Chapter Fifty-Two
With nowhere else to go, Hulda took refuge on Freya. It had the advantage of removing her from the main part of the settlement, the longboat now being anchored back in Frode’s small harbor. There she could, perhaps, lick her wounds. Hide for a few days, if she would admit to that desire.
They had returned Freya so that the old man could give her a proper overhaul, but he had not yet begun the work, and she stood as she had come in, battered from a season’s sailing.
By then, Hulda scarcely cared. She stowed her belongings and sought the bed she’d used while aboard, which smelled of salt water and musty furs.
The little bay lay quiet, only a single plume of smoke rising up from Frode’s hut. Hulda lay in her cot and stared up at nothing, wishing…
Well, in truth, she did not know for what to wish. That Móeir might have taken her part? That Faeir thought more of his own flesh and blood than his reputation?
That she were lying in Quarrie’s arms.
Och, by Freya’s heart, he did not know. He did not even know that she carried his child. He might never know that she’d given up her place in her home to preserve that child’s life.
How could she do aught else? Their child might well be all she’d ever have of him. A little boy with wavy auburn hair. Or a girl with his laughing, hazel-green eyes. And, mayhap, if Hulda were very lucky, his smile.
How could she willingly lose that precious child in a rush of blood? Bad enough that such things happened accidentally. She had lived most of her life in a rough-and-tumble man’s world. She had no way to be sure that her body knew how to bear a child.
It had known how to love a man, though. Ach, ja, it had. How to open itself to the one she adored. Give and give to him. Take him in.
Just the memory of it made her dizzy.
She had grown up aboard boats like Freya, and lying in her cot, being rocked by the gentle motion of the bay, should be comforting. Instead, it made her feel ill.
She had to rise and run for the rail, where she vomited and vomited, losing what felt like all she’d taken to eat for days.
And what was she to do? How to exist here, on this vessel, when the weather began to turn bitter? When her belly grew. When the Freya was hauled in for repairs.
She had gambled for love, and lost the direction of her life.
The night proved a long one. She was up several times dry-heaving over the side, for she had nothing left in her. Limp as a wet sail, she still half hung over the rail when Frode’s son, Bjarni, came down to the shore next morning and stood looking at her.
He soon went away, no doubt to tell Frode she was there. Hulda crawled off to her cot and at last fell asleep.
It was afternoon when she woke, and she felt cold. A stiff breeze battered Freya at her anchor and the waves felt rough.
Hulda sat up and clutched at her stomach. Yet another trip to the rail brought up nothing. When she raised her head, dripping and miserable, Frode called to her from the shore.
“Hulda! Girl, what are you doing there?”
She lifted her eyes and looked at him, striving mightily not to look as ill as she felt. What could she say?
“Come ashore,” he called. “Have something to eat.”
At the thought of food, her stomach commenced a slow roll. But if she did not begin to look after herself, she would do old Roskva’s job for her.
“Ja, I will come.”
Frode lived with his son in the cluttered hut, little more than a kennel, if truth be told. It did not smell good inside, but Hulda was grateful to be in out of the cold wind.
Bjarni sat by the fire and Frode put Hulda there, then began passing her food while scowling.
“Girl, what are you doing there aboard Freya?”
“I was trying to sleep.”
“You did sleep.” He grunted. “I went aboard to see to you.” He examined her without much mercy. “Are you ill?”
“I had to leave home.” She looked at the bread in her hands. “I have nowhere else.”
“Freya needs to be hauled ashore for repairs.”
“Ja. Give me a few days. I will gather myself soon.”
“I suppose I could give you a few days, ja. Why cannot you go home?”
“I am no longer welcome under my faeir’s roof.”
“Why?”
“That concerns me alone.”
“The same as your writhing at the rail of my good boat concerns you?”
“She is our boat now, and ja, like that.”
Frode looked at his son. “If you have finished your breakfast, you can go and sort out those planks from yesterday. Ja?”
Bjarni rose and left without question.
“Eat your breakfast,” Frode told Hulda, “if you can. It is sometimes difficult for a woman who is expecting, ja?”
Hulda stared at him in dismay. “I—”
“Do not bother lying to me. It insults both of us. Do you think me a fool? I have seen women who behave like you before.”
Hulda went silent.
“Has your faeir tossed you out?”
“Ja.”
“Can you turn to the faeir of the babe? Perhaps he will marry you.”
If only.
“Nei, I cannot.”
Frode fixed her with a discerning eye. “Who is the faeir? Is it young Garik?”
“Nei.”
“I must say I am surprised, even though I should not be. Send a woman off with a crew of lusty young men, what will happen?”
“It is none of the crew.”
That did shock him. “Who, then?”
“I would rather not say.”
He grunted again. “Well, if you cannot turn to the faeir and you cannot turn to a friend—”
“I cannot.”
“—neither can you continue to stay upon a boat in the winter harbor. You shall have to stay here with me.”
“What?”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
“I am not stupid.”
“Are you not? Too stupid to know what happens when a girl lies down with a boy.”
“Ja, well—”
“There will be more to the story, I am certain.”
“My móeir and my faeir want me to get rid of the child.” She had to fight back her emotions. “His child.”
“I see.”
Hulda glanced around. “I cannot stay here.” She did not want to. “There is no room.”
“We will make room. It is warm. You will help with work on Freya. Your child, ja, will be born with skill in his fingers.”
“Or hers.”
She could not stay here. Not for the whole winter. Mayhap, though, a little while.
“Frode, it is kind of you.”
“Is it?”
“I can pay my way.”
“I do not want pay. I had a dottir once.”
“Did you?” She had not known he had even a wife, though since he had a son…
“She died. But if my dottir had come home to me with a brat in her belly, I would not have thrown her out. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“That child would still be partly mine.”
Hulda found she had tears in her eyes.
“Now eat and drink something, else you will be in far more trouble than you need to be. If you want to keep that babe, you will take care of yourself.”
She wanted to keep the babe. Resolute, she choked down her bread and ale.