Chapter Nine
The hall was large and dim, and it felt oddly familiar, as if Hulda had been here before.
Only she had not.
To be sure, she had set foot upon Scottish soil elsewhere. Had fought and held the longboat off other shores. She had even been in the halls of other chiefs, helping Faeir to sack them.
Not like this one.
A sharp little shiver traced its way down her body. She told herself it came only of being so daring, taking this mad step alone with no men at her back.
Mad, ja.
But it was not just that. In some curious way, she knew this place. The very air smelled familiar. And even while walking up from the shore, the path lined by foreign faces, the ground beneath her feet had felt…well, as if she’d trodden it before.
And this man, this Quarrie MacMurtray…
She turned her head to look at him as he returned from instructing the servant. He, too, felt—
Ach, but she was overwrought. This step she took—this bid to have her way without bloodshed—played with her senses.
What sort of Norsewoman was she, to want victory without bloodshed?
He was tall, with a lithe yet powerful build. Wide in the shoulders and fluid in his movements. She would bet he might be quick in battle. A worthy opponent.
He had a mane of red-brown hair that had gleamed like fire in the sun outside and was now muted to something far more ordinary. A face strong in the brow and cheekbones, sharp at the jaw. He was curiously pleasing to look upon.
His eyes, out in the light, had looked green, and that was a magical thing. The elves, so the sagas told, often had eyes of green, as did those who carried elven blood.
This man, this Gael, could not possibly have elven blood.
She had not expected to be attracted to the man who had killed her brother, and she did not like it. But ja, as she figured, it must have been this man or his father that he said was chief, who had slain Jute. For Jute’s men had told her it had been the leader here who had done the deed.
A man with a fiery-brown tail of hair, they’d said.
She sat next to the hearth and set her helmet beside her. Quarrie MacMurtray sat opposite her, both of them still heavily armed.
If it came to blows, if he betrayed his implied vow of safe conduct, could she best him? Mayhap, but then she would have to fight her way out of here.
If his honor broke, she was lost. Curious to rely upon the honor of an enemy.
“Mistress, why do ye no’ tell me—”
The servant hurried in with the ale. Hulda felt glad. She needed the moment to gather her wits. His voice was like…
Music. Light and strong, and he sang the words she’d only learned to speak with difficulty. A beautiful language, his was.
“Thank ye, Seonad. Ye may go.”
The woman scuttled off as if pursued by a monster. Hulda raised her cup and smelled the ale. Poisoned?
“Why do ye no’ state wha’ ye want o’ me?”
“Ja.” That she needed to do. Before coming ashore, she’d had the words all lined up in her mind. A challenge, she would make of it. A bid to persuade him. The sacrifice of one against the lives of many.
But this place played with her mind, scattered her thoughts. As did this man.
“Near the end of the last raiding season,” she began, “we came here. My faeir’s crews did. There was an attack. A battle down there on the shore.”
“I remember.” A curious look came into his eyes. His steady gaze did not waver.
“You were there? You fought in that battle?” She had been right. He was the man. That must be why she had these strong feelings toward him. Her inner self knew he had killed Jute.
“I was there.”
“I was not. I was fighting with my faeir elsewhere.”
“The women o’ yer clan fight?”
She hesitated to answer that. She owed him no explanations. Yet she held his gaze and said, “I do. I fight my own battles. Always.”
Thoughts flickered like light in his eyes. Again, she failed to identify them.
“I was not there,” she emphasized. “My brother led that attack. He was killed there on your shore.”
The very place where she had landed, mayhap. She might have walked across the spot where his blood flowed over the stones.
“I was very fond of my brother.” That did not begin to speak to it. She had laughed with him, teased him, admired him. He had protected her when she was very small. He had taught her all she knew of sailing, of fighting, and of the sheer hard work involved in both. “I come now to avenge him.”
Quarrie MacMurtray’s brows flew up. Now she saw astonishment in his eyes. “I see.”
