Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
"They're early."
Torvald said it from the doorway of the study with the tone of a man who wasn't surprised and wasn't complaining but felt the observation deserved to be made.
Ivar didn't look up from the coastal map. "How many?"
"Two birlinns so far. Third one coming around the point." A pause. "Erik's colors on the first one."
"Of course, he's first." Ivar rolled the map. "Get the yard ready. And tell the kitchen."
"Kitchen already kens." Torvald leaned against the doorframe. "Marta's been ready since this mornin'. She made enough food fer a siege."
"Good." Ivar stood. "Where's Matilda?"
"Her chamber, last I kent. Sigrid's with her."
"Tell Sigrid tae bring her tae the Great Hall. Nae the yard." He picked up his cloak. "I dinnae want her standin' on the dock bein' looked at like a prize tae be inspected before she's had a moment tae breathe."
Torvald looked at him with the expression he wore when he had something to say and was deciding whether to say it. He decided against it.
"Aye," he said, and went.
Erik came through the gate first, which was how Erik came through most things, ahead of everyone else and entirely aware of it.
He was broader than Ivar remembered, which shouldn't have been possible but apparently was. Claricia was beside him with a child on her hip and the expression of a woman who had crossed open water with a toddler and had opinions about that.
"Raven." Erik's voice carried across the yard. He was already grinning, which meant he was in a good mood, which meant the crossing had been smooth and nobody had annoyed him. "Ye look terrible."
"Ye look old," Ivar said.
"I look distinguished." Erik crossed the yard and gripped his arm and Ivar gripped back and they stood like that for a moment, the greeting of men who had known each other long enough to skip everything that wasn't necessary. "Good tae see ye."
"And ye." He looked at Claricia. "How was the crossin’?"
"Long," Claricia said, with feeling. "Thorsten decided the boat was a very interestin' thing tae try tae climb off of approximately forty times."
She shifted the child on her hip.
Thorsten was a little over a year old and had Erik's coloring and Claricia's eyes and the focused determination of a child who had recently discovered that the world was full of things he hadn't touched yet.
He was currently examining Ivar with the serious assessment of someone conducting important research.
"He's got his faither's face," Ivar said.
"Aye," Claricia said. "I'm tryin' nae tae hold it against him."
Erik put a hand at the back of her neck and she leaned into it without looking at him, the casual intimacy of people who had stopped noticing they were doing it, and Ivar looked away.
The second birlinn was already unloading at the dock.
Magnus came through the gate with Ada beside him. Their daughter Astrid against his chest in a wrap of woven wool, small and dark-haired and apparently asleep despite the noise of the yard.
Ada had the alert eyes of a woman who hadn't slept more than four consecutive hours in five months and was managing it with a composure that Ivar found genuinely impressive.
"Ivar." Magnus gripped his arm. He was a man of few words at the best of times, and the arrival of a child appeared to have reduced that number further, but what was left was warm. "Good tae be here."
"Aye. Good tae have ye." He looked at Astrid. "She's grown."
"Every day." Something moved in Magnus's face that was entirely unguarded, gone before most people would have caught it. "Ada says she has me temperament."
"God help ye both," Ivar said.
Ada looked at him with those steady hazel eyes.
"She's sleeping," she said. "If anyone wakes her I willnae be responsible fer what happens."
"Understood," Ivar said.
"Tell Erik," she said. "The men I'm nae worried about."
Erik, from across the yard, appeared to sense he was being discussed and looked over. Claricia said something to him that made him look away again.
Ragnar came through the gate last, Isolda beside him.
Ivar watched his friend cross the yard with the same ground-eating stride he'd had since they were young men, the same composure, and something else now, something settled and unguarded that hadn't been there before.
Isolda had dark hair and grey-green eyes and the self-possession of someone who had decided something recently and was at peace with it.
"Ragnar." They gripped arms. "How was the passage?"
"Fine." Ragnar looked at him steadily. "Ye look like ye havenae slept."
"I slept."
"When?"
"Enough." He looked at Isolda. "Lady Isolda. Welcome tae Mull."
"Thank ye." She looked around the yard with the frank curiosity of someone taking genuine inventory. "It's bigger than I expected."
"It grows on ye," Ivar said. "Usually by the second day."
"Is that when Lady Matilda is currently?" she said. Not unkindly. Just direct.
"Aye," he said. "Second day."
Isolda and Ragnar exchanged a look that communicated something quickly.
