3. 3A Wife’s Seat Beside the Sea
The first oar struck the water before Rurik had finished giving the order.
“Hold,” he barked.
Wood groaned in the rowlocks. The oarsmen checked their pull, and the longship lurched against its moorings. Behind them, Skara’s harbor lay gray beneath the morning mist, its roofs and watchfires blurred by salt air. Rurik turned toward the stern.
Inga stood beneath the shelter of the raised deck, one hand closed around the iron ring he had given her.
Her torn bridal veil was wound about her wrist, pale cloth twitching in the wind.
The gold clasp hidden beneath her bodice did not show, but he knew it rested there.
He had seen the fear in her eyes when she told him what it could buy - and what it might cost her if the wrong man found it.
She looked less like a bride than a woman daring the sea to swallow her before the land could claim her again.
“Why have we stopped?” she asked.
“Because my ship does not leave harbor on a half-spoken command.”
Her mouth tightened. “Then give a whole one.”
A few of the men glanced over. Rurik felt their attention sharpen. His crew had fought beside him, bled beside him, and obeyed him through winter storms. They would not accept a stranger’s presence without weighing what she meant to their captain.
He stepped toward Inga, keeping his voice hard enough for all to hear. “You remain within the ship’s sides unless I give leave. You do not touch the steering oar, the sail ropes, or the weapons. If the deck is wet, you crawl rather than fall. At night, you sleep below and bar the hatch.”
“I have no wish to fall overboard.”
“Wish is not a rule.”
Her blue-green eyes flashed. “Nor is fear.”
A murmur moved through the rowers. Rurik cut it off with a look.
“You eat when food is passed. You drink only what is given you. You speak to the crew with courtesy, and they will answer in kind. If anyone troubles you, you call for me.”
“And if you are not near?”
“I will be.”
The answer came too quickly. He saw her notice.
Inga lifted her chin. The small mole above the right side of her lip darkened as she pressed her mouth flat. “You make a poor husband.”
“I am not your husband.”
“Not where it matters.”
The words struck more deeply than they should have. He turned away before the crew could read his face.
“Cast off,” he ordered.
This time the oars dipped together. The ship slid from the pier, ropes hissing over wet wood. The harbor widened around them. Rurik took the steering oar, his left hand curling around its shaft despite the missing tip of his index finger. The old injury ached in cold weather. He ignored it.
Inga moved as he had told her, though not meekly. She tested each plank with her boot before crossing toward the center of the ship. Her pale-blond braid lay over one shoulder, and the wind teased loose strands across her cheek. She caught them impatiently and looked toward the men.
They watched her.
Rurik knew the look. Men who had shared a bench with him for years were now measuring a woman’s gown, her ring, her silence. Was she stolen property? A ransom? A lord’s daughter hidden beneath a captain’s cloak? Every answer carried danger.
“Eyes on your work,” he called.
The youngest oarsman bent his head. The older ones obeyed more slowly.
Inga stopped beside a coil of rope. “Do they believe I am your wife?”
“They believe what I require them to believe.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
She studied him. “And what do you believe?”
The oars kept time between them: dip, pull, drip; dip, pull, drip.
Rurik should have answered with the truth he had offered her at the harbor - that the marriage was a shield, nothing more. Instead he saw her standing there with the torn veil at her wrist, her freedom purchased by a bargain that placed her under his command.
“I believe you are safest while no one knows how much you fear being found,” he said.
Her expression changed, not softening, but losing some of its edge. “You noticed.”
“I notice everything aboard my ship.”
“Then notice this. I do not fear the sea.”
“Most who say that fear it greatly.”
“Perhaps I fear men who pretend to own it.”
His grip tightened on the steering oar. “You are determined to make every kindness sound like a chain.”
“And you are determined to make every chain sound like kindness.”
For a moment, neither spoke. The harbor slipped behind them. Beyond the headland, the sea opened in a long steel sweep, cold wind rushing over the water. The ship rose and fell beneath their feet.
Rurik gave the sailmaster the signal. The square wool sail climbed, snapping hard enough to make the mast shudder. The oarsmen shipped their blades. Wind filled the cloth, and the longship surged forward.
Inga swayed.
Rurik caught her by the arm before she struck the mast.
His fingers closed around warm skin beneath her sleeve. She went still. So did he.
“Release me,” she said, but there was no panic in it.
He did at once. “You were falling.”
“I was learning the ship.”
“Learn faster.”
A breath of laughter escaped her, unwilling and low. It vanished beneath the crack of the sail.
The sound unsettled him more than her anger had.
He turned his attention to the water, yet his awareness stayed fixed on her.
She moved carefully now, watching the deck, the ropes, the angle of the mast.
When one of the sailors came near with a bucket, she stepped aside before he asked.
When the ship pitched, she bent her knees instead of reaching for another man.
She learned quickly. Too quickly for a woman raised among counting benches and merchant halls, unless she had spent her life observing what others overlooked.
