Chapter Twenty-Two
“Where is the head of the man who killed my son?” Faeir bellowed as soon as Hulda entered the chamber where he worked.
A bright place, it was, that displayed both his wealth and his power.
A good fire burned, and as Hulda had not dried out much during her time with Garik, she went directly to warm herself.
“I do not have it,” she said.
“I know that already.” He pushed back from the table where he sat. “Eager tongues could not wait to bring me the news on equally eager feet. Dottir, you promised me.”
He got up. Elvars Andersson was a tall man, well built, with his daughter’s pale-gray eyes. Eyes that, so he prided himself, could see far. He did not like failure or disappointment.
She faced him boldly. “I did so promise.”
“You have failed me.”
That made her flinch.
“I gave you a charge, my dottir, to avenge my son! Others scorned me, laughed at me for doing so. Put a woman in charge of the voyage? Pah! But your heart was as agonized as mine. I thought I could trust you with it.”
“You can trust me. Always.”
“Then where is his head?”
“We captured a man we believed was Jute’s killer.”
“And then you let him get away. Ja.” Faeir tossed up his hands. “I have heard this too.”
“Ivor was here.” She should have known that as Jute’s trusted friend—the very man Faeir had chosen to send along with her—Ivor would run at once to him. She had made a strategic mistake by delaying with Garik and not going to Faeir at once.
“It does not matter that the prisoner got away. Ivor himself told me he was not the man.”
“So, it did not occur to you to use him to bargain?”
“That did occur to me, ja. I tried to bargain. The Scots would not talk to me.”
“So you let him escape.” Faeir cocked a sharp eye at her. “On purpose?”
Hulda sighed. “The crew would have killed him. The wrong man. There would have been no satisfaction in it.”
“Ivor says the crew did not mean to kill him—merely make him suffer.”
“They had already done that.”
“You are soft,” Faeir declared.
“Is that also what Ivor says?”
“It is.”
“And you will take his word without even speaking to me?”
“I am speaking to you now.”
“But your mind was made up already when I walked in here.” Anger made Hulda add, “I no longer trust Ivor.”
“I do.”
“He undermined my authority throughout the voyage. He did not accept my orders.”
“Perhaps with good reason.”
“There is no reason for a leader to be disobeyed.” She did not mean to shout it, but it came out that way.
Faeir did not appreciate her raising her voice at him. Hulda knew that very well. Her frustration cried out on its own.
More calmly, she said, “The leader deserves respect.”
“Even as I deserve respect from you? Not to have you come in here bellowing at me—”
“I am not bellowing.”
“—and interrupting me.” Faeir shook his head gravely. “It seems I have made a dire mistake. Ivor warned me before you left. I listened to my heart.”
So that was it. Ivor thought he would advance to leader when Faeir planned his next voyage. So he had set out to destroy her.
“Now my ship is damaged by storm and I have gained naught in vengeance for my son’s death.”
Hulda dropped her head. “This is true.”
“You have failed to avenge your brother.”
These words hit Hulda like physical blows. She said nothing.
“Did you know,” Faeir asked after a few moments, “it was Jute who came to me and argued for you to take up battle training? Let me train her, Faeir, he said. She wants it so badly. And why should a fierce spirit be limited by gender?”
Had she a fierce spirit? Hulda wondered.
She remembered, as a girl, longing to take up a sword, ja, but not so much because she felt fierce.
It had been because she desired, with a deep and fundamental longing, that no one, no man, should sacrifice his safety, his life for her. She would defend herself.
Some part of Jute had beheld that longing, even though she doubted he recognized the reason behind it. Ja, in their world, women gave life and men took it. Things, though, were rarely so simple.
“Jute stood up for you,” Faeir said heavily, “and so I gave you a chance. This is how you repay him?”
Hulda nearly doubled over with pain. She missed her brother, and at the beginning of the voyage just past would have said there was nothing she would not do for his sake.
Then she had gazed into the Scotsman’s eyes.
“Faeir,” she said desperately, “I miss Jute more than I can say, and I want revenge for his death. But I want it against the man who did kill him.”
“They are Scotsmen! Does it matter who wielded the sword that took Jute’s head? Foolish girl, you kill them all!”
When Hulda said nothing, Faeir went on, “I should have commanded the voyage myself. I am not too old to avenge my son.”
“I will go back,” Hulda said then. “Attack the settlement. A strong settlement it is, well defended. With six boats—”
“Six boats?” The scorn in Faeir’s voice near flayed her. “You think I should place you in command of even one boat again? Get from my sight.”
“Faeir—”
“Go to your móeir, where you belong.”
