Chapter Nineteen
After Hulda watched Quarrie MacMurtray slip over the side of her boat into the water and bob away, his head looking very like that of a seal moving through the quiet ocean, she wrapped herself in her blanket and rolled up, preparing to sleep.
Ja, she was meant to be on watch with Garik, who stood astern, steadfastly gazing in the opposite direction.
There would be retribution to pay, especially on Garik’s part. She had spoken to him about it, and, steadfast heart he was, he had been willing to weather any blame that might fall on him.
Hulda would have to make sure it was not much blame. Letting MacMurtray go had been her choice and her decision.
She did not sleep, but lay thinking. Thinking. A thousand notions crowded her mind. Questions. Sensations.
Ja, she wanted vengeance for Jute’s death. She still hurt over that, and someone had to pay. Not Quarrie MacMurtray.
Why? Blood was blood, and Scottish blood easy to spill. She had worked hard talking her faeir into allowing this journey. She had just scuttled it. They could have taken home the Gael’s head.
Nei.
Not him.
But why not?
She lay with her eyes stretched wide open while the crew members snored around her, and contemplated it. Came up with only a few answers and more questions.
Why had she kissed him?
Ja, that was the question of questions, was it not? A hostage. A Scot. And her mortal enemy. She had gifted him his life and taken a kiss in payment.
The urge had come from deep within. A source as vital to her as the need to breathe, to stay alive, to direct her own life. There had been an overmastering need to touch him. To taste him. To tell him—
What? That in some curious, heretofore undiscovered way, she knew him? Desired him?
Nei, neither of those things. Remembered him.
She could not possibly remember the man. She had never before set foot on this stretch of shore. Had not been there when Jute died. But ach, by Freya’s heart, she remembered…
Nei, it was nonsense. Fancy. Anyway, it was not he who drew upon the strings of her memory so much as some elusive details in him. The way he turned his head, mayhap. A glint of light in his eyes. The timbre of his voice.
Gone now. Gone. She wondered if—hoped—he had made it back to his settlement. A long swim, even if through calm sea, and he had been battered. What if he had drowned?
Nei, and nei, she could not lie here and worry for him. The next time someone got up to piss—
An outcry came. Alarm and fury. At once, the whole of the crew was on their feet as if under attack.
“He is gone! The prisoner is gone!”
In the way of such things, everyone spoke at once. Hulda, also on her feet, let them exclaim until, predictably, Ivor stepped forward and turned on Garik. “You it was on watch. What happened?”
Garik gaped at the sliced ropes left on the deck where the prisoner had been. They had talked about this beforehand, she and Garik, in fierce whispers. He would play stupid. So would she.
“He is gone?” Garik asked, doing a good job at the stupid.
“As you see!” Ivor roared. “Where were you that you did not give the alarm?”
“I was at my post, aft.”
“And did you not see him?”
“Nei. I was watching the water. Looking out for signs of attack.”
All eyes turned to Hulda. “You also kept watch,” Ivor said accusingly. “You did not see?”
She yawned. “It was quiet. He was securely tied and injured. I took my rest.”
Mumbles greeted this, and a few grumbles of outrage. Ivor’s eyes nearly bulged from his head. “Careless! It is not to be believed!” He stooped to examine the ropes. “These have been cut. Someone”—he leveled an even harder gaze on Hulda—“has freed the prisoner.”
“The work of Loki, perhaps?” Garik suggested innocently.
Ivor glanced around. “Do you see Loki here on the deck of this longboat?”
“He tends to come and go,” Garik said.
Hulda drew a breath. “The prisoner must have had a knife—one of those wee black ones—hidden about him. Who searched him when he was brought aboard? You missed a weapon. He has cut his own bonds and slipped over the side.”
One of the men moved to the rail and looked out as if thinking he could spot the miscreant. Hulda hoped he could not. These men were capable of going after Quarrie with the faering and clubbing him down.
“A long swim,” the man said. “And he was battered. Tir willing, he did not make it so far.”
Tir willing, he did.
A terrible thought came to Hulda: she might never know. Not know if the man lived or had died. A long, hard shiver convulsed her. It should not matter.
It did.
He or someone of his blood killed your brother. That is all you need to remember. Let the rest of it go.
“You were on guard,” Ivor flung at Garik, “and should be punished. Step up!”
Hulda moved before Garik could. “It was my responsibility, that watch. If you will take up with anyone, it will be me.”
“Gladly.” Ivor moved closer and spoke into her face. “You do realize he will tell all his warriors we have but one boat, ja?”
“If he makes it to shore,” said the grim watcher at the rail.
“If,” Ivor spat. “Our chance here is spoilt. What is to be done now, other than slink home like kicked dogs?”
“What, indeed,” Hulda replied.
“This voyage,” Ivor raged on, “has been a disaster from the first.”
“Blame yourself,” Hulda fired back. “You said he was not the man.”
“So he was not. I also said to kill him anyway. You listen to half my advice and not the other. Tir spare us from the madness of sailing with a woman in command.”
Hulda’s eyes narrowed. “You question my ability to lead?”
“I do. And for the welfare of us all, I feel I should assume command from this moment forward.”
A rare anger licked up through Hulda, blooming from the base of her spine to her head.
She did not fire up often. She had learned that a woman competing in a man’s world—where tempers were often quick and volatile, fueled by male pride—could not afford to.
She reached more often for reason. Persuasion.
Now Ivor’s words tapped the most fundamental part of her.
She drew her sword. It left its scabbard with a sharp snick. “You challenge me?”
Ivor’s eyes narrowed. Even in the dim light, for morning had barely come, she could see the thoughts moving in them. If he challenged her, he challenged her faeir who had placed her here, and Faeir was a wealthy, powerful man. Close with the jarl. Dangerous to cross.
But Ivor was angry and impatient, eager to vent his spleen and take out his frustration upon someone.
Her.
“If you can best me,” she hissed at him, “then you can take command.”
Jute had taught her to fight, and Ivor knew it. He had jeered at the start of her training. Not of late.
“I say the crew should decide.”
“That is not how it is done.”
“It is.”
“Not aboard my boat. I am in command. Unless you can depose me.”
No one surrounding them made a sound. The soft lap of the tide against the side of the longboat grew loud. As did the beat of Hulda’s heart.
Ivor snorted. “Let us leave this place. Sail home with your failure. You can see what your faeir thinks of the wasted time and cost of this voyage.”
He did not want to face her. Whether because he thought he could not best her, or because he thought he could and feared the consequences of humbling Elvar’s only surviving child.
She sheathed her sword, thinking he was right. She could do nothing now but return home, and Faeir would not be pleased. In the north, summer months with their navigable weather were precious and not to be wasted. In the time this had taken, they might have sacked a church.
Still and all, she would have to argue hard when she got home. For more longboats and more men, and a return voyage.
Because she just had to return to this stretch of shore.