Chapter Fifty-Three
When members of the crew began to arrive the next morning, being young men and easily bored once back upon their home shore, Frode told Hulda she would have to be truthful with them.
“It is not a thing that can be hid, girl.”
“It is, for a time.”
“And how will they feel if they suppose you do not trust them enough to say?”
“Garik knows.”
“Tell the others, then.”
Hulda dragged her feet on it. She still did not feel well and had spent an uneasy night in the corner of the hut, listening to the old man and his son snore in tandem.
She could not face her crew, from whom she wanted respect. She had commanded them for the season, acting as a man would, and did not want their image of her to change.
As it must, if she began bursting with child. Quarrie’s child.
The men decided to help Frode drag Freya up on the shore, and then most lingered to help with repairs. She was their boat and they felt possessive.
Many of them had sore heads, having spent much time in the ale hall, talking up their exploits.
Hulda asked Helje, “Has Ivor arrived back yet?”
“Nei, not yet.” Did his gaze avoid hers? “But I do not doubt he will be back soon enough. And then…”
And then it would all come out. How Freya had stood between Ivor’s boats and the rich prize of the settlement at Murtray.
She had wanted to make explanations to her faeir first. Not that there were any explanations that could truly satisfy him.
“I was thinking,” Helje said, “if we claim we have an interest there—a holding or a part in one—then surely the others will understand why we defended it.”
“You think so?” She sought his eyes. Helje had never been a friend to her like his brother. But during the voyage, they had come to a steady liking.
He shrugged. “Who can tell? It is a rich prize to have a share in such a holding.”
It would be indeed, but what was he saying to her? That he would consider going back?
Going back.
“I also heard,” he went on, “back in the settlement, that your faeir has cast you out.”
“Who told you that?”
“No one told. Word gets around.”
The servants, no doubt.
She turned her gaze away from him and narrowed it on Freya. “It is true. He will not have me there because I am carrying a child, one of which I refuse to rid myself.”
That did surprise him. She heard his gasp, swiftly muffled. So, Garik had not speculated to his brother.
“I see. But—” Helje’s wits were anything but slow. “Not the chief there!”
“What makes you guess that?”
“It wasn’t one of us. And—I saw the way he looked at you. The way you looked at him. What will you do?”
“Stay here for now. Keep my child.”
“Ja, you are a strong woman. I do not know another who stands on her two feet like you and is willing to fight. But it is not easy with a small child. How to leave it behind when you want to go viking?”
“I do not know.”
“Does he know, this chief back in Scotland?”
Hulda shook her head. “I did not realize before I left, to tell him.”
“Well, it is a perilous course you set.”
It was, and by the end of the day Hulda decided to call together the members of the crew left on the shore and make her announcement.
“I need to tell you all, I am carrying a child. Since my faeir does not want me to shame him, he has asked me to leave his house.”
They met her news with sharp stares, as if it had never occurred to most of them that she was a woman.
She did not name the father of her child. If that got out, so be it. Since she saw them with their heads together and whispering after, she figured it might.
Had they been older men, experienced and less biddable, they might not have accepted it so readily. These men did accept it, shrugged it off, and continued to treat her thereafter much the same as always.
And yet things were not the same. Though she was grateful to Frode for a roof, she did not like living with him. The sea beckoned to her, and the far distances.
Quarrie did.
But even if she could go back, Freya lay up on the shore. And the season swiftly drew to a hard close.
*
After a fortnight, the babe had settled down inside Hulda and decided to thrive. Food went down more easily, and she did not feel quite so tired. The work on Freya helped. She hated having idle hands, which allowed her mind too much room to run. Better to feel she accomplished something.
She did not venture back to the main settlement, but to be sure, word came from there. Ivor’s ships had not yet returned, which made her uneasy. Ja, he had gone to raid in Ireland.
Or so he’d said.
Once the idea was in her mind, she would not let go of it. She and Freya had acted the part of the hundr and chased the wolf away. Once the hundr had gone, would the wolf return?
If so, she had to trust in the man she loved. Quarrie was a careful leader of a strong settlement.