Hulda went out into the air, heart pounding and cheeks burning with shame, Avoldsborg spread out before her eyes. Bustling, prosperous. Founded in blood.
She could not have slit Quarrie MacMurtray’s throat, not even to spare her faeir’s condemnation.
Ah, but she had fallen in Faeir’s eyes. He would not soon listen to her again.
She walked through the gathering twilight around the back of the hall to the family quarters and let herself in.
Her móeir worked there beside the hearth, clad in her familiar haus dress, a linen cloth covering her hair.
A tall woman, she had gifted Hulda her height and her strong build, though Hulda had her faeir’s pale eyes.
“Dottir?” she said, and glanced at her woman, Rota. Rota had been with Móeir since her marriage, the two women thick as thieves. “Hulda, we heard that your boat had come in, delayed by storm.”
To be sure, they would have heard. There were few secrets in Avoldsborg.
“I have failed to avenge Jute,” Hulda announced starkly.
“Put aside your weapons,” Móeir said gently. “Come and sit down. Rota, get her something to drink.”
Hulda obeyed.
Móeir, as Hulda well knew, had been as destroyed by Jute’s death as she. Her big, strong son, she had always called him. She had not asked Hulda to seek vengeance. More inclined to appeal to Freya for strength and sustenance, she had nevertheless refrained from interfering with Hulda’s intentions.
Now, despite her soft voice, a hint of iron entered her blue eyes as she pushed Hulda onto a bench and took her hands.
“Listen to me, dottir. Vengeance will not bring your brother back. Nothing will.”
“I know that.”
“I am glad to see you returned. I do not need another of my children dying upon a foreign shore.”
Nei, Móeir had never objected outright to Hulda’s pursuit of training at arms. But Hulda had once overheard her saying to Rota, A dottir should be a comfort to a móeir, close at hand.
“Faeir is angry with me,” she said. “He will not sponsor another voyage.”
“Your faeir’s heart is broken, just like mine. Just like yours. Jute was a son in a thousand. Your father expected grand things of him.”
Hulda’s lips trembled when she said, “Men go viking. They so risk not coming back.”
“This is so. Rota, where is that drink?”
A cup was thrust into Hulda’s hands. Móeir sat down beside her.
“Dottir, I believe it is time to give up all this nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” Hulda raised her gaze to her mother’s face, which looked worried. Weary. Wounded.
“Lay aside the weapons. The violence. The pursuit of blood. Be what you are.”
“What am I, Móeir?”
“A woman. A quite beautiful one.”
“Can a woman not be strong? Can she not fight for herself and those she loves?”
“We fight.” Móeir gestured to Rota and herself. “In our own way, we do. Women possess the strength of the stones beneath the hearth fire. The stones that hold up the walls of our dwellings. It is no less for being quiet.”
“And are you content to let the men you love die for you? I am not.” Hulda would have leaped to her feet, but Móeir’s grip on her hand kept her where she was.
“It is time,” Móeir said again, “to lay aside your flaming sword. Marry. Have children of your own. One of them may fill the hole Jute has left in your heart.”
Hulda said nothing. She blinked back the tears that filled her eyes.
“I thought,” Móeir went on doggedly, “when Haakon courted you, that you would wed him and settle. Let her get it out of her system, I told your faeir. All will come right.”
“Haakon showed he did not want me,” Hulda croaked out.
Móeir shrugged. “There are other young men. Some who do not go to sea.”
Hulda gazed at her mother uncomprehendingly.
“While you were away,” Móeir said gently, “Gothrum came to talk with me. He asked if your faeir and I would approve his suit.”
“Gothrum.” Hulda barely remembered him. She and the others near her age had all grown up together. She should know them all. “The silversmith?”
“Ja. A talented man.” Móeir’s lip curled. “He has his eye on you.”
“But—” Gothrum was tall, ja. Weedy. A bit stooped from the close work he did bending silver and gold wire into intricate brooches and chains.
“He asked me, honest and forthright, if I thought you would be interested. I said—”
“I am not.”
“—that I thought—”
“I am not.” Hulda had lent her heart to Haakon. She would not make that mistake again.
A vision of Quarrie MacMurtray arose before her eyes. Lips split and bloody. Eyes bruised, face battered. She had kissed those lips.
Nei, she wanted naught more to do with men.
“—he should place his suit before you when you returned.”
A nice enough young man, Gothrum. But he had nothing she desired.
Looking her móeir in the eyes, she said insistently, if more calmly, “I am not interested.”
With some of Hulda’s own stubbornness, Móeir replied, “We shall see.”