Chapter Thirty-Three
The Freya barely negotiated the passage into the small bay. Indeed, it took all Garik’s skill to get her through, and he swore they would never make the passage at low tide.
A forlorn sort of place, one of the men declared it. But they were young, Hulda’s crew, and still looked upon everything they did as an adventure. They adapted quickly and soon had a camp set up above the rocky shore.
“’Tis a good hiding place,” Helje declared, as they stood watching Freya ride the still waters. “Even better than the island. No one will know we are here.”
“Save for that great settlement of fierce Scots,” said Varg, rolling his eyes. “What is to keep them from creeping through the thistles and killing us in the night?”
“The word of their chief,” Hulda replied. She must trust Quarrie. Else she might get all these lads killed.
Varg snorted.
An experienced crew, so Hulda reflected, an older one, would never have agreed with this scheme. She herself had to hope Loki had no hand in it.
But nei. She did trust Quarrie. Just as she ached to see him again. To lie with him.
She had been with only one man in her life, besides Haakon, who had taken those rights as given.
Olaf had been his name, and a handsome, tall boy he had been.
She’d possessed no real feelings for him and had accepted him mainly out of curiosity, to discover what all the furor was about.
Because she was much in the company of men, and they spoke about rutting almost constantly.
It had been quick, with much fumbling, and not overly pleasant for her, though Olaf had seemed to enjoy himself. He was dead now, having fallen in a battle far north of here, and would never tell.
Things with Haakon had been quite different. He it was who had taught her the means of pleasure, and though he had expected her to spend her passion on him far more than ever he had troubled to please her, she had tasted what could be and learned that she was a woman beneath it all.
But ja, she knew the ins and outs of it, so to speak. The prospect of those ins and outs when it came to Quarrie flushed her with heat.
A very different proposition from Olaf or even Haakon, for she sensed that with this man, everything would be deeper and more immediate. She would consume Quarrie. Her body would, and her spirit.
She must make it happen.
Yet she felt as if she walked a rope line strung high above the sea. She wanted to reach the end so badly, but the way was perilous and she could take only one step at a time.
Those kisses they had shared, though—those had been a leap. She had never known a man, a mere man, could taste so good.
Since Haakon, with her heart bruised, her body satisfied and mayhap thwarted, she’d wanted little to do with another mating. In the company of men too often, no doubt.
Now she felt starved for Quarrie.
Ja, she would have him. It must be soon.
“We shall set a strong guard tonight,” she told Helje. “And every night we are here.”
“And then we will go out raiding?” He looked anxious.
“Ja, sure. Are we not perfectly set for it?”
Another of the crew came up to join them. “Mistress, do you think you could trade with yon chief, Murtray, for some supplies? If we are to stay here, that is.”
Hulda smiled. “I just might.” Any excuse made a good excuse to tramp over the stones and the headland to see Quarrie.
*
She went alone, though both Helje and Garik clamored to accompany her. She wore her sword, with no less than three knives secreted about her person.
“Let us test the waters,” she told the men. “You understand I can take care of myself.”
“Ja, sure.” They rolled their eyes. She did not doubt they would follow partway and keep watch.
Again, an older crew would never have let her walk away on her own. A woman less a fool would not have gone.
She smelled the settlement before she saw it. Clouds had moved in overnight, and smoke from all the morning fires hung heavy in the air. The sea was the color of a newly forged sword blade, and Hulda felt a tremor of foreboding, lost, almost, in her anticipation.
There were men on the shore, workers as well as guards on watch, for they knew full well what lay around the curve of the headland. They all came to attention when Hulda’s foot hit their stretch of shingle.
She felt their sharp gazes like the points of so many spears. Did they breathe, for watching her? As she began to pass them by, she wondered how to handle such hostility.
Staring into the face of the nearest man, she gave him a bold “Good morning.” Head high and pace steady, she continued past them, scattering the greeting every so often.
Not one man replied.
When she reached the path that led up from the sea to the stronghold, she saw Quarrie just emerging from the building. Someone had run to inform him of her approach.
He came charging down to meet her, surprise in his eyes and alarm in every line of him. He’d not paused to braid his hair, and it flowed over his shoulders in a red-brown curtain. His gaze captured hers and did not waver.
Her pulse accelerated. She wanted to run to him but could not possibly do so, pinned here by so many eyes. Yet at sight of him, the world seemed to change color, the very air to brighten.
They met halfway down the slope, a well-populated spot devoid of privacy.
“Mistress Hulda? Is there some difficulty?” Before she could reply, he added with a frown, “Is there a problem wi’ the landing place?”
“Nei. My navigator managed to guide Freya in.” He would have had spies to tell him so. “We passed a quiet night. Indeed”—she shifted on the balls of her feet—“I came in hope to trade.”
“Aye, so?”
By Odin’s eye, she liked his voice. The sound of it in her ears was like singing, a music finer than any bard’s.
“We are in need of some supplies. Basic things.” She patted the purse that hung at her side. “I can pay.”
