Chapter 13 Leif’s Bargain with the Harbor Steward
The harbor steward’s shed leaned over the tide pools like a drunkard refusing the ground. Wind drove salt through its warped boards, and beneath the floor the trapped water slapped and sucked at the stones.
Leif shoved the door open with his shoulder.
Eamon Rourke sat inside with his wrists bound before him, one cheek darkened by a bruise. He had been placed on an overturned fish crate beneath the steward’s narrow window. Maeve stood near the wall, her torn cloak drawn close, black curls damp with snowmelt. Her gray-green eyes found Leif at once.
Only Eamon’s name remained.
The witness list was gone. The torn scrap recovered at the chapel proved nothing by itself, and the last answer had vanished beneath a boot in the white. Yet Eamon had not. Leif intended to make that distinction matter.
“Leave us,” he told Darragh.
Darragh Kavanagh glanced at Maeve, then at the prisoner. “He has said nothing since we dragged him from the quay.”
“He will.”
“He fears what comes after.”
Leif stepped farther into the shed. The smell of brine, old rope, and fish oil clung to the air. “Then he should speak before it comes.”
Darragh’s jaw tightened, but he withdrew. The door slammed behind him. For a moment, the only sound was the tide moving under the boards.
Eamon watched Leif with a pale, calculating face. “You mean to kill me.”
“If I meant that, you would not be sitting on a crate.”
“You Norsemen call every threat a bargain.”
“And you Irishmen call every lie a delay.”
Maeve’s gaze sharpened. Leif felt it on him, not as censure but as warning. She had seen what anger made of him before. She had stood between him and it when his rage at her cousin threatened to break the alliance they had sworn upon the oath-stone.
He would not make her do so again.
Leif crouched before Eamon. The movement pulled at the healing cut along his ribs, but he gave no sign. “The forged witness list was taken to the old quay. From there, where?”
Eamon looked toward Maeve. “She knows what her family does to men who speak against them.”
Maeve’s fingers closed around the edge of her cloak. “Do not use my name to purchase your silence.”
“Your name is the only reason any of us are still breathing.”
“No,” she said. “That is Leif’s restraint.”
The words struck deeper than they ought. He kept his eyes on Eamon.
“What was written on the list?” Leif asked.
“The names of men who would swear your marriage was false.”
“Our oath was witnessed.”
“By men who can be bought, threatened, or made to disappear.”
Leif seized the front of Eamon’s wool tunic and hauled him upright. The crate scraped over the boards. “Where is the list?”
Eamon’s breath came fast, but his eyes remained fixed. “You think fear makes a man honest?”
“No. Pain makes him careless.”
Maeve moved before Leif could say more. Her hand closed around his wrist.
The touch was light. It stopped him all the same.
“Leif.”
He looked at her. Snowlight spilled through the warped wall behind her, catching the crescent birthmark just below her left collarbone where the cloak had slipped.
He remembered the warmth of her skin beneath his hands, the way she had offered him a kiss in the byre not as surrender but as a choice made under danger.
He remembered, too, that trust could be withdrawn.
Her fingers tightened once. Not command. Appeal.
Leif released Eamon.
The prisoner fell back against the wall, coughing.
“I will not have him beaten for my sake,” Maeve said.
“For your sake?” Eamon rasped. “You still think he does anything for you?”
Leif’s temper rose, hot and swift. Maeve’s face changed before he spoke - her chin lifted, her eyes turning hard.
“I think,” she said, “that he is the only man here who has kept his word when it cost him.”
Eamon’s mouth twisted. “You married a raider to save your people. Do not mistake necessity for devotion.”
Leif felt the old wound open between them, the one born when their marriage had been nothing but a shield against bloodshed. Necessity had brought Maeve to his side. Desire, trust, and the long work of survival had made her stay.
But he would not claim what she had not yet named.
He turned back to Eamon. “The feud will begin again if that list reaches the wrong hands. Men will gather at the winter market. Blood will be spilled before either side learns the truth.”
At last, Eamon’s composure cracked.
It was no more than a flicker: his gaze shifting toward the shuttered window, his bound hands flexing against the cord. Leif saw it and leaned closer.
“The market,” he said.
Eamon swallowed. “You know nothing.”
“I know you fear the harbor more than my sword.”
“You brought armed Norsemen onto Irish ground.”
“And you brought treachery into a marriage meant to end a feud.”
Maeve stepped nearer. “Where is the list going?”
Eamon stared at her. For the first time, his fear outweighed his pride.
“You cannot stop it,” he whispered.
“That is not an answer.”
“They will gather at the market after the second bell.”
“Who?”
“Those who were promised proof that your oath was false. Those who believe Leif means to take the harbor for himself.”
Leif’s hand went to the knife at his belt. “Where?”
Eamon shook his head.
Leif drew the knife and drove it into the fish crate beside Eamon’s thigh. The blade sank through the wet wood with a sharp crack. Eamon flinched despite himself.
“Where?”
“Eirik Halldorsson’s storehouse.”
The name settled into the shed like a stone dropped into deep water.
