Chapter 16 Leif’s Confession by Candlelight
The door slammed before Leif could draw Maeve behind him.
He caught her wrist and pulled her into the storeroom’s darkest corner. Frost silvered the beams overhead. The air smelled of spilled ale, wet wool, and the sharp iron of old blood. Outside, boots scraped across the yard.
Maeve’s hand still clutched his. Her fingers were cold from the storeroom floor, yet her grip had not loosened since she freed him with the small knife.
“The list is gone,” she whispered.
Leif heard the words beneath the distant roar of the market. Bells still rang somewhere beyond the walls. Men shouted. A cart overturned with a splintering crash.
“So is our proof,” he said.
Her gray-green eyes flashed. “Do not speak as if I misplaced it.”
“I did not.”
“You looked at me as though I had.”
He turned toward her. Candlelight caught the notch through his left eyebrow and threw a hard line across his face. He had been bound, beaten, and dragged through a market like a thief. None of that had cut as deeply as the fear in her voice.
“I looked because I knew someone would take it,” he said.
Maeve went still. “You knew?”
A boot struck the outer door. Dust sifted from the frost-rimed beam.
Leif placed himself between her and the entrance, though there was nowhere to retreat. Barrels crowded one wall. Sacks of grain blocked the other. If the captors returned before he found a way out, the knife would not save them both.
“I suspected,” he said.
Her mouth tightened. “That is not the same thing.”
“No. It is worse.”
The words scraped his throat. He had carried the suspicion from the first day of their bargain, when Eamon’s men had arrived too quickly, when Maeve had guarded every answer as if truth itself were a weapon.
He had told himself caution kept her alive.
He had called it strategy when he watched her, listened for what she did not say, and kept his own fears behind his teeth.
Now the witness list was in Eirik’s hands, and Maeve looked at him as if the last plank beneath them had cracked.
“Tell me,” she said.
The command was quiet. That made it more dangerous.
Leif lowered his voice. “From the beginning, I thought your cousin held some power over you. Not merely kinship. Leverage.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And you chose not to tell me.”
“I wanted you safe.”
“You wanted me manageable.”
The accusation struck because part of it was true. Leif had wanted her near, where he could guard her. He had also wanted her dependent on his judgment while he measured every threat around them.
“I wanted you alive,” he said. “I feared that if I spoke too soon, you would confront him without proof. Or that he would learn I suspected and move against you before we could leave.”
“You thought I would run to Eamon?”
“I thought you might believe you had no choice.”
Maeve’s breath trembled, but her chin remained lifted. “You married me because you needed my name. You watched me because you feared my blood. What else have you kept from me?”
Leif looked at her black curls, tangled from flight, and at the faint mark below her left collarbone where her torn cloak had slipped.
The crescent birthmark showed pale against her skin.
He remembered her warmth against him in the wreckage, her mouth offered freely to save him from separation, and the trust she had given him then.
“I suspected Eamon had arranged more than the rival claim,” he said. “The tampered provisions. The forged seal. Perhaps the reef knot on the convoy sacks. I could not prove how far his hand reached.”
Maeve’s fingers curled around his. “And you suspected he had the witness list taken?”
“I suspected anyone tied to him would seek it. But I did not know Eirik’s camp had it until now.”
“You are splitting hairs.”
“I am naming my failures.”
That silenced her.
Beyond the door, someone shouted Leif’s name. The sound carried a Norse accent, rough with impatience. Maeve’s gaze flicked toward the latch.
“How do you know where they are taking it?” she asked.
Leif forced his mind away from the door and back to the coast. “Eirik’s men left the market by the north track. They will not take the open road. The snow there lies deep, and the harbor guards watch it.”
“You saw them?”
“I saw the marks before they dragged me inside. Three horses, one lame on the right foreleg. A sled runner cut through the crust beside the old standing stones.”
Maeve stared. “You can know that from a yard full of footprints?”
“I was a captain before I was your husband.” His tone sharpened, then softened when he saw the hurt return to her face. “I know tides, tracks, and the habits of men who think pursuit makes them clever.”
He crouched and drew a rough map in the thin frost gathered along the floorboards. The candle flame bent in the draft.
“The tide turned at the second bell after dusk,” he said.
