Chapter 17 Snow-Route Escape from Eirik’s Crew
The bell’s last note had scarcely faded when Leif found the loose board behind the storeroom’s stacked salt casks.
“Here,” he murmured.
Maeve crouched beside him, her shoulder brushing his. The wood smelled of brine and old ash; beyond it, winter pressed white against the market walls. Leif worked his fingers into the gap and lifted. A narrow passage opened beneath the building, black as a well.
“You knew this was here.”
“I knew the harbor stores were built over an old drainage run.” His amber eyes met hers. “I did not know whether it had collapsed.”
“And you thought to discover that with me following?”
“I thought you would refuse to stay behind.”
The answer struck too close to truth. Maeve slid her hand beneath her cloak and felt the small knife at her belt. “You are learning my habits.”
“Only the dangerous ones.”
His mouth nearly curved. The sight loosened something in her chest, though fear still tightened her throat.
Outside, boots rang over frozen ground. Men were gathering for the road, just as the bell had summoned them.
If Eirik’s crew reached the camp with the list, the false names would be read aloud, and their marriage oath would be declared worthless before any true witness could challenge it.
Maeve lowered herself into the passage. Leif followed, replacing the board above them. Darkness closed around them, broken only by the thin glow of a shuttered lamp he carried beneath his cloak.
The tunnel was scarcely broad enough for his shoulders.
Frozen mud scraped her knees. Water whispered beneath the ice, and the air tasted of iron.
Leif moved ahead with the confidence of a man who had walked too many dangerous paths, one hand trailing along the wall while the other shielded the lamp.
“How far?” she whispered.
“To the stream.”
“Then the camp lies beyond it?”
“On the far bank. Eirik favors ground that gives him warning. The stream is frozen now, but the banks are steep.”
Maeve swallowed. “And the guards?”
“Two at the bridge. More near the fire pits. If the snow holds, we may pass unseen.”
“If it does not?”
He glanced back. “Then we run.”
A laugh almost escaped her, sharp and breathless. “You make every plan sound like a prayer to a god who dislikes us.”
“The gods have shown poor judgment in the past.”
His shoulder pressed against her as the tunnel narrowed.
Heat passed through their wool layers, startling in that buried cold.
She remembered his confession by candlelight - how long he had suspected betrayal, how he had feared that trusting her would make him weak.
She had not forgiven him fully. Neither had he forgiven her silence.
Yet here they were, crawling beneath a market while armed men searched for them.
At the tunnel’s end, Leif raised his hand.
Maeve stopped.
Above them, a faint crunch crossed the snow. A guard passed close to the concealed opening. She could hear the leather creak at his knee, the slow drag of a spear butt. Leif’s palm found her waist in the dark, steadying her before she shifted on the frozen clay.
His fingers remained there.
Maeve felt the question in the stillness. She covered his hand with hers and pressed once: wait.
The footsteps faded.
Leif lifted the hatch.
Snow spilled through the opening, cold against Maeve’s face. They emerged beneath a bank of reeds beside the frozen stream. The market lay behind them, its noise muffled by snowfall. Ahead, across the white water, Eirik’s winter camp crouched among black alder trees.
Low shelters ringed three fires. Horses stood tethered beneath rough awnings, their breath smoking. Men moved between the huts, cloaked and armed. Beyond them, a larger tent bore a strip of red cloth that stirred in the wind.
Leif leaned close. “The list will be there.”
“You sound certain.”
“Eirik likes to keep proof where he can watch it.”
“And the confession?”
His gaze sharpened. “What confession?”
Maeve turned to him. “The leather packet held coded tallies and the messenger’s statement. Before he died, he spoke of a written confession. Eamon’s hand may be on it.”
For one beat, Leif stared across the stream.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because you had just confessed that you suspected my cousin and still doubted me.” Her voice remained low, but the old wound opened between them. “I would not place every piece of my hope in your keeping.”
His jaw tightened. “Yet you brought it here.”
“I brought you.”
That silenced him.
They crossed where the ice lay thickest, crawling on hands and knees until they reached the far bank. The cold bit through Maeve’s gloves. At the top, Leif caught her wrist and drew her behind a wind-fallen tree as two guards passed between the fires.
One spoke of the road. The other complained that Cormac’s men had not yet arrived.
Maeve watched them disappear behind a shelter. “We go to the red tent.”
“Not directly.”
“Then show me the safer way.”
He pointed to a line of sledges half-buried in snow. “Behind those. Then the cookhouse. From there, the tent wall.”
They moved.
