Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The cove the next morning was quiet. The clear water showed the Viking longship perfectly upright, well below the surface.
The birds high up in the forest called back and forth as small black crabs scuttled over the rocks in the mouth of the inlet.
Orabilia made her way to the entrance of the cave; she dropped her things and pulled her short sword.
Inside the cave the Viking sat. Milk-soaked bread was in one hand and, in the other, the skin of milk she’d left for him. The fire had more wood on it from the pile she’d left, and he with effort turned his head toward her.
“I cannot see you well, but I know your step and fresh spring smell.”
“I see yer up and around…”
“I am. I also am— Is that a sword?”
“I thought you couldn’t see.”
“The light behind you tells me there’s something glinting in your hand. I’m no fool. You are Scots. I do not want to fight you now. I am injured. It will not be an honorable fight. I wish to see you clearly as you shove that blade betwixt my ribs.”
Orabilia wasn’t sure why, but what he’d said was humorous.
“That, and,” he continued, “I am finally feeling the pangs of hunger and would like to finish my meal.”
Orabilia slipped her blade away. “Aye, no sense in killing ye before ye’ve supped. Go on, then. I’ve things to take care of. I’ll be back, Viking.”
“Ormr.”
“What was that?”
“My name.”
“Oh…I see. Ahmhair.”
“Ormr.”
“Yes, Omerrr.”
He gave up and asked, “And you are?”
“The woman who saved ye.” Leaving the cave entrance, she tossed over her shoulder, “I’ll be back before sundown.”
Squatting in the field, her favorite wooden digger in her hand, pulling up the wild garlic to plant in the fields closer to home, Orabilia thought of the Viking.
He had been calm, and his eyes keen, but they also had held a fire in them that spoke of pain.
She had tinctures for that. What he really needed was a swim in the inlet.
But if he could barely see, that would be foolish, she argued with herself.
She uprooted the last of the garlic for the home kitchen and hurried along the path back to the cove, her heart light and full of exhilaration.
She would not look closely at why she felt that way, nor at the reason she had yet to inform anyone, much less her father who had returned from Uig, what she had found.
She knew now that the Viking had been a part of the battle her father spoke of.
And for that, he must be questioned before he was hanged.
The thought of him being executed after all the work she’d done to keep him alive made her stomach twist. The gods would show her the path soon enough. She just needed to be patient.
Back in the cove, she dropped her things and entered the cave. “I have returned—”
Only he was not there. Her mind whirled. He was stalking her. Or she had been followed by her own people, and he discovered, and that meant he was already as good as dead. She rushed out of the cave and grabbed her things when an exhale sounded from the inlet.
The Viking was there, surfacing. He was…swimming. Orabilia watched as he swam gracefully back toward shore. He didn’t indicate he’d seen her. For reasons she also could not explain, she stepped to the side of an outcropping of rock to spy on him as he got out of the water.
He was the enemy and should not be admired, but she supposed she could appreciate fine things even if they were venomous.
His shoulders were wide; he was built for wielding a weapon, an ax or a sword.
His abdomen rippled with muscle, though she could tell he needed more food.
She should not have looked between his thighs to his manhood, but like a child in the farmyard, she could not help but be curious.
The inlet was cold, and his privates were tucked up in and tight.
It would be a pity if he were brawny in all ways but one.
The gods could be cruel. He squatted down, picked up his breeks from behind a rock, and slipped them on as he stood.
He was still for a moment before standing and turning toward the cave. He called, “Back so soon?”
She stayed still, knowing there was no way he could see her from there.
“I can sense you. I cannot see you. Come. I need your assistance.”
Against the wall of the cave entrance, she scoffed. “Nae!” she hollered out.
“Come. The water is too deep, and my head pounds in pain.”
She gathered her things and came around the cave entrance.
“Oh,” she said at his form, which stood immediately before her. Crystal droplets hung off his lashes and beard. He smiled at her. He was still wearing only his torn pants. His upper body, up close, was sculpted into the physical manifestation of a god.
“Come,” he said again, this time softly and looking deep into her soul with sparking forest-green eyes.
“Oh?” was all she managed. It felt as if she’d lived within that moment hundreds of times before.
His word, come, slithered over her skin before it wormed its way into her ear and embedded itself deep into her consciousness.
It was clear then. He was a secret she was keeping.
He was something she had to share with no one, and in a clan that depended on self-sacrifice and going without when others were in need, he’d become something of a hidden treasure.
With this human who was her sworn enemy, she could be herself: acerbic and demanding.
She did not have to be “the chief’s daughter.
” She could command his attention with the power of who she was, not the facade of a woman born to a powerful clan leader.
A wince crossed his face then, and he wavered.