Eirik. The Norseman whose raiders had hunted them from the wreck. The man whose knot had appeared on the tampered supplies. The man whose presence had followed them from reef to shore.
Maeve’s face went still. “The storehouse by the north quay?”
Eamon nodded. “The list is there. The men who will use it are there. At the market, they will put it before the harbor lords and call your marriage a fraud.”
“And the boys?” Leif demanded. “The hostages taken in Eamon’s name?”
“I never held them.”
“Who did?”
Eamon’s eyes shifted again.
Leif caught him by the throat - not hard enough to crush, but enough to pin him against the wall. Maeve’s breath caught behind him.
“Where are the boys?”
“I do not know.”
“Lie again.”
“I swear it.”
“You have sworn nothing worth hearing.”
Eamon clawed at Leif’s wrist. His face reddened. Maeve came close, her palm pressing against Leif’s shoulder.
“Enough.”
The word carried no fear. It carried knowledge of him, and that was more dangerous.
Leif released Eamon. The man sagged, dragging air into his lungs.
Maeve remained beside Leif. Her shoulder brushed his arm. “Tell us what you know, Eamon. If the boys are alive, we can still bring them home. If you keep silent, the market becomes a killing ground.”
Eamon looked between them. “You think I can command men who have chosen their own profit?”
“You helped set them loose,” Maeve said. “You can name the hand holding their leash.”
His expression twisted. “Eirik was meant to frighten him” - he pointed at Leif - “not wreck the ship. I did not order the storm.”
Leif’s blood chilled despite the fireless cold.
“You knew of the sabotage.”
“I knew supplies were spoiled. I knew a ship would be delayed. I did not know the reef would take it.”
Maeve recoiled as if he had struck her. Leif felt her withdraw, and the space between them became sharper than the knife.
“You watched us sail,” she said.
Eamon’s silence answered.
Leif wanted to put the blade to his throat. Wanted to make the man feel the terror he had sent across black water and broken timber. Instead, he pulled the knife free and sheathed it.
“Darragh,” he called.
The door opened almost at once. Darragh entered with two men behind him, their boots wet from the quay.
“Take him to the salt shed,” Leif said. “Guard him until we return.”
Eamon laughed weakly. “You will not reach the storehouse.”
“Then pray I do.”
Darragh seized Eamon’s arm. The prisoner resisted long enough to turn toward Maeve.
“If you go with him, you prove the marriage false,” he said. “A noblewoman does not follow a foreign captain into a Norse storehouse.”
Maeve’s chin rose. “A wife does not abandon her husband to face treachery alone.”
The word wife struck Leif with a force no blade could match.
Not temporary alliance. Not bargain. Wife.
Eamon heard it too. His face tightened as Darragh dragged him through the door.
When they were alone again, Leif looked at Maeve. “You need not come.”
“I know.”
“The storehouse may be watched.”
“I know that also.”
“You may be asked to seal the bargain.”
Her expression hardened. “You heard him.”
“I heard what he demanded. I do not know what it means.”
“It means he believes my presence is worth more than your threats.”
Leif stepped toward her. “And what do you believe?”
The wind moaned through the wall. Beneath them, the tide pools struck stone in slow, hollow blows.
Maeve’s gaze dropped briefly to his mouth before returning to his eyes. “I believe you are trying not to command me.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because the first oath we made was made from necessity. I will not turn it into another chain.”
Something moved across her face - hurt, perhaps, or tenderness too guarded to show plainly.
“You think I stay because I am bound,” she said.
“I think you have had too many men decide what your duty requires.”
“And you?”
“I want you beside me.” His voice roughened. “But wanting is not the same as having the right.”
Maeve reached for his hand. Her fingers were cold from the harbor air, yet the touch traveled through him.
“Then ask.”
Leif held her gaze. “Will you come with me to Eirik’s storehouse?”
“Yes.”
“To face men who may use you as proof against us?”
“Yes.”
“To seal a bargain with your cousin’s enemy if that is what it takes to reach the list?”
Her thumb moved once over his knuckles. “I will choose what I seal.”
Relief did not come cleanly. It carried fear, desire, and the knowledge that whatever waited at the storehouse would test the fragile ground beneath them.
Leif turned toward the door, but Maeve did not release him.
“Leif.”
He looked back.
“If I stand beside you there, do not mistake it for obedience.”
A crooked smile touched his mouth. “I would be disappointed if you offered me obedience.”
Her eyes warmed, though the tension remained. “Good. I have no wish to disappoint my husband.”
The title settled between them, dangerous and intimate.
Leif lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her cold fingers. He did not make the gesture a claim. He let her decide whether to draw away.
She did not.
Outside, a bell sounded from the harbor tower. Once. Then again.
The winter market would be gathering soon.
Leif opened the door. Snow blew across the threshold, carrying the smell of salt and smoke. Beyond the shed, the north quay vanished into white, and somewhere beyond it stood Eirik Halldorsson’s storehouse, holding the witness list and perhaps the last chance to keep the feud from rising.
They had their destination.
They also had a price.
Maeve stepped beside him, her hand still in his, and together they walked toward the harbor.