“Ah. Come along, then. I will introduce ye to my steward who keeps our stores. Will ye tak’ a bit o’ breakfast first? I was just about to sit down.”
So ordinary a thing, to take breakfast with him. To sit as two civilized people might, as two friends might, they that were born mortal enemies. His people had killed Jute, right down there on that shore.
Was it wrong of her, then, to desire him?
“I have broken my fast,” she said. “I am sorry to delay you.”
“It does no’ matter.” He said it easily, without rancor. “In a place like this, I am constantly being called awa’ from one duty to another. Come.”
He took her through the main gate into a narrow yard turfed in green and around the side of the stone building where lay a whole gathering of small houses.
Stables, these must be, and what looked to be a blacksmith’s forge.
Workplaces—perhaps an armory. Other structures.
A bustling sort of place, yet once again each and every man or woman froze as they passed—froze and stared—as if a spell was cast by Hulda’s very presence.
A man came hurrying out from one low building and Quarrie addressed him. “Kalen, this is Mistress Hulda Elvarsdottir. She wishes to bargain for some supplies.”
The man, of middle years, balding but with enough bristle on his chin to make up for it, goggled at Hulda as he might at a monster that had emerged from the sea.
“Aye, Chief Quarrie.”
“Mistress Hulda, what d’ye need?”
“Some basic things, only.” She recited the list she had made in her mind. “Small measures, all.” She would ask for more later, if this agreement held.
If she got away from here alive. For she sensed—heard and felt—people edging up behind her, closing in a circle to listen. If she so much as breathed wrong, she’d be cut down before she could blink.
Yet Quarrie stood firm as an oak beside her. And she trusted him, did she not?
Ja.
Part of her bargained for stores with the man called Kalen while part kept track of the enemies behind her, and still another part remained so aware of the man at her side that her skin fairly vibrated.
When the supplies had been gathered, when she’d paid for them in silver, Quarrie said, “Ye canna carry all that yoursel’.”
“It is not so much.” She gave him a smile. “I am stronger than I look.” To Kalen she said, “Pray, put it all in one sack I may carry.”
“I will send someone wi’ ye,” Quarrie said, overruling her, and as swiftly decided, “’Tis I will accompany ye.”
With that, she would not argue. Whether he meant it as a gesture of accord, whether he sought to return her act of boldness in coming here with one of its equal, she did not know, nor did she care. It meant a few more moments in his company.
Though the chief of this stronghold was surely not meant to fetch and carry for her, no one objected as they both took up a share of the supplies and started back down the slope to the sea.
The people—his people—continued to stare. They would be talking of this for days, no doubt, how the Norsewoman, and she dressed as a man of all things, had walked boldly in among them and away again.
A couple of guards came running up, concern in their faces. Quarrie nodded them off again.
In a low tone meant for his ears alone, Hulda said, “I do regret causing all this fuss, and interrupting your breakfast.”
“Och, I can eat anytime.” Implying it was a fair, rarer thing, and hence more desirable, to be in her company? So it was.
“They do stare.”
“They ha’ never seen the like o’ ye. And they marvel ye should have such—er—courage, being a woman and all.”
“I learned long ago, it does not do to have a man act on my behalf when I can act on my own.”
“Ye will ha’ made an impression, and no mistake.”
They walked on in silence, she savoring his presence, the soft, damp air of the morning gathering around them. Not until they cleared the settlement did she breathe out a measure of tension and speak again.
“I must see you. Later today? Is it possible?”
He slanted a look at her, a curious sort of glance that glinted with hazel green. “Ye wish for a meeting?”
“I do. Just the two of us. Alone.” She gazed straight into his eyes so he would take her meaning. Saw it when he did.
I want more kisses. I want more than kisses.
“I do no’ see how that might be arranged. A private meeting, that is.”
“It must be arranged. It must be.”
“There are eyes everywhere.”
“I can see that. Do you tell me in this great holding of yours there is nowhere?”
He thought about that. She could feel his thoughts moving. When he spoke again, it was not to agree or disagree.
“Mistress Hulda, this that ye suggest—it may no’ be wise. Indeed, it might prove a verra risky thing.”
“I understand very well it may not be wise,” she shot back at him. Her voice softened when she added, “It may also be the very best of things.”
They had reached the point of the headland and stopped walking. He faced her and she him. Her camp lay just ahead. Her men, as well as his, could be watching.
Somehow, she held his gaze. She had offered herself to him, as good as. Had she mistaken him? Did he not desire her in the way she desired him?
She remembered his kisses. Nei, she had not been mistaken.
A storm filled his eyes. His voice, though, remained low and calm when he said, “I can think of no place—”
“There must be.”
“—where eyes will no’ see.” She said nothing, but he must have sensed her agony, for he hurried on, “Gi’ me some time to think on it. ’Twill no’ be today.”
She strove to master her disappointment. “But it will be?”
“It will be.”
“You do promise?”
He did not hesitate. “I do.”
And she trusted in his promises, did she not?
She took the sack from him and shouldered it with hers.
“Do not follow from here,” she told him, and trudged off to the camp.
Obedient, he did not follow.