“Let’s head to the hall. She’ll be waiting.” Ivar said as he led them to the hall.
The yard was noise and movement and strangers all at once, and he'd learned enough in the past twenty-four hours to know that she managed things better when she could see the full shape of them before they arrived.
The Great Hall had a door. The door gave her the arrivals one at a time. One at a time was manageable; a yard full of Vikings was a siege.
She was standing near the hearth when he brought them in. Sigrid was a step behind her, and she had her chin up and her hands still and her face composed.
She was wearing the deep green dress again, her hair pinned up with silver combs that caught the firelight. She looked regal, but as he approached, he saw the rhythmic pulse at the base of her throat—a frantic, hidden bird that meant she was working at the composure rather than simply wearing it.
Nobody else would see it.
He crossed the hall and went to stand beside her, close enough that she'd know he was there. She exhaled very slightly and he pretended not to notice.
Claricia came through the door first, still with Thorsten on her hip, Erik a step behind her. She assessed the hall, found Matilda, and crossed toward her.
"Ye must be Matilda. I'm Claricia. This one is Thor, and he'll want tae touch yer hair. I apologize in advance."
Thor reached. Matilda caught his small hand before it connected, gently, automatically, and Thor looked at his captured hand and then up at her and opened his mouth.
"Dinnae, me love," Matilda said, her voice dropping into that low, melodic command that had silenced Ivar in the storage room.
Thor closed his mouth.
Ivar watched Erik watch this happen. Erik's eyebrows went up. He looked at Ivar.
Ivar looked back at him with nothing on his face.
"He never daes that," Claricia said. She was staring at Matilda. "How did ye dae that?"
"I have nay idea," Matilda said, which was honest.
"She used the same voice on me," Ivar said. "First night. Works every time."
Matilda turned her head and looked at him. He kept his expression entirely neutral as she looked back at Claricia.
"I'll need that explained later," Claricia said to Matilda, keeping her face and her tone neutral.
Erik roared, clapping a hand on Ivar’s shoulder that nearly sent them both into the fire. "She’s got steel in her, Raven."
"She has more than steel, Erik," Ivar said, his eyes meeting Matilda’s for a long, charged moment. "She has a very sharp tongue when provoked. I’d advise ye tae watch yers."
"Good." Erik looked at Matilda directly. "Lady Matilda. Welcome tae Mull. I'm Erik. The best-looking of the lot."
"He says that every time," Magnus said, from behind him, Astrid against his chest in her wrap, Ada at his side.
"It keeps being true."
"It keeps being something," Magnus said.
Matilda looked between them. A small line had appeared at the corner of her mouth, cutting through her nerves. "Are they always this exhausting?" she whispered.
"Only when they’re trying tae impress a lady," Ivar replied, his thumb tracing a slow, distracting circle against her hip.
"Besides, they're worse, usually," he said. "Today they're making an effort."
She pressed her lips together and noticed how his eyes lingered on his lips.
Ada stepped forward. Looked at Matilda, and said, "How are ye managin'?” Her voice was low, only for Matilda.
"Ask me tomorrow, please," Matilda said. "Today is too overwhelming fer an answer."
Ada looked at her for a moment. "Aye," she said. "That's the right response."
Ragnar came last with Isolda, and Isolda looked at Matilda with the eyes of someone who had been through exactly that and remembered it clearly.
"Ivar's keep is warmer than Ragnar's," she said, by way of opening. "That's somethin'."
"Is it?" Matilda said.
"In November, considerably." She glanced back at Ragnar, who had already crossed to Ivar, and lowered her voice. "The first week is the hardest. After that ye start tae ken where things are."
"Daes it actually get easier?" Matilda said. "Or dae people just say that?"
Isolda considered it. "A bit of both," she said. "But mostly it is true."
Ragnar stopped beside Ivar and looked across the hall at Matilda.
"She held up well," he said.
"Aye," Ivar said.
"Erik's already decided he likes her."
"I heard," Ivar said.
Ragnar looked at him sideways. "Ye're standing very close tae her for a man who said this was a political arrangement."
Ivar said nothing.
He looked across the hall at Matilda, who was listening to something Isolda was saying with her chin slightly up and her hands still, almost smiling.
They moved toward the fire.
The men gathered near the fire while the women settled at the far end of the hall with the children, and it became, gradually, the comfortable noise of people who had missed each other and were making up for it.