Hulda called to Ivor loudly, “There are targets enough for you to attack further along the coast. This one is under our protection.”
“Yours,” Ivor repeated, as if he yet could not believe it.
“Ours! Take yourself elsewhere.”
The men aboard Ivor’s boat clustered around him as they discussed it. This could go either way, Hulda conceded. Ivor’s pride could refuse to lie down. He could go throughFreyato reach the shore. But it would hurt him.
It would harm theFreyaand her crew more.
It took a while for Ivor to decide. Raised voices could be heard, and the cluster of four dragon boats rose and fell on the swells as if time itself suspended for them. The gloaming began to fade as night came in from the east.
Freyafloated, a small hound standing against a pack of wolves.
“They will never agree,” Helje muttered. “We are all going to die.”
At last, Ivor returned to the rail. He wore a sour expression.
“The commanders of the other boats do not wish to go home and explain why we have killed you all. Though I think doing so because you seek to defend the very people who killed your brother makes a fine reason!”
Hulda, holding her breath, said nothing.
“We will move on. There are some others of us who wanted to raid in Ireland before we turn for home.”
Some others. Not him. It had been his idea, his desire to strike here, where Jute had died.
“We will move off,” Ivor told her. “But prepare for great dishonor when you reach home.”
Still no one behind Hulda spoke a word. TheFreyaheld her place, broadside to the shore, while the Norse boats scrambled. While orders were shouted and they began to move off one by one.
Ivor’s boat was the last to leave.
What would her faðir say? What, if Ivor returned to Avoldsborg ahead of them and talked her down?
Faðir would never forgive her.
Yet she had done the right thing, holding to a promise. And her men had stood with her.
Not until Ivor’s boat had come about and headed westward, slipping into the lingering light of the day like a dream, did Hulda become aware of a ruckus on the shore. Raised voices, some calling out. Some cheering.
She looked there and saw the man she loved standing.
He had waded out into the water, far out, as if he reached for her. As she watched, he thrust his sword back into its scabbard.
“Take us about,” she told Garik. “We will patrol here a while. Make certain they do not return.”
“They will not,” Garik said. “The other commanders want no part of killing us and taking word of it back home.”
“They would far rather take the news that we are traitors,” Helje said bitterly.
Hulda turned and faced her men. “Thank you. Thank you all for standing with me. For keeping to the alliance.”
“We could not let that bastard get the better of us, could we?” asked Varg, who usually made light of everything.
But mayhap they already had.
Chapter Forty-Eight
They met onthe path that led between the settlement and the camping place Quarrie had lent to the Norse visitors. A fitting place, so Quarrie could but think. The two of them came together as if by mutual agreement. As if by inner knowing.
