Chapter Forty-Four
“The Norse ha’ gone off raiding again.” Borald greeted Quarrie with those words when he climbed the steps to pace the walls, some days later. “We saw them sail past just after dawn.”
Quarrie narrowed his eyes upon the sea, even though Freya would be long gone. He’d been waylaid en route here by half a score of people wishing to state their complaints.
About the Norse.
When are they going to leave? Will they hold our lands forever? ’Tis good hunting ground to which ye ha’ given them leave.
And, Why do they come here so often? Can they no’ keep to their own camp?
How long will they use our lands to prey upon our neighbors?
He had but few answers for his folk, who clearly were not happy with him.
The Norse did come to the settlement frequently, mostly to trade, a familiar if unwelcome sight. They paid well for the goods they bought, the ugly truth being that they price they offered had blood upon it. Scottish blood.
The three Norse leaders—the man called Garik, the one named Helje who Hulda said was Garik’s brother, and Hulda herself—came most often.
Indeed, Garik had become…not friendly, for it was far from that, but garrulous with some of their folk.
He, like Hulda, possessed a working knowledge of their tongue.
A good-looking young man, he also possessed a measure of charm, and Quarrie had seen him more than once talking with their young women.
His men did not like it, and more than one had told Quarrie so. Indeed, he tired of hearing about the Norse.
If the complaints were the price he must pay in order to see Hulda, however, aye, he was willing to pay it.
He had seen her in passing, though they had been alone together only once more.
A night of bliss that had been, for they had sated themselves in one another, mating in every way a man and woman could, and then some.
His Hulda, it proved, was both imaginative and uninhibited.
Despite her having left him utterly spent, however, the desire for her continued to gnaw at him after.
Which just went to prove that whatever he had of her could not be enough.
“They will be leaving soon,” he told Borald. “Off back to Norway.”
Borald’s gaze flew to him. “Is that what she told ye, the woman warrior?”
Quarrie hesitated. The whole clan knew he and Hulda met to talk. He could only pray they suspected naught more. Yet he swore he caught a gleam of knowing in Borald’s blue eyes.
“They will go home for winter, aye.”
That made Borald snort. “Winter is a long way off, curse them.”
It was not, not truly. On days like this one, clear, far-reaching days with a brisk wind off the sea, Quarrie could almost smell autumn.
His chances to see Hulda, talk with her, lie with her, dwindled. And these days might be all he would ever have.
She did love him, aye. He could not doubt that. Yet their situation was all but impossible.
Their alliance, however, had helped to keep the settlement safe.
He had no doubt of that either. For during these days, Freya’s sails were not the only ones the Scots keeping watch had sighted.
One afternoon, a group of three longboats had appeared out in the waters just past Oileán Iur.
Defenses had scrambled, men racing for arms, women gathering their children and fearing the worst.
Before any attack could come, however, Freya—in readiness for a voyage of her own—had sailed out to meet the incomers.
Hulda had herself related what passed between them, during the night they shared that came soon after.
“I told their leader, a man I did not know, for he is not from my home vík, that these are our waters. He agreed to turn away.”
She had done as she’d promised, acted as a fierce hound on Quarrie’s behalf. That did not mean others would not come, after she had gone.
“Keep good watch,” he told Borald now. “Wi’ them awa’, we are more open to danger.”
Borald snorted again. “Wi’ all respect, chief, d’ye no’ think we can look after oursel’s? ’Tis what we did long before that lot came.”
“And plenty died for it, aye? I say only, we ha’ an alliance. Why no’ mak’the most o’ it?”
“And I say we better no’ rely too heavily on such an untrustworthy set o’ allies.”
The man was right. Yet so tangled were Quarrie’s thoughts and emotions, he could scarcely think straight.
“I do no’ trust them,” Borald stated plainly. “And I do no’ like their men comin’ here so often to trade. Speaking to our women. That fair-haired one now—”
“Garik.” Hulda’s second-in-command.
“Him, aye.” Loathing entered Borald’s voice. “He has been speaking wi’ Morag.”
“Has he, then?” Quarrie fixed his friend with a sharp eye. They were close enough that he knew Morag for the young woman Borald had himself been courting for nearly two years without much success.
“Aye.” Sourly, Borald added, “I do no’ understand how she can gi’ him her time, and him with Scottish blood on his hands.”
