Chapter Twenty-Nine
Quarrie glanced at the woman who sat beside the fire in his hall, and had to blink before he could believe his eyes.
She was here.
She had returned.
Why?
The last time he’d been this close to her, she’d kissed him before sending him over the side of her boat to freedom. Aye, she was right—he owed her. A hearing, if naught more.
Was it that truth that kept him from turning her away?
He snagged a flask of ale and two cups from the head table and turned back to her. Stopped cold.
She sat looking as foreign as she could do, here in this familiar place. Still clad from head to foot in men’s clothing. In armor. But he knew far better than to take her for a man.
She sat very straight, almost motionless, only her eyes following him as he moved. She had removed her helmet and her hair shone pale in the low light. Long and straight. Beautiful hair.
He had seen the way she looked at him when they were outside, seared him, her gaze flitting everywhere like a touch. Upon his hair, across his bare chest and down his legs. To his lips, and fastening lastly to his eyes, compelling. She looked at him as if she wanted to—
Och, perhaps kiss him again.
He wanted to touch her. Wanted it with such incredibly intensity, he had to catch himself back and make sure he left plenty of space between them when he sat down opposite her. “Will ye drink? ’Tis no’ poisoned, I do assure ye, but was left over there from last night.”
“I will drink.”
He poured both cups, and let her choose one. Her fingers were long, tanned, and roughened by work. The sort of work a crew on board a ship would do.
He had a sudden image of them wrapped around his—
“You will be wondering why I have returned.”
“Aye. That is no’ the same longboat. A different one.”
“Ja, you are right. The boat you were aboard belonged to my faeir. This one belongs to me and my crew. A…venture, it is.”
She spoke his language very well, her accent only mildly flavoring the words. The accent was not familiar, nay, but something about sitting here and speaking with her this way was.
“A venture,” he repeated.
“Ja. We sail for gain and profit. I do not come to you, this time, seeking revenge. That does not mean I have forgotten my brother or his death. That I will never do.”
“You should know—” Quarrie started, then stopped and began again. “You should know that the man who killed your brother is no longer living.”
“Is he not?” One pale eyebrow lifted. “You did know his identity, then, when last we met.”
“I did. I was protecting him.” He gave her a level stare. “He was my father.”
“Ah.”
“He died by your brother’s hand.”
“How can that be?”
“He perished not long after you last were here from the wound he took defending this settlement. A wound dealt, in fact, by your brother just before Da killed him.”
“Ah,” she said again, and swallowed hard. “We are even then. You have lost your faeir and I my bróeir.”
“Aye, if ye want to look at it that way.”
“There is naught left for which to seek revenge and naught to forgive.” She pressed her lips tight. “It seems I made no mistake, then, in returning.”
“Why have you returned, Mistress Hulda?”
At the sound of her name, her eyes came up and fastened to his. Incredible eyes they were, pale as water and surrounded by brown lashes. Nothing like the eyes of any of the women he’d been seeing in his dreams.
Only they were.
He could not explain it. If he tried, he would have to say there was a thread. A thread running from those women to this one. If he ventured to express that to anyone, they would call him mad.
“Master MacMurtray, mine is a young crew. Out for gain, as I say. To prove ourselves. I have not the might to battle you. So instead, I come to bargain.”
“To bargain,” he repeated stupidly.
“Ja. Have you influence here in this place?”
“My father was chief. I am chief after him.”
“So any agreements made between the two of us will hold strong.”
“Any agreements made between the two of us would have to benefit all my people. I live for them.”
At that, some emotion flickered in the pale eyes. “You are a selfless man. You gave yourself over to protect your faeir. Now you think of your people rather than your own desire.”
“That is so.” If he did think of his own desire, he would reach out and touch her. Try to recapture the feelings that had swamped him when they’d kissed. Tell her how often he’d thought of her, almost without ceasing. What a miracle it seemed to be with her again.
“I have for you an offer that is—how would you put it?—of benefit to both of us.”