Orabilia commanded him, “Sit.” And with a hand to his upper arm, she gently sat him on the flat rock behind him. Then, she pulled out her tinctures. “Stick out your tongue.”
He obeyed, taking his medicine. Then, elbows on his knees, he let Orabilia examine his head wound.
With light fingers and gentle eye, she determined it had healed; now the skin was pink and fresh.
She took her time undoing the plaits around the scar and gently combed them out with her fingers before pulling all his wet hair back.
She gave the base of his neck a rub, as if he were her pony, and a gentle pat.
She heard a guttural sigh escape his mouth before: “Thank the gods for you, friend,” he whispered.
The word friend rolled around in her belly before attacking her heart, making it squeeze with pleasure.
She tsked. “Do not butter me with fine words before gutting me, Viking.”
He straightened up and gave her a genuine smile. “You remind me of the woman who birthed me. Tell me, do you also hold witchcraft in these fingers?” He reached for her hand, and it was too soon to allow his touch. She yanked her hands away.
“Do not touch me so familiarly, Viking.”
His smile vanished, and a keen fire erupted in his gaze. “I meant it in kindness.” Orabilia kept his gaze until he nodded in understanding. “I am what I am. Aren’t I?”
“The monster of my nightmares.”
“And yet you brought me back from my promised death—why?”
Orabilia shook her head. “I have asked myself that same question every day since I found yer body. I cannot explain what I myself do not know.”
“And I have silenced everyone who has ever spoken to me as you have, and yet…I am blind to it with you. Abuse me, friend. Gladly, you may be my downfall, and to Valhalla, I’ll go, with your blade sending me there.”
Orabilia laughed out. “Kill ye? Nae, not after I’ve brought you back to the living, but if ye try anything, Viking, I will choose me over you, aye?”
“Yes.”
She held her hands out to him, palms up, and said, “Now, what do you want with these?”
He grasped her wrist, turning her hand so that her fingers pointed to the sky. He touched the tip of his pointer finger to her index finger. After a moment passed, he groaned. “I’m still too weak. I cannot.”
“What is it that you are attempting?”
“It’s better that I show you.”
“Fine,” she said and resisted the urge to tuck one of his golden locks behind his ear. But then he did it as if she’d asked him to.
Orabilia looked out to the inlet and then back to him, shaking off the feeling of deep connection with the Viking in her hands. “Now, tell me, Viking, what is it that you were doing in the water?”
“There is something very precious to me that sunk with the ship. I can see it.”
Without thinking, she moved to the water’s edge. The Viking was at her shoulder—her heart quickened as she felt his breath on the curve of her neck—and they both looked into the crystal clear depths to the ship that rested peacefully below.
“’Tis stuck in the boards, right there. But I cannot manage it yet.” In his pause, they both realized something, but only he voiced it. “You are well versed in the ways of the water; surely you can make it down and back in a single breath.”
“Yes, I could…” She couldn’t tell him that the act of slipping her clothes off while he watched was something that created feelings in her that she could not identify. “I’ll not have a Viking standing here while I do it.”
“Naked as the day you were born? Are you shy, Scotswoman? What is it that you are afraid of? Is it that your patient will see the skin of the doctor’s arse?”
She tsked at his obstinate nature and corrected his thinking. “Not afraid, Viking.”
“Ah,” he said. Then: “Afraid that I’ll fall to my knees in abject wonder?”
Instead of laughing him off, she pulled her sword. The tip of it was sharp, and she had a point to make. “You mistake me, enemy. You have raped and plundered your way through our lands. What I see as mine, you lot see as a market where the goods are free for the taking.”
He was solemn and raised his hands in surrender. “It is fair.”
Orabilia narrowed her eyes at him and waited. For a sarcastic follow-up. Or the laugh that some men too long at war were too quick to, propelling the person of their ridicule into shame and subjugation. Neither came.
“It is fine, Scotswoman. I will not pressure you more. I have spent some time thinking of you. As foe, I understand. I want friendship from you, but I trust foe from you.”
He turned from her and moved back toward the cave, seemingly content to leave the thing he wanted in the sea until he was well enough to retrieve it himself.
Orabilia was taken aback by the ease with which he let go of his quest. It made her do something that she would look back on with curiosity.
“Oye! Why it is so important to ye?” she called to him.
He stopped where he was, halfway over the rocky beach, and turned back. “I traveled long and hard to acquire it. A sword. It is superior in every way: light yet strong, balanced yet brutal. It is my power. Without it, I am not Ormr. It is my right hand, and it gives me strength.”
“Mm,” she said, giving herself a moment to think on it before saying, “If that is the way of it, then I feel I have a solution.”