“Does she give him her time?” Quarrie asked, surprised.
“Och, aye.” For an instant, despair looked at Quarrie from Borald’s eyes. “As much or more than she ever ga’ me.”
Aye, that was a problem. Quarrie’s men might—just barely—tolerate an alliance with hated members of the race that beleaguered them. Allowing them to poach their women? Never.
Yet men were men and women were women, and attraction would spring up where it may. He could hardly argue with that.
But he could not say so to Borald.
“Ye meet wi’ yon Hulda often enough,” Borald said unhappily. “Tell me they do no’ mean to come back in the spring.”
“We ha’ spoken, aye, about the alliance enduring for next season. But who can tell wha’ will happen by then? Many things may change over the course o’ a winter.”
“I can only hope so. I will be happy if I ne’er see them again—any o’ them.”
And Quarrie’s heart would shatter into a thousand pieces, were that so.
*
“Hulda—the men want to go home.” Garik, having handed the tiller over to another crew member, chose the moment they sailed back into their borrowed Scottish harbor to deliver the news.
They came flush with plunder following yet another series of successful raids farther south.
That being so, Hulda could not imagine what reason the men had to complain.
Had her bargain with Quarrie not given them a canny berth from which to operate?
She eyed Garik closely. “Are they not happy with what they have earned?”
“Ja. No one can say he is not.”
“Then why withdraw before times?”
“They tire of the rough camp. Of the hostility that lurks just out of sight.”
“They would be hostile too, toward folk who so often laid a blade to their throats.”
Garik hesitated. “They grow tired of what they see between you and the Murtray.”
Alarm raced through Hulda like fire. “What do they see?”
Garik gave her a speaking look. “Do not insult them, Hulda. They see what I saw long ago. You want him. For all I know, you have likely had him. Those meetings you keep arranging that last the whole night long…”
Dismayed, Hulda said nothing.
“It is none of my business, with whom you lie down.” Garik, though, still sounded uneasy. “A woman wants to rut as does a man, so I suppose.”
“Ach, does she?”
“Ja.”
“That is generous of you.”
“Do not grow annoyed with me. Believe me, I understand. There is a little woman among the Scots at the settlement—”
“Is there, now?”
“She is in charge of trading their food supplies. We have been bargaining. And talking.”
Surprised, Hulda said nothing.
“She is among the loveliest women I have ever seen. We have grown…not friendly, nei, but perhaps comfortable talking with one another. I once even made her laugh.”
Garik, at his best, could make most anyone laugh.
“So—so though I perhaps did not before, when we spoke, I do understand it. And me, I would not mind coming back next spring. But the men…”
“What is her name, this Scots lass?”
“Morag.” Garik stared away over the rail with a look in his eyes such as Hulda had never before seen there.
“She is able to understand my garbled command of their tongue, which is why the head o’ stores put her on to dealing with me.
They are not so different from us,” he reflected, “once you stop with slitting their throats.”
Hulda had no response to that.
“So as I say, Hulda, I understand. And a promise to return—one I could perhaps give to Morag—would not go amiss with me. To be honest, I do not know how many others among the crew will be eager for a return voyage.”
“Despite what they have gained?”
“The alliance with the Scots makes them uncomfortable. Your attitude toward the Murtray does.”
She had heard the mutterings, aye. Freya and, indeed, the camp was not large enough for her to miss overhearing. But Norsemen were by and large a practical breed. She had hoped avarice alone might bring them back.
“Well, then.” She puffed out a breath. “We will find another crew, come spring.”
Garik scoffed. “Not if they tell everyone you have gone making alliances with the Scots, instead of killing them.”
“It is done in Dublin. In—”
“I know, I know. It is done there by powerful jarls and commanders. Not by such as we.”
Hulda frowned. The fear that seemed to have become lodged inside her, all tangled up with her love for Quarrie, stirred and unsheathed its claws.
She must return. Leaving would be hard. Near impossible. She could not do it, were she not certain she could return.
“We will find another crew,” she insisted with certainty she did not feel. “You may tell your Morag you will be coming back to her.”
“She is not my Morag.” But he would like her to be. “And she has said nothing to make me think she would welcome me back. There are many, far too many difficulties between us.” He leveled a stare upon Hulda. “I doubt such a joining would ever work.”
“Ja.” Hulda had to admit it. There was a surfeit of doubt in the world, and far too little certainty.