The camp seemed built to trap the unwary. Ropes stretched low between stakes. Snow-covered pits marked the edge of the firelight. Once, Maeve’s boot brushed a hanging bell, and Leif seized her around the waist before it rang. His chest met her back. His breath warmed the shell of her ear.
“Still dangerous,” he whispered.
“Still learning.”
His hand tightened briefly, then released her.
They reached the sledges. A dog lifted its head beneath one of them. Maeve froze. The animal sniffed, ears pricking.
Leif took a strip of dried meat from his pouch and slid it across the snow. The dog crept after it. Maeve followed him toward the cookhouse, where smoke and boiled barley scented the air.
At the rear wall, they found a gap beneath the hide covering. Leif entered first, then reached for her. Maeve placed her hand in his, but a shout rose from the far side of camp.
“Search the stream!”
Darragh’s voice.
The diversion had begun earlier than expected - or he had followed them.
Leif pulled Maeve inside. They crouched among stacked sacks while men hurried past outside. Through a tear in the hide, she saw Darragh crossing the camp with two armed men. He pointed toward the frozen stream, sending them away from the red tent.
“He is helping us,” she breathed.
“Or using us.”
“Either way, we move.”
The red tent’s rear flap was tied with a simple knot. Inside, the air smelled of leather, smoke, and wet wool. A chest stood beside a low table. On it lay three wax-sealed packets.
Maeve recognized the mark on the nearest seal: a crooked Norse-style knot pressed into red wax.
Leif took the knife from her belt.
She caught his wrist. “Let me.”
His eyes met hers. “Why?”
“Because if this fails, they will search you first.”
“And you think they will spare you?”
“No. I think they will underestimate me longer.”
He gave her the knife.
The chest lock yielded beneath the blade. Inside lay folded cloth, coins, and beneath them a leather packet. Maeve lifted it out. The witness list was bound with blue thread.
Her hands trembled as she opened the packet.
The list bore names she did not know, written in a careful hand. Beneath it lay a smaller sheet, creased and stained. At the bottom, unmistakable even in the dimness, stood Eamon Rourke’s mark.
Maeve read the first line.
I set down the truth of the false witness list…
Her breath caught.
Leif leaned over her shoulder. His body was warm against hers, but his voice had gone cold. “Take both.”
Maeve folded the confession beneath the list. “This proves the forgery.”
“It proves Eamon ordered it.”
“It proves more than that.” She looked at him. “He names the men who carried it. He names the signal.”
Outside, a horn sounded.
The camp erupted.
Men shouted. Horses screamed and stamped against their tethers. Firelight flared as someone overturned a brazier. Smoke poured past the tent wall.
“Darragh,” Leif said.
“No.” Maeve clutched the papers beneath her cloak. “He would not burn the camp.”
A blade struck through the hide.
Leif dragged her backward as the point withdrew. Another cut opened the tent wall.
“Out,” he ordered.
They burst through the rear flap into snow and confusion. Sparks flew across the camp. Men ran toward the horses, while others seized buckets. Darragh stood near the largest fire, shouting that the stream bank had collapsed.
Leif caught Maeve’s hand.
They ran toward the alder trees.
A man lunged from behind a sledge. Leif struck him with his shoulder, but the delay cost them. Three figures surged between Maeve and the trees. She turned, knife raised, and saw Darragh rushing toward them through the smoke.
“Maeve!”
Leif’s grip locked around her fingers.
Darragh kicked a burning brand into a stack of dry reeds. Flame leapt high, dividing the camp in a wall of orange.
“Go!” Darragh shouted. “The east path!”
Leif pulled Maeve toward the trees, but a horse broke loose, plunging across their path. Its harness snapped against a stake. Leif shoved Maeve aside as the animal reared.
His hand tore from hers.
“Leif!”
Smoke filled her mouth. Men closed around him on the other side of the panicked horse. She saw his amber eyes through the shifting fire, saw him fight toward her, saw the notch in his brow darken with soot.
“Take the proof!” he roared. “Run!”
Maeve backed toward the alder trees, the list and confession pressed against her ribs.
Every instinct demanded that she stay, that she turn the knife on anyone who came near him.
But the papers were the reason they had entered the camp.
Without them, the oath died. Without the oath, blood would follow them home.
She ran.
Snow swallowed her boots as she reached the eastern path. Behind her, Leif’s voice rose once more, furious and alive. Then the smoke thickened, and the camp vanished.
Maeve crouched beneath the alders, clutching the stolen proof beneath her cloak. She had recovered what could save their marriage oath.
But Leif was no longer beside her.
The knowledge cut deeper than the winter air, and she turned back toward the fire.