Ivor was a monster. At least, he could be when he attacked. The kind of man who showed no mercy in victory, he would destroy for the sake of it.
And he wanted, still, revenge for Jute’s death. At least, that was the banner under which he flew. In truth, he might kill for the sake of it.
Whenever Hulda thought on that, she grew sick to the heart, so she tried to thrust it away. But nei, it refused to be gone.
One afternoon, when a sky that looked more winter than autumn loomed over Frode’s little bay, Garik came to her. Freya neared the end of her repairs, but Hulda would not let herself think of that either. To sail, she needed a crew.
Garik took the place at her side where she stood staring out over the sea.
“There is a boat,” he said.
“Eh?” That surprised her enough that she stared at him.
“It is poor and small and battered, but Frode insists it is seaworthy, and I think the owner will sell it to us.”
“We have a boat.” Helda gestured to Freya, unnecessarily.
“But the Fenris is already in the water. We could leave at once.”
Hulda’s heart leaped. “We?”
“It is a small boat, as I say. More an overgrown faering than anything else. I think you, me, and Helje could sail.”
Hulda gaped at him in astonishment. “What are you saying?”
He turned to face her, his eyes bright. “I am worried. Ivor has still not brought back his fleet. In my bones, I am afraid—”
“He has returned to attack Murtray.”
“Ja.”
Hulda lifted a brow. “And this worries you so—why?”
“Morag is there. I care for her.”
Oh.
“And I seem… I seem to have put down some roots. I do not know if a girl like Morag would consent to marry me—”
“Ach, Garik!”
“—but I am willing to go back and ask her.”
“Ja. Ja!”
“Can you sail? Are you too ill?”
“I can sail. But even if Helje agrees to come with us, what good are three swords against Ivor and all his men?”
“I do not know.” The words came heavy with regret.
“I have wrestled with it in my mind. It comes to me that I need to try. For if Ivor does come home bragging about having sacked the settlement, if I think of that young woman perhaps attacked or killed by Ivor’s wolves, and I have done nothing to prevent it—”
“Ja,” Hulda said again, softly. “The heart wants what it wants.” She studied her friend. “Will your brother agree to go?”
“He is eager to do so. He does not like Ivor Larsson.”
“If we buy this wreck of a boat, it will use up most of what we earned.”
Garik shrugged. “What are riches for, if not spending?”
They put the matter to Frode soon after, who looked dubious.
“Freya is nearly finished,” he told them. “If the three of you help us with her, we can have her back in the water in no time.”
“We cannot sail Freya without a crew,” Hulda protested.
“You have a crew, foolish girl.”
“Not one willing to return south now.”
“You help me, and we shall see.”
Frode put them to work, Hulda laboring hard despite her condition.
As the day progressed, two miraculous things happened—gifts from Freya herself, they might have been.
She began to feel hopeful, the occupation of her hands perhaps lifting the uncertainty from her mind.
And slowly, slowly, the members of their crew drifted into the bay.
They came one by one, or two together, bored young men with one season’s sail behind them.
At first Hulda thought they came out of curiosity or just to visit.
But Frode assigned them all jobs and they fell to working.
Garik, looking as surprised as Hulda felt, went about speaking to them. He soon gestured to Hulda.
“The crew,” he told her, not wasting words, “is reporting to sail.”
“What?”
Hulda looked around at the men. They gathered in a ring around her and Garik, looking at her seriously.
“You are all willing to sail—now?”
“Well,” Varg quipped, “just as soon as Freya is back in the water.”
“We figure if we put all hands to it,” Brynjar added, “we can get her out on tomorrow’s tide.”
“Staying in port is boring,” Helje added, making an exaggerated face.
“But—” Hulda struggled with her emotions. “We do not go to raid or to gain wealth. This is something far different.”
“My sword,” said Helje shortly, “thirsts for Ivor’s blood.”
“You gave us a chance,” said Brynjar, “when no one else would. If you need us now, well—then we are here.”
“I need you now. And I am grateful.”
“By Odin’s eye,” one of them teased, “do not start weeping. Or how can we follow you?”
“Get to work,” Frode ordered them brusquely. And they did.