned, though?” Allie asked, her voice gentler.
“No,” Magnus admitted solemnly. “We landed onshore a little more than three days after setting sail, and attacked a monastery.”
“A monastery?” she squawked with dismay.
“They had the finest treasures,” he said helplessly. “And at that time were unguarded. Besides, we were pagans. We held no truck with their God.” Magnus waited and when she just stared at him wide-eyed, he continued his tale. “It was my first raid. I had been in battle before, mostly local quarrels, but this . . .” He shook his head. “I had never seen anything like it. They were men of God, not warriors. They just stood there praying while we slaughtered them, and the survivors went like sheep when we rounded them up to take away for slaving.
“Once it was done, the men broke open the wine casks in the church to ‘celebrate our victory.’ At least, that was what they called it, though in truth I think it was to drink away our shame. That was what it was for me anyway. This had not been a fair fight, not even a battle, but a slaughter.” He shook his head with remembered self-disgust. “I drank hard with the others, but