“I come with a fleet.” The lie flowed from her smoothly. “Mostly my brother’s friends. We can take this settlement apart stone by stone, or I can allow you to buy my leniency.”
“A price? Ye want a price?”
“I do.”
Now she could see his thoughts racing. He had very expressive eyes, did this man. “We are no’ that rich a settlement. We ha’ many people for whom we maun provide.”
“Rich enough. We have sacked, burned, and slaughtered for less. Yet I am offering you a way to avoid the slaughter. We need not redden our swords at all.”
His thoughts reeled, she could see that. This man would not be good at keeping secrets.
“I ha’ never heard o’ your people acting so.”
She shrugged. “We sail for gain. What fool would lose her men to battle if she could get what she wants without? Give me what I seek and we will sail away, trouble you no more this season.”
His hands clenched into fists. “What is your price?”
He expected Hulda to name a measure of gold. She knew very well that gold from Ireland got traded among these isles. Or silver jewelry. He might pay her in weapons, though his smiths could not be so good as her own, who possessed fire magic. In gems. She could beggar his settlement with her demand.
Instead she leaned toward him and said, “But one thing will buy the safety of your settlement. I want the man who took my brother’s life.”
*
Cold drenched Quarrie from his head downward, a clammy sort of chill such as might accompany a sickness, when the woman spoke.
For an instant the air around him wavered, becoming too bright even though the chamber remained dim.
Through the glare of it, he saw the woman’s face, only her face, and heard a murmur at the back of his mind.
This could not be happening. None of it.
That seemed so irrefutable he expected to awaken in his own bed. To sit up and think, Och, that was a mad dream.
Dreaming would explain so much. The woman in a Norse warrior’s clothing. Her arrival this way. The sense he had that he knew her.
Had always known her.
Impossible, for surely she was like to no one he had ever met. Those uncanny, pale-gray eyes that watched him so carefully, that weighed his every reaction.
She wanted the man who had felled her brother. Without question, that had been his father.
Och, by all that was holy! What were his options? He could refuse and give her safe conduct out of here. Go to battle over it. A total of six ships, she said she had. ’Twould be a battle for the ages, one he did not know he could win.
If he tried, it would be costly. Widespread death and destruction. Even if he did fight them off, what would be left?
He could hand over their price. Nay.
He could persuade her it had not been Da, but another man who had felled her brother. Him.
“How can we be certain who killed yer brother? I remember the battle o’ which ye speak.” He drank deep of his ale, refilled the cup, and drained it again. She had not touched hers. Did she fear it poisoned? “It was mad confusion there on the shore.”
“My brother was the leader of the men. First onto the shore, he would have been. Fiercest in the fight. His friends who were with him said he fought the leader, here.” Her pale eyes met his again. “Do you say you do not remember?”
He could not say that. He remembered the fight, aye, and the Norseman’s axe blade sinking into Da’s leg. The stroke Da had made that took the man’s head.
She narrowed her eyes at him and asked very carefully, “Did you see who felled him?”
“I did.”
A breath escaped her, one that betrayed her emotions, though she kept an iron control. “Then you can hand over the man to me. We will go. Leave you in peace.”
“Ye will leave us for the season.”
“For the season.” She waved a hand. “You have my word on that.” Her tone implied that her word was cast in iron. “After that, I cannot say. My faeir has many warriors, many boats. They go where they choose.”
They were a plague upon the world, but he did not say that.
A season was a season and could give them time to prepare.
It might give Da time to recover. If he did not recover, he might at least die in his own bed surrounded by those who loved him.
Not hauled away among strangers, subject to every sort of punishment they could devise.
Quarrie had heard stories. They all had.
Hulda Elvarsdottir shifted for the first time. “Do you know the man who killed my brother? You say you were there.”
“I was.”
“You saw.”
“I did.”
“Then name him.”
“’Twas mysel’.”