“Mutually beneficial. How can that be?”
“Let me explain. We are a young crew, as I say, and trying to prove ourselves. Most of us are younger sons. You are not a younger son?”
Quarrie shook his head.
“You do not know then what that means.”
But he did, instinctively, so it seemed. A younger son had to fight twice as hard for advantages.
“And I,” she went on, “am a woman. The wind, so to speak, blows not at our backs but in our faces.”
“I understand.”
“The season for viking is short.”
“Viking?”
“Raiding.” She seemed to grope for the word. “And it is a long way home. We would like a base here. Land. A safe harbor.”
“Eh?” He could not have heard that right. Aye, the Norse had taken over islands in the north, and there was said to be a sizeable settlement on the east coast of Britain, a place he’d never been. Not here. Not yet.
“Impossible,” he said.
“Why?”
“This is our land. Hard held for time out of mind. Fought for. Died for.”
“Just so. I suggest to you a cessation in the fighting. Perhaps even the dying.”
“I do not understand.”
She looked almost apologetic. “I explain it poorly. The language is unwieldy in my mouth. You are familiar with a hundr, ja? A—hound?”
“Aye, so.”
“A man, he cares for the hound. He feeds it. Gives it a home. It then protects him and his.”
“Aye?”
“I ask you to let us—us and the Freya—be your hundr.”
“Freya?”
“It is the name of our ship.”
“I—”
“The bargain I seek is, you will give us room here, a place of harbor, and we will guard you, ja?”
“Guard us.”
“Like a hundr.”
Quarrie shook his head.
“Chief Quarrie, there are other Norsemen who visit these shores, ja? Some who come in great numbers. Like I pretended to you before, only in truth. They will come. As the season ages they will, for targets will become scarce. A hundr could keep these from your door.”
“A hundr could also turn and bite us.” Was she truly suggesting what he thought?
“Not a loyal one. It would never bite the hand that feeds it.”
“Mistress Hulda, you are suggesting I afford ye a foothold here. On Scottish soil.”
“Only a small one.”
“From whence I can but assume ye will set out to attack my neighbors to the north and south.”
“You have agreements with them?”
“They are Scots. How should I bargain over their safety with a Norsewoman?”
“You must think of your own people first.”
She was right in that—he must.
“So you suggest I set a fierce guard dog at my gate that I…what? Loose at the dark of night to maraud against my neighbors?”
She sighed. “Have you heard of—what is it called—Black Pool in Ireland?”
“You mean Dubh lin.”
“Dublin in your language, Ja. It started as a Norse enclave. It is now a powerful holding that dominates all eastern Ireland.”
Before he could speak, she rushed on. “I do not ask this of you. I will not take your settlement. It is assuredly yours. But it would be enough of an advantage to us, to have a home port from whence we can come and go with—with felicity, that we are willing to keep other marauders, as you call them, from your shore.”
“You could do that, could ye?”
“I can. It is a good offer.”
It was, in its way. Only his neighbors might well then turn on him, and he would have to cede Scottish land. To a Norsewoman.
“I do not know that my people would agree to such a scheme.”
“Do they have to agree? You are chief.”
“There is a council. Do you have such a thing, in your world?”
“Ja, surely. But the jarl hears grievances and passes judgment. Here, you are like the jarl, ja?”
“Everyone has a say.”
“Ja, everyone has a say. But the jarl overrules them.”
Not quite.
He looked her in the eye. “For this agreement to hold, for any of it to hold, I would have to trust you.”
“Ja. Ja, you will. As we will have to trust you, that if we take refuge where you afford it to us, we will not be set upon in the night and slain.”
She had taken none of her ale. Now she set the cup aside and reached out one hand for him. Laid her fingers across his wrist where it rested upon his knee. No more than that.
Everything within him leaped to attention. Each muscle and sinew. As swiftly as that, his blood caught fire.
“You can trust me, Quarrie MacMurtray.”
Cursed if he did not believe her.