“I am no longer welcome under my faðir’s roof.”
“Why?”
“That concerns me alone.”
“The same as your writhing at the rail of my good boat concerns you?”
“She is our boat now, and ja, like that.”
Frode looked at his son. “If you have finished your breakfast, you can go and sort out those planks from yesterday. Ja?”
Bjarni rose and left without question.
“Eat your breakfast,” Frode told Hulda, “if you can. It is sometimes difficult for a woman who is expecting, ja?”
Hulda stared at him in dismay. “I—”
“Do not bother lying to me. It insults both of us. Do you think me a fool? I have seen women who behave like you before.”
Hulda went silent.
“Has your faðir tossed you out?”
“Ja.”
“Can you turn to the faðir of the babe? Perhaps he will marry you.”
If only.
“Nei, I cannot.”
Frode fixed her with a discerning eye. “Who is the faðir? Is it young Garik?”
“Nei.”
“I must say I am surprised, even though I should not be. Send a woman off with a crew of lusty young men, what will happen?”
“It is none of the crew.”
That did shock him. “Who, then?”
“I would rather not say.”
He grunted again. “Well, if you cannot turn to the faðir and you cannot turn to a friend—”
“I cannot.”
“—neither can you continue to stay upon a boat in the winter harbor. You shall have to stay here with me.”
“What?”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
“I am not stupid.”
“Are you not? Too stupid to know what happens when a girl lies down with a boy.”
“Ja, well—”
