Chapter Fourteen
Thrudheim was just a bruise on the distant horizon currently, and she had to squint to make out the difference between sea, land, and sky. Captain Jensen smiled and offered her his spyglass.
‘Thank you!’ she said, eagerly holding the brass scope up to her eye to better see the island ahead.
A huge mountainous landscape was magnified by the lens.
The highest peak was covered in snow despite the sunshine.
Green forests stretched across the lower mountain range, and raw cliff edges dropped directly into the sea below, with the exception of the horseshoe harbour of Skadisberg, which looked as if it had been scooped out by a giant’s hand.
Sea-birds wheeled around the many merchant ships docked there, and colourful pastel houses crept up the mountainside like a pretty Cornish fishing village.
Except, of course, it was much larger. Skadisberg was certainly impressive.
The capital of Thrudheim gleamed in the sunlight, and she thought it the prettiest city she had ever seen.
Her father had sent her a drawing of Mont-Saint-Michel once, and Skadisberg reminded her of it, the confectionary houses appearing to ripple down the steep hills of the mountain.
The crowning glory was the chalk-white palace with its many turrets and battlements at the highest peak of the city.
‘What do you think of your new home?’ asked a deep voice from beside her, and she removed the spyglass from her eye to look up at Magnus. He had appeared from nowhere; she was sure the last time she’d seen him he’d been halfway up a mast.
As usual on this trip he was wearing only his shirt and breeches, the embroidered sash belt tied tightly around his hips. It gave him the look of a pirate…which she found oddly attractive.
‘It is…bigger than I thought it would be…’
Bloody hell! She sounded like an idiot!
Magnus, however, seemed pleased by her comment. ‘An interesting fact about Thrudheim is that it is continually growing. Sediment is building on the eastern side. We grow an inch each year.’
‘Fascinating…an inch you say,’ she replied dryly and then blushed when she caught the raise of his brow. Unfortunately, he had not missed her scathing sarcasm.
‘You are teasing me, but I suppose I deserve it.’ He smiled, and it felt like the first genuine smile she’d ever seen from him—although, that couldn’t be true, could it?
He was devastatingly handsome when he smiled, and she was more than a little thrilled to have been the cause.
When he was happy, he was dazzling: it washed away the usual severity of his expression, leaving only joy in its place.
But she supposed it wasn’t only her that had caused it.
‘You are glad to be home and proud of your country. That is understandable.’
He squinted into the horizon, and she knew that he didn’t need the spyglass to recognise every peak, tree, and building.
She was a little disappointed when he turned away from her, as if to move off. But then he stopped, turned suddenly towards her, grabbed her elbow and pulled her along to the starboard side of the ship. ‘Come, look!’
He pulled her over to the wooden railings, and she had to hold onto her bonnet as it was almost lifted off by a gust of wind.
‘Look! Look! Do you see the ring?’ He was pointing at a ring of bubbles a few hundred feet from them, his body wrapping around her as he guided her into the best position to watch.
‘Uh…yes?’ she said, her nails digging into the railing as she tried to steady the dizzying rush of blood caused by his body being so close to hers.
The water seemed to boil upwards in a giant bubble, and Selina gasped in shock as a whale pushed up into the air, its mouth gaping wide.
She jerked back knocking into the warm wall of Magnus’s chest, her heart racing at the awesome and unexpected sight in front of her.
She had seen a drawing of a whale and knew they were large, but it was nothing compared to seeing one rise from the sea.
The beast closed its mouth and serenely sank beneath the water again, completely untroubled by the nearby ship.
‘Goodness gracious!’ she gasped, turning to face a grinning Magnus. ‘Will we see it again?’
‘There is more than one. Look!’
She followed his outstretched arm and saw another whale’s back arch up out of the water, followed quickly by a thunderous tail slap as it dove back down.
‘They are humpbacks,’ he explained, and they were both grinning like children at a fair. Another fragile thread of connection had been untangled, and she understood why he loved the sea—the freedom and excitement it offered him in an otherwise restrictive life.
She dared to remain exactly where she was, her back pressed against his chest, her head turned towards him. His eyes became hooded as his gaze lowered to her mouth, and she couldn’t help but remember their kiss.
