“This is a thing all warriors know.” All honest warriors.
“It is.”
“I have an offer for ye, Master—” She paused in an effort to remember his name.
“Quarrie MacMurtray,” he reminded her.
“Son of the chief here.”
“That is right.”
“And where is he, your chief?” His father.
“Indisposed.”
Hulda narrowed her eyes at him. She did not know what that word meant; it reached beyond her understanding. For the moment, she let it go. “He did not fight in the battle that took my brother’s life?”
“He did.”
“You fought alongside him?”
“Aye.”
Hulda studied him, letting her gaze move from the mane of fire-kissed brown hair to the tense face, to his bared arms and knees. He bore scars in plenty. A warrior, aye, and it was not unreasonable to believe he was the man.
But something inside her, that bone-deep instinct, still was not certain. Or did not want to believe it.
As a woman, she was in the habit of listening to her instincts. They set her apart, often called disrespect down upon her, yet she’d learned to heed them.
Somewhat here was not quite right.
“Quarrie MacMurtray,” she said solemnly, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliarity of the name, “I have come here to right a wrong that was done. My faðir, a powerful warlord, has sent me with many longboats to accomplish this. So I make you this offer. Hand yourself over to me and we will, as I have stated, spare your settlement. You will have my word as a Norsewoman on it.”
His face tensed to white and a hard green light glittered in his eyes. “Why should I hand mysel’ over to ye when we might well fight ye off, as we did last year? Come at me wi’ yer warriors, and it just may be ye who lies down on those stones wi’out yer head.”
Hulda made herself shrug. “You may fight us off, you may not.”
“We did, as I say, last time.”
“Last time we came with but three boats. This time I have six.”
“Where are they, then?”
“They lie off behind yon island.” If he knew these waters, as he must, he would know there was an inlet there, and that she could well speak the truth. If he did not believe her—why, still he must doubt. “If you choose to fight and we attack,” she told him forcefully, “it will cost you. In blood. In fire and destruction. If you give yourself over to me, the punishment will land only where it belongs—upon the man who took my brother’s life.”
He was not a stupid man, this Scotsman. He would have some inkling as to what must befall him if he turned himself over into her hands. The voyage to Avoldsborg in chains. The march through that settlement. The tribunal, the sentencing. The torture.
By the time he died, he would be praying for it.
Had he the courage to hand himself over for that?
She leaned toward him slightly. “Surely you wish to spare your settlement our fury?”
“Fury, is it?” He stared into her eyes, deep. She could still see the thoughts moving there, but no fear.
No fear. A warrior, this man, to the heart.
How could she, daughter of countless warriors and no frail flower herself, fail to respond to that? To admire it?
