Chapter Fifteen
“This is not the man.” Ivor barked the words as soon as they got Quarrie MacMurtray onto the longboat.
A very angry Quarrie MacMurtray he must be, and perhaps abashed also.
Hulda, sitting behind him on the faering, had not been able to see his face when they rounded the isle and he caught sight of but one ship standing there in the inlet.
But she had seen his whole body stiffen, tensed for fight.
She had lied to him and he knew it. What would he make of the ruse?
He would be enraged, ja, bitterly so. She knew she would, in his place.
He had turned himself over to her for no good reason, since she did not doubt he and his settlement could have fought off the number of warriors she had at her command.
She half expected him to strike out as he was hauled aboard, to fight the men who handled him, but Kettel had bound his hands and taken his sword, and though he no doubt had other weapons stashed about him, he could not reach for them.
Now he stood on the deck of her boat and, staring at him through the rain, Ivor said, “This is not the man.”
“What?” Hulda returned stupidly. Anger of her own, and heat, and a certain chagrin crawled up through her—for she had known it, in her heart she had. She turned her gaze on MacMurtray. So he had lied to her also.
His gaze met hers with a glint of green. I trusted ye, it said. Though the gods knew why he should.
She had wanted to trust him also—Freya knew why. So now they were even, ja?
She turned a face to Ivor that she hoped did not betray her chagrin. He was the last man to whom she would display weakness or folly.
“He told us he was the man and turned himself over to us.”
Ivor stepped up to her, his aggravation palpable.
“Did I not say you should have taken me with you? I was there on that shore when Jute died. I saw the man who battled him and took his head. It was not him.” Ivor swung round to sweep MacMurtray with another glare.
“Had the look of him, ja, but it was an older man. One with authority. Mayhap the chief of the place.”
Hulda too looked at MacMurtray. She and Ivor spoke in their own tongue, which she doubted he could understand. But he was not a stupid man and must garner much from Ivor’s gestures and tone.
And ja, he must have expected this, if he thought anyone who accompanied her on this voyage had also been on that previous one.
His chin jerked up. He stood defiant. He must have some inkling of what they would do to him. He had sacrificed himself—for whom?
The person who had truly slain Jute.
“This is what happens,” Ivor carried on in front of her men, her crew, “when a woman is put in charge. You do not think with your head.”
“That is not true,” Hulda said with calm she did not feel, as dismay weighed upon her. She always used her head. Except…there had been something else in her exchanges with MacMurtray. Some undertow of emotion.
Had she let it distract her?
She eyed MacMurtray once more. He stood proud and composed. And what was she to do with him?
“Kill him,” Ivor pronounced precisely as if he heard the question in her head. He made a strong motion with his hand that MacMurtray could not fail to understand.
“Nei.” Hulda spoke instinctively, a visceral reaction.
Ivor swept her with a scornful look. “What else is to be done? He is not the man. If you wish to follow through with your plan, you will have to go back and secure the man who took Jute’s life.”
“Ja. I will exchange this one for him.”
“What? Like a ribband you do not like?” Ivor sneered, all the scorn that must have been simmering in him since the beginning of this voyage coming to a head. “He will have to die. He has seen we do not have six longboats, eh? Foolish woman.”
She could not let MacMurtray go back. Not if she were to maintain her ruse, and her leverage.
She could not watch him die.
That last thought shocked her more than anything that had come before. What was wrong with her? Had she not seen countless men die? Women. Children.
Not him.
She swallowed hard, trying to gulp back the emotions on the rise before they choked her.
She could not save him.
One of the crew, Bjorn, who had been so bored since they arrived, said, “Can we not make some sport of him before he dies? See how much pain a Gael can endure.”
Ja, such was their way when they found little else to do. Not this time, though, if she could prevent it.
Could she prevent it?
She turned a glare on Bjorn. “And how would that honor Jute?”
“He would have enjoyed it,” Bjorn said sullenly.
“Listen to me, all of you,” Hulda shouted in Norse. “I am still in charge of this voyage, as my faeir placed me. No man makes the decisions here, but me.”
“No man makes the decisions,” Ivor muttered, “and that is the problem.”
She turned on him. “Do you want to return to Avoldsborg having defied me?”
“Nei, mistress. Kill him swiftly, then, and toss his carcass over the side. I no longer care.”
“Fool,” Hulda accused in turn, her mind emerging from its fog and beginning to work again. “He is worth more to us as a hostage. We can ask a price for him or exchange him for the man we want.”
She turned to MacMurtray, who remained as motionless as if carved from stone. The rain had now soaked him—as all of them—to the skin. He did not flinch from it, or from her gaze.
In his tongue she said, “Ivor here was fighting on the shore when my brother Jute was killed. He says you are not the man who slew him.”
Some of her men could follow the conversation, ja. Most of them had slaves.
“Ah,” MacMurtray said. He directed a look of what might be regret at Ivor before switching his gaze back to Hulda’s face.
“You lied to me,” she said, less forcefully.
“As ye did to me. Unless”—he took a deliberate look around—“the rest o’ your boats are invisible.”
“They may lurk behind another island. You do not know.”
“I do not. Though where would be the sense in that?” His eyes met hers, glinting green between dripping brown lashes.
And just like that, she wanted to kiss him. Wanted it with an unprecedented longing that tore through her like pain. Ach, by the gods! By Freya’s heart, she almost knew how it would be. His lips warm through the cold rain. The feel of them, heady and familiar.
She must be going mad.
Shaken, she asked, “Whom are you protecting?”
He seemed to contemplate that, standing tall while the rain ran down his face like tears. He might lie to her again. He might tell the truth. It scarcely mattered, when it came to what she felt for him.
What did she feel for him? Desire. A need to protect. A devotion that—
Nei. That could not be.
He said, “It might be any number of men fighting on the shore that day who killed your brother. I will tak’ the punishment for any o’ them.”
“Nei.” She strove mightily to master her protest. “My man says it was an older warrior.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your faeir?”
The briefest narrowing of his eyes betrayed his reaction. Ah, so it was.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “Ye wish for vengeance.” If he could have spread his hands, he would. “Here ye have it.”
“I want the man who did the deed.”
“Ye canna have him.”
“Then we will destroy your settlement.”
He continued to gaze at her steadily. “Wi’ one boatload o’ warriors?”
She tossed her head, contemplated attempting to continue the delusion, and gave it up. “I can send back home and bring the number I promised.” Another lie. Faeir had indulged her in this. He would not be pleased with how it had gone.
And she asked herself, not for the first time, did Faeir not also want vengeance for the death of his son? Jute, of whom he had been so proud. Over whose headless corpse he had wept. Faeir, whom she’d never before seen cry.
He had seemed to recover from the loss far more swiftly than she. Jute could not be replaced. Her own heart would not so swiftly leave go of him.
And yet…she did not want this man to die.
She said, “Someone in yon settlement will want ye back. They will bargain to get ye.”
“If that was so, would they have let me come awa’ wi’ ye? Nay, mistress. Ye will ha’ to vent yer spleen on me, or no one.”
Determined he was, to sacrifice himself. Even among a race of men noted for their reckless courage, Hulda could only respect that.
She turned to Lars and Garik, whom she trusted. “Guard the prisoner. Trym and Bjorn, the three of us are going back—to bargain.”