Another clap of water drew her attention back to the whales. ‘Incredible! But…they won’t harm us, will they?’
‘They come close to Thrudheim because we no longer hunt them in our waters. But rest assured, they don’t eat humans or ships.’
‘Oh, I know. My father used to say they were the gentle giants of the sea. He has a drawing of one in his study. I thought it terrifying as a child and was scared that he would be swallowed by one and never come home. Now that I have seen one in the flesh, I am afraid my old childish fears have returned! They are truly colossal!’ she laughed, and then squealed with excitement when she saw another whale breach the water, and noisily blow a gust of wet air from the top of its head.
Magnus grinned at her, and they watched them for a few minutes longer before they sailed away and entered the harbour.
‘It must have been hard with your father away for so long.’
She nodded, uncomfortable with the unexpected turn in conversation, she hated to think of that time. ‘Most of my childhood he was away. But Aunt Mary came to live with me after my mother died.’
‘How did your mother die? If you don’t mind me asking?’
Selina wondered if Magnus was curious or asking on behalf of Thrudheim.
Unfortunately, there was little detail she could offer him—or stomach to reveal.
‘My mother died when I was five, while trying to bring my brother into this world. Neither of them was strong enough to survive the birth. I do not remember her well. But I know she struggled in Great Yarmouth, with the language and making friends. We lived quietly, waiting constantly for my father’s return.
I spoke only Portuguese when Aunt Mary came to live with me, and yet I cannot remember a word of it now.
Isn’t that funny?’ She laughed, but Magnus didn’t, his face softened with pity, and so she charged forward.
‘She wasn’t dull, though. I remember that much.
She filled our days with singing and dancing, despite barely making herself understood to the servants.
My father often laments that I take after her with my utter lack of common sense.
Although, Aunt Mary tells me that he loved her deeply despite her foolishness.
That is why he cannot bear to speak of her often and is always so slow to scold me.
’ She smiled at the end of her explanation to soften the blow of her own sadness.
Telling people about being made motherless at such a young age tended to ruin other people’s moods, and when she thought of her mother, all she remembered was an outpouring of love—although, it had been in a language she no longer understood.
How lonely her mother must have been as an unwelcome foreigner.
She prayed the people of Thrudheim would accept her with greater kindness.
‘Are you nervous about having children?’
Startled by the directness of his question, Selina immediately shook her head and answered honestly.
‘No more than the next woman. I have always hoped to marry and have a family of my own. I love the idea of a busy house.’ In fact, it had been her only ambition— to marry and eventually be loved by a husband and children.
To have a lively house, in a lively city.
No more empty rooms.
With only her mother for company, she’d been desperately lonely as a child.
The silence of the house after her mother had died had only added to her pain.
She hadn’t understood the servants when they tried to tell her what had happened, and she must have had terrible tantrums, because they’d shut her away in the end, until Aunt Mary had arrived a few days later and saved her.
Magnus was still frowning, so she added, ‘I know that must seem a little stupid of me considering my mother’s death.’
His head tilted thoughtfully, and then he shrugged. ‘My parents drowned in a storm between Norway and Thrudheim. I suppose I should fear or hate the sea because of it, but strangely I do not. I love sailing.’
Selina didn’t think his confession strange.
In fact, she was delighted to have straightened out another tangled thread.
He’d lost his parents and become a sovereign prince in a sudden twist of fate.
That would have been a difficult challenge for anyone.
She was also beginning to suspect his relationship with his parents had been strained, as a melancholy look had creased his brow.
Instinctively, she touched his arm to draw him back.
‘You can hate storms instead… Nobody likes storms anyway,’ she declared.
Magnus chuckled. ‘True. I will hate them instead.’
‘And I will hate empty rooms,’ she affirmed and then winced at her runaway tongue, especially when he turned towards her with a confused and curious expression.
‘Empty rooms?’
She forced a laugh and shrugged, trying to seem as reckless and as carefree as ever. ‘I love to be entertained. No empty ballrooms or drawing rooms for me. I can’t stand them!’