Chapter Eighteen
A fortunate thing indeed for Quarrie that the rain had ended and the sea had calmed. Else he never would have been able to swim so far in deep swells.
As it was, the ocean stretched out flat before him all the way to the shore, which made no more than a distant line in the dark.
He did his best to move silently, for sound would carry on such a still night.
Hulda’s man, Garik, must be in on the escape, but if the wrong member of the crew—say, Ivor—stirred and rose, they could well come after him in their small boat. Club him down right here in the water.
Hulda. Why had she done what she had? For the life of him, Quarrie could not say.
He was battered, the recipient of kicks and blows, and his body hurt when he pressed it into motion.
But the desire to live made a wondrous elixir, and he kept on, floating from time to time to rest and gain strength.
A cold wind snickered across the water and he shivered uncontrollably.
But at least, come morn, those bastards back in the longboat would not be cutting out his heart.
At the very end, when the shore drew so near he could make out separate details of the settlement, his strength flagged at last and he did not think he would make land.
A stout guard had been set, as might be expected of a settlement that believed a fleet of six enemy boats hung offshore.
Someone spotted him and, not knowing who he was, called up half the guard to watch him nearly drown.
It was Borald who waded out to him and, seeing the truth, called other men to help. They dragged him in, too weak to stand, and watched as he coughed up seawater onto the shingle.
“Master Quarrie! By God, we thought ye lost.”
“As did I,” he managed to croak, and sat back on his heels to breathe.
A circle of men—his men, thank God—surrounded him. Others looked out to sea.
“Did ye escape?” Borald asked. “Shall we expect them to be comin’ after ye?”
They might well try. Quarrie was not sure what would happen now. To him, or to Hulda.
Hulda. Her lips on his, fierce as a brand, claiming him. Seeking, searching, giving. He’d never known aught to match it.
“Help me up,” he bade his men.
They did, with eager hands.
“By heaven, they did work ye over,” Borald said, appalled.
“And no mistake,” someone else muttered.
“How did ye get awa’?”
“Did they beat ye and cast ye into the sea?”
“They meant to kill me come morn and toss my corpse in the foam. The woman who commands them released me instead.”
That brought a hush of silence. Clearly, the men did not know what to make of it, no more than did Quarrie.
Giving up, Borald said, “Let us get him warm and dry. Seumas, ye run for the healer. Come.”
They half—in truth, more than half—carried him up from the shore and into their own hall, where they kept a good fire for the guards to take turns warming themselves.
As they set him down on the bench, he said to Borald, “She has my sword.” There seemed something significant about that, as if some instinct told him he could trust her with it, or as if all this had happened before, long ago.
Borald swore viciously. “I ken fine wha’ that sword means to ye.”
“Aye.” So it did.
They stripped off his wet, bloodied clothing without ceremony and wrapped him in someone’s plaid. Drachan, the healer, arrived and clucked over him in distress. He treated the wounds to Quarrie’s face and head, and the bruises spreading across his body.
“Ye mean to tell me, Master Quarrie, ye swam all the way fro’ Oileán Iur in this condition?” he marveled.
“Aye.”
“There is a story in it, I do no’ doubt.”
“They meant to kill me come morning. But listen”—Quarrie seized Borald’s arm as sense trickled back into him—“there is no fleet o’ six ships. Just the one we saw.”
The faces around him stilled, eyes staring incredulously.
“Wha’?” someone gasped.
“’Twas all a ruse.” On Hulda’s part, he did not doubt. “A means to bargain for the vengeance they sought.”
Angry mutters greeted this information.
“But,” Borald objected, “having got their hands on a means o’ vengeance—ye—why did this woman then let ye go?”
“I canna tell,” Quarrie said. Or perhaps he could, if he dared to. There was something between him and Hulda Elvarsdottir. Or was such a thought just madness?
Whatever the case, he did not doubt his story would be all over the settlement before dawn.
“Run,” Borald bade someone standing by, “tell Mistress and Chief Murtray their son is returned. Wake them if ye ha’ to. They will want to know.”
He turned even as a man dashed off, and fixed Quarrie with a stern eye. “Ye be sure there is nay fleet o’ longboats?”
“Nay, but the one.”
“Then rest, sleep, and leave it in my hands.”
To Quarrie’s surprise, he did.
*
He woke feeling worse, if possible. Every part of him hurt, and when he sat up, his ribs screamed at him. Several blows and kicks had done real damage there.
A few off-duty guards remained on hand playing at draughts and watching over him. They came swiftly when he roused.
They did not ask how he felt. It must be obvious. Both his eyes had swelled and one side of his jaw ached. Indeed, every bone in his body joined in the miserable chorus.
I might have been dead. That thought speared through his mind. For aye, clear morning light flooded in the open doorway, and he could hear bustle from outside.
Would he have survived till morning, on the longboat? He might well have been floating on the tide by now, headless, had she not saved him.
He had to digest that thought; he could not get around it.
“D’ye want anything to eat?” asked one of the men.
He shook his head. But when the man shoved a mug into his hand, he drank, remembering the ale the Norse helmsman had given him.
“Yer ma was here to see ye,” another man, Gavin, said, “but ye were flat-out asleep. She asked ye should go to her and the chief when ye awakened.” He eyed Quarrie doubtfully. “Are ye able?”
“Aye.” I might have been dead. But he could do any damned thing, since he was not. “Gi’ me another cup o’ ale and I’ll go.”
It was not a quick or easy journey up to his parents’ quarters in the keep. The clansfolk who were out and about kept stopping him, exclaiming over his state, and demanding confirmation: “There is nay fleet?”
He assured them again and again. The main gate stood open, and his ma came hurrying out to meet him.
“Quarrie!” She embraced him hard, which hurt, but he did not mind. “Och, only look at ye!”
“Ma, it might ha’ been worse.”
“Come. Come. Yer father wants to see ye.”
Da was up on his feet hobbling with the help of a stick, his face livid with pain. He too came and embraced Quarrie, saying roughly into his ear, “We thought ye dead.”
He had been, good as.
“Sit,” Da told him, taking it as an excuse to lower himself beside the fire. “Tell us all.”
An interesting experience, following the emotions in Da’s eyes as he listened to the account.
There was anger, aye, that Quarrie had gone against his wishes and given himself over in his place.
Anger also that the Norse had played such a ruse and fooled them with the threat of a fleet.
And vast relief that his son, however wayward, had returned to him.
It was Ma who, when Quarrie flagged, said plaintively, “But I do’ no’ understand why this woman let ye go, after coming all this way to seek vengeance for her brother.”
“I was no’ the right man,” Quarrie said soberly, “as her crewman did tell her.”
“Aye, but fro’ all we ken of these people, they might as well ha’ slit yer throat anyway. Wha’ do they care for a single Scottish life?”
“Aye,” Da put in, “and she had reason to be angered. She did come and try to bargain wi’ us for your return—something I did not find out till afterward. Your man, Borald, kept that standoff on the shore fro’ me.”
Good man, Quarrie thought.
“I would ha’ given mysel’ over, sure, to ransom ye,” Da added softly, as if to himself, “had I known.”
“I am that glad ye did no’. I ha’ nay an answer, Da, to why Hulda Elvarsdottir behaved as she did.” Only that something existed between him and the Norsewoman. Something more than mere attraction, though aye, that played a part in it.
He had not, after all, told his parents all. He’d left out the kiss that he could still feel like a brand on his torn lips. That kiss had awakened something inside him. He just could not identify what.
“Foolish wench,” Da said. “She must know ye will tell all of us she has but one boat, that we can surely fight off.”
She might well be a foolish wench, but, by heaven, had there ever been such a woman?