“Eirik’s camp cannot lie near the harbor if they mean to move unseen. They need the creek mouth before the water falls again. From there, the old landmark stones lead inland, past the blackthorn ridge. A hidden camp lies beyond it, where the dunes break the wind.”
Maeve knelt beside him. Her knee brushed his.
“Why would Eirik use the creek?” she asked.
“Because the marsh will bear a sled tonight. The frozen pools conceal the track by morning.”
“And the stones?”
“Three of them. The first split down the middle, the second leaning east, the third buried almost to its crown. A captain remembers such things. They mark safe passage when sea and land refuse to do so.”
Her expression remained guarded, but she studied the map. “If we reach the camp, we may find the list.”
“If we reach it before they send the signal.”
“For the feud?”
“For the bloodshed.” Leif rubbed frost from his knuckles. “The list is not merely proof of our oath. It is the chain that binds every witness to the peace. Without it, Eamon can claim the marriage was false, and each faction may choose the story that profits them.”
Maeve’s shoulder touched his. “Then we go.”
He looked at her. “You still mean to trust me?”
“No.” Her answer came swiftly. “Not yet.”
The honesty hurt less than a false promise would have. She lifted her eyes to his.
“But I will fight beside you,” she continued. “That is different.”
“It is enough.”
“It had better be.”
He reached for her face, then stopped before touching her. The pause was deliberate. He needed her to see the choice in it.
Maeve’s gaze dropped to his hand. “You may.”
His palm settled against her cheek. Her skin was cold, and he felt the fine tremor she tried to hide. He stroked once beneath her eye.
“I should have told you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
Her lashes lowered. “Do not make an apology into a shield.”
“I am not.”
“Then tell me what you feared most.”
The door shuddered beneath another blow.
Leif kept his hand against her face. “That you would learn I doubted you and decide I was no better than the men who used your name against you. That you would leave me to face this alone. And that I would deserve it.”
Maeve’s breath caught.
He had spoken the truth he had avoided even in his own thoughts. He feared her judgment more than Eirik’s blade. He feared the loss of her trust because it had become the one possession he could not command.
Her hand rose and closed around his wrist.
“You have made a poor bargain of your fear,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“But you have finally named it.”
“I know that too.”
For a heartbeat, the storeroom held only the small flame, the creak of timber, and their joined breathing. Maeve leaned nearer. Her mouth brushed his, not as a ruse, not to deceive a guard, but with a tenderness that made his chest ache.
Leif did not deepen the kiss until she did. Her fingers slid into his ash-brown hair, catching at the nape. He cupped her waist, feeling the strength beneath her wool gown. When she drew back, her lips were flushed.
“This does not absolve you,” she whispered.
“No.”
“It does not make me forget.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She rested her forehead against his. “Then we go for the list together.”
“Together.”
The latch lifted.
Leif moved first, shoving Maeve behind the stacked grain sacks as the door burst inward. Two men entered with drawn blades. Behind them stood Cormac Brennagh, his cloak wet with snow, and Darragh Kavanagh with a cudgel in hand.
“There,” Cormac said. “The Norse dog and his widow.”
Maeve’s grip found the small knife at her belt.
Leif seized a loose iron hook from the wall. The men advanced, blocking the only exit. He had expected pursuit, but not so soon. His map lay pale and exposed in the frost between them, the route to Eirik’s camp marked by his finger.
Darragh saw it.
His face changed.
“Search the corner,” he ordered.
Maeve stepped from behind the sacks before Leif could stop her. “You will not touch him.”
Cormac smiled without warmth. “You have mistaken an oath for power, my lady.”
“No,” she said. “I have mistaken your fear for courage.”
The first man lunged.
Leif met him with the iron hook, turning the blade aside. Metal rang against metal. Maeve struck the second man’s wrist, but Darragh caught her arm and wrenched her toward the door.
Leif drove his shoulder into Cormac, yet another blade pressed beneath his ribs. He stopped, breath locked in his chest.
“Drop it,” Cormac said.
The hook fell.
Maeve’s eyes met his across the cramped room. Guarded resentment had not vanished. Neither had fear. But beneath both lay the decision they had made.
Together.
Darragh tore the frost-map from the floor.
“The route is found,” he said.
Outside, the harbor bell began to ring again.
This time, it was not warning the market.
It was summoning men to the road.