Chapter Forty-Nine
Quarrie’s kisses burned in the palms of Hulda’s hands, on her lips, cheeks, and at her brow. She could still feel them, livid as a brand, when Freya moved off northward the next morning out of the narrow slip between the rocks and away.
A beautiful morning for it, and no mistake. The ocean, calm as glass, spread before them in a path lit by morning light. To the west, fair-weather clouds clothed the horizon.
The men were in high spirits. Despite the dubious encounter with their countrymen and the stance they had taken to defend the Scots settlement, one that might very well damage them back home, they were happy to be going.
They had gathered their belongings eagerly from the camp where they’d spent most the summer and departed with scarcely a backward look.
To a man, they wanted to reach home before Ivor and his contingent arrived. To brag of their exploits, of which they were justifiably proud, and make their explanations before Ivor could arrive and besmirch them.
As he would no doubt take great pleasure in doing.
Hulda—Hulda was the only member of Freya’s crew who did not want to leave. The only one who looked back longingly as Freya pulled away under the oar, with no wind at her back.
The others chatted excitedly. Of the wealth they had gained.
Of what they would do first when they reached home.
No one mentioned what had happened the day before, though Hulda did not for an instant doubt it was on everybody’s mind.
They may well feel, upon reflection, that they had made a dreadful mistake in standing with her.
Which meant she owed them this, a return home on their terms.
But ach, not until they sailed away from that rocky Scottish shore did she realize what a great and terrible part of her she left behind.
The whole of her heart. Could a woman live without her heart?
He had said he would wait for her. Forever, if need be.
Or till their next life together.
And if such an opportunity did not come? If, ja, they were born into new lives after these ended but in the wide, wide world they never more met one another?
Ach, what had she done?
She felt ill, physically as well as emotionally. She’d not expected that, yet spent the best part of their departure at the rail, fighting back nausea.
She had not been nauseated aboard a boat since the age of three.
To comfort herself—and in order to keep drawing breath—she began to imagine ways and means to return. Because now, once away, it seemed evident how vital to her a return would be.
No one could endure such loss, such mortal pain for long.
She, like her crew, had gained some wealth during this season.
Not an enormous amount, but sufficient. Enough to allow her to buy out Freya from her companions?
Nei, they would never part with the aging boat that represented their first venture, and as such held a measure of sentimental value.
Could she commission a boat of her own? Nei, she had not the wealth for that, and anyway, she would still need a crew.
This crew, preferably, who were free to make up their own minds.
She paced the deck, and when she came near Garik, he looked up at her. “Hulda? Are you well?”
She was not. Sick to the heart. Sick beyond the heart.
She perched beside him where he sat at the tiller. “Are we doing the right thing going home?” They could still turn back, even though out further among the islands they had picked up a fair wind and the men had shipped their oars.
“Ach, ja, without question.” He swept her with another glance before looking away. “You are not so sure?”
“I am not so sure.” Could she confide in him? No question but that she felt closest to Garik of all those here. And he already knew some of what she felt for Quarrie.
Quarrie.
Even Garik might not understand that she had pulled her bleeding heart from her chest and left it in the Scotsman’s hands.
“You have heard what the men are saying,” she said quietly. “Do they regret what happened back there? Standing with me against Ivor?”
He pursed his lips. “I do not know that they regret. You gave them a chance no one else would, and they are loyal hearts. Let us say the ramifications are setting in. Ivor—”
“He is not a man with whom anyone wishes to be at odds.”
“He is not. One way or another, he will make us pay.”
That statement hung between them.
“I am sorry,” Hulda said then.
“Do not be.” Garik shrugged. “You are an honest woman. One cannot deny one’s own heart.”
A longer silence ensued.
“I feel,” Hulda said then, “as if Loki has turned his eyes on me. A cruel joke, this is. An irony.”
Garik gave her a still more perceptive look. “You had better hope he has not. Do you remember when my sister, Astrid, lay down with that Irish slave to whom she took such a fancy?”
“How could I fail to remember?” A scandal, it had been, and Garik’s faeir had wound up ordering the slave killed.
“I remember how my sister looked that autumn, how ill she appeared when she was carrying her lover’s child.” Garik looked away from Hulda quite deliberately.
“Nei,” Hulda breathed. It could not be. Frantically she tried to tot up the days in her mind. When had been her last monthly? Ach, it could not have been that long ago.