At midday, a sailor brought her a wooden bowl of barley porridge and dried fish. He did not look at her as he set it down.
“Thank you,” Inga said.
The man nodded, then hurried away.
Rurik saw her gaze follow him. “You need not charm them.”
“I thanked him.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
He faced her. “Do not give the crew reason to think you are seeking allies.”
Her brows lifted. “You fear your own men?”
“I fear what men do when they believe a woman has chosen one of them over another.”
Her eyes traveled across the deck. “And what would you do if I did?”
The question carried a blade beneath it.
“Nothing,” he said.
She took a bite of fish, chewing slowly. “You say that as though it costs you.”
“It costs me nothing to let you choose.”
“Then why watch me?”
The wind pulled at his dark-brown hair. He could smell tar, wet wool, and the sharp salt of the sea. “Because you are aboard my ship, wearing my ring, and pretending to be my wife. If you are harmed, the blame will be mine.”
“Only the blame?”
He looked at her.
Inga lowered her gaze first. A flush touched her cheeks, whether from cold or the weight of his attention he could not tell.
By late afternoon, the island they sought remained hidden beyond the curve of the sea. Rurik expected impatience from the crew, but another unease had begun to trouble him. A second vessel had appeared beyond the headland - small, dark-hulled, and too distant to identify.
He watched it until mist swallowed its shape.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
Inga came to stand beside him. “A fishing boat?”
“Perhaps.”
“Your voice says otherwise.”
He glanced at her. “You hear too much.”
“I hear men whispering when they think I cannot.”
That caught his attention. “What have they said?”
“Nothing plainly. That is the trouble.”
He waited.
She leaned against the rail, keeping her shoulder from touching his. “One man asked whether we were taking the northern passage. Another told him you had not chosen it yet. Then a third said the watchman at the harbor had seen your sail before you left.”
Rurik’s eyes narrowed. “Who said that?”
“I do not know their names.”
“Describe them.”
She did, precise as a merchant marking goods: one broad across the neck, with a scar beneath his ear; one narrow-faced, who chewed the inside of his cheek; one with a red thread tied around his wrist.
Rurik knew every man aboard. The broad-necked sailor had been with him three years. The narrow-faced man, two. The one with the red thread had joined only that morning, claiming a place had opened when another sailor fell ill.
Rurik looked toward the forward benches.
The red thread was gone.
He crossed the deck. “Where is the new oarsman?”
No one answered immediately.
The broad-necked sailor shrugged. “Below, perhaps.”
“He was meant to take the second watch.”
“He took ill,” the narrow-faced man said.
Rurik’s gaze fixed on him. “When?”
“After we left.”
“Then why did you not tell me?”
The man’s jaw worked. “You were occupied.”
A dangerous silence settled over the ship.
Rurik reached for the knife at his belt, not drawing it, merely letting the hilt show. “No man aboard this ship decides what occupies me.”
The narrow-faced sailor paled.
From behind him, Inga spoke quietly. “He was not ill when he carried the bucket.”
Every head turned.
Rurik looked back at her. “You are certain?”
“He spilled water on his boot. He cursed the cold and laughed when the others mocked him. He was not ill.”
The broad-necked sailor swore under his breath.
Rurik sent two men below. They returned moments later with the red thread clenched in one fist and no sailor behind them. The man had vanished through the low opening near the storage space, leaving behind a loose plank and a smear of fresh mud.
Rurik stared at the mud.
There had been no mud on the deck when they departed.
He turned to Inga. “You should have told me sooner.”
“I was waiting to learn whether your rules allowed me to speak.”
His anger faltered. She had obeyed his command too well, and the cost of it now lay beneath the ship somewhere - or already behind them in the sea.
He stepped close enough that only she could hear. “My rules do not forbid you from warning me.”
“Your manner does.”
The truth landed cleanly.
Rurik looked at the men, at the empty bench, at the faint mark of mud leading toward the stern. Someone had watched their departure, listened to their route, and perhaps gone overboard before being noticed. The ship had carried a hidden watcher away from Skara - or allowed one to carry word back.
He could not know which.
He took Inga by the elbow, gentler this time. “Stand beside me.”
Her gaze dropped to his hand. “As your wife?”
“As the woman every eye aboard must recognize as under my protection.”
“And if that invites more questions?”
“Then let them ask me.”
He led her to the raised stern deck, where wind tugged at her veil and the whole crew could see them. Rurik placed her at his right side, close enough that their shoulders touched whenever the ship rolled.
“This is Inga,” he said, voice carrying over the water. “She is my wife. Her safety is my command. Any man who forgets that answers to me.”
No one spoke.
Inga’s hand found the rail. Her fingers brushed his, and this time she did not pull away.
Rurik looked beyond the wake. Far behind them, near the headland, a dark shape rested on the water.
Not a fishing boat.
A second sail rose, small and pale against the gray.
The ship had left Skara.
But their watcher had left with them.