The realization shocked him so, it made him blink. Made him wonder if he was mistaken. For the person facing him was tall enough to be a man. Dressed like every Norseman Quarrie had ever seen in leggings and boots—now wet—a long tunic covered by metal and leather mail. A sword and several knives, including one strapped to a leg.
His gaze returned to the intruder’s face, trapped beneath the helmet so he could see very little hair. The few wisps he could see were pale as flax. But many Norsemen had hair that color.
The features—the features were all wrong for a male. Strong, aye, with a straight nose and a firm chin. But the mouth—that mouth was feminine, and no beard had ever marred that skin.
Her eyes—they looked pale in the strong light. Not blue so much as gray.
“Ye’re a woman,” he said, nearly under his breath.
She heard. So did the men behind her, who stirred. Big brutes, they; he could not doubt their gender.
“Hulda Elvarsdottir is my name,” she announced. “We are from Avoldsborg in Norge. As I tell you, I have five more ships in my fleet, but we have not come to raid, at least not here. Not this trip.”
“Then why do ye come?”
“For vengeance. I have told you I want but one man.” She splashed out of the water till she stood beside him. She was not as tall as he. He was built long, so once her feet came level with his, he found himself looking down at her. Yet he could not deem her aught but…
Formidable.
He’d never seen a woman to match her. Nor imagined one.
“Which of us d’ye seek?”
“May we sit and speak of it? I have your safe conduct.”
Quarrie had not given it, not precisely, yet she had given him no reason to strike her down. He did not know how to handle this. He’d never had a woman walk out of the sea in full armor to challenge him. Like an old tale it was, one Danoch the harper might tell.
His thoughts scrambled. He did not know how to choose. He dared not choose wrong.
“If I say no, ye mean to return to yer ships and attack this settlement, is that so?”
“I will burn it to the ground.”
“And ye trust in any safe conduct I offer, that I will no’ merely kill ye?”
She lifted sandy brows. “If I do not return, my men have orders to attack.”
Her men. They followed her, this woman.
That gave Quarrie a kind of thrill. Surely caused by apprehension.
“Aye, so, I suppose ye had better come and talk.”
*
He led herto the hall because he did not know where else to take her. People stared. They stood grouped all along the way, some gaping, and inside, Quarrie wanted to do the same.
Just as part of him wanted this woman, this savage stranger, to be impressed by the stronghold his ancestors had built, that he worked so hard to defend. But when they paused outside the gate, Hulda Elvarsdottir’s expression revealed nothing.
She had courage, he had to acknowledge that, walking straight in here alone, for she had barked at her two men in her own tongue and they had stayed with the boat. He might say she had balls of iron, if she’d had…
At the gate she paused and looked back, perhaps measuring how far into enemy territory she had come. A tiny frown hovered between her brows.
After looking down at the small boat and her two waiting men, she glanced at Quarrie. “You have not told me your name.”
“So I ha’ no’. Forgive me. Quarrie MacMurtray, I am.” He bowed slightly.
“You are jarl of this place?”