Nei, and nei.
“I am only saying, are you sure?” Garik asked.
She could not go home to her faeir carrying potential disgrace and a Scottish child.
And yet how wondrous it would be. She thought of all she and Quarrie had shared together, how surely they had joined.
What if she took something away with her, in exchange for her heart?
*
By the time they arrived in Avoldsborg, Hulda was certain she carried Quarrie’s child. She had all the signs that she—admittedly vaguely—recalled hearing about from married friends. Sickness in the morning, an aversion to even the smell of food, and bone-deep weariness such as she’d never known.
Loki had indeed turned his eyes upon her. Could there be a more ironic outcome? She, set upon living her life as a man, becoming a móeir. Móeir to a faeirless child.
Nei, but her babe was not faeirless. But so far as her own faeir would be concerned…
The crew was happy to see home, especially as there’d been no sign yet of Ivor or his fleet. They anchored Freya in the main harbor and went off to their families, eager to boast of their season and try to smooth the waters ahead of the approaching storm.
To Hulda’s surprise, Garik hugged her when they parted. “Will you tell your faeir?”
“Tell him what?” asked Helje, who stood by.
“About our defense of the Scots settlement,” Hulda said quickly. “Ja, sure. I will have to tell him.”
Her gaze met Garik’s for an instant. “Better perhaps to tell your móeir,” he suggested. “Móeirs are often more sympathetic.”
Good advice, as Hulda decided when she got home, especially as she found Faeir away at a council meeting.
She thew herself on Móeir’s mercy and told her all. Well, nearly all, since there was no real way to explain what she felt for Quarrie.
It did not help to see, as she spoke, the growing horror in Móeir’s eyes.
“Ach, Hulda! What have you done? That was most unwise.”
“Mayhap so. But Móeir, surely you understand that a woman cannot always choose to whom she loses her heart.”
“Her heart!” Móeir had been seated beside the fire when Hulda began her accounting. Now she got to her feet and turned away. “We are surely talking about something far more vulgar. You were tempted. By, of all things, one of them.”
“Nei, it was not that way.”
Móeir stormed on. “I thought when you went off with a boat full of young men, it would be one of them to seduce you. I mean, one woman among so many. Bad enough for you to come home with a Norse babe in your belly.” She whirled and eyed Hulda starkly. “But that?”
Hulda’s throat went dry and her heart began to pound. She had hoped, ja, for some understanding. It seemed she would not receive it.
“My babe will be a babe like to any other.” Indeed, despite her best efforts during the voyage home, she’d already begun picturing the child. Male or female, she did not care. Would it have its faeir’s eyes? His hair? Ach, by Freya’s heart, his smile? Wee freckles on its skin?
A maternal sort of woman or not, she already loved this child near as much as its faeir, if only because it was his.
Móeir, completely out of character, raged on. “Is it not enough we have lost your bróeir? The son of whom your faeir was so proud. Left with a dottir. And now you bring us disgrace.”
Disgrace. “Móeir.” Hulda tried to calm herself by drawing a breath. “This happens all the time. It is not such a disgrace to come up with a babe outside an official joining.”
“Not some…some Scots mongrel! Your faeir will never stand for it. Thanks be to Freya he is not here now.” Móeir glared at Hulda, her eyes wild. “There is only one thing to be done.”
Hulda, who had also sprung to her feet and now stood trembling, lifted her chin. “What is that?”
“You must go and see old Roskva. At once. At once! Before your faeir finds out.”
“Roskva?”
“She will know how to get rid of it. She has—has ways, Hulda.”
Hulda believed it. Old Roskva was a witch, a powerful woman among the members of the community. An aged hag of whom Hulda had been terrified when she was young. Perhaps she was terrified of her still.
“I am not about to let her touch me.”
“Unfortunate, ja, but you must.”
“She will kill my child.” Quarrie’s child.
“Ja. You are very early, so it will not be too bad. Best to take care of it now.”
“I am not letting her kill my child.” She would, with everything in her, protect this babe. Just as she would have protected its faeir.
“Then what?” Móeir challenged her. “You will not be able to go viking again with a babe at your breast, and no one will agree to look after it for you. If you think your faeir will have it here—”
Cold settled over Hulda, a deep chill that penetrated to the bone.
“I will not allow anyone to harm this child.”
Móeir tossed her hands in the air. “Then may Freya help you, dottir. No one else will.”