“The next man what saysnayto me will feel my fist in his face.”
Kalen backed off a step, clearly believing it. As did Quarrie.
“Hulda Elvarsdottir,” he said, “is expecting to deal wi’ me.” He had a sudden image of her—that strong, oval face with its sculpted, somehow brutal yet still beautiful bones. The gray eyes, pale as water.
The way she looked at him.
“Son.” Da reached out and seized a handful of Quarrie’s tunic. Since he could not succeed in getting out of the bed, he drew Quarrie to him. “If ye think I will let ye turn yoursel’ over to those savages and pay the price for a deed I committed—”
Gently, Quarrie freed himself from his father’s grasping fingers. “We do as we must for the sake o’ this clan. It does no’ matter who pays the price.”
“Lad…” Agony twisted Da’s features, and he spoke in a low growl. “I am already three parts spent. Nay good to this clan. Whereas ye…”
Whereashewould allow Da to die, if die he must, in his own bed with the woman he loved beside him, if Quarrie had aught to do with it.
Chapter Fourteen
The new daydawned clear, as Hulda saw when she dragged herself up from the deck where she’d had little sleep, but clouds gathered far out on the western horizon. The voyage south had been fair, as had these past couple of days waiting here to deal with the Gaels. But she knew very well how rain liked to play among these islands and could feel the moisture riding upon the breast of the water, beginning to breathe across its surface.
The men returned early from the island while she still contemplated breakfast, with Ivor in their lead. Ivor wore a scowl, and the first words from him were, “I am going with you to this meeting. I think it best.”
“Nei,” she told him. “You will stay here and command the party if I do not return.”
That made him shift his weight and eye her impatiently. “You think they will hold you?”
“That depends, does it not? On whether the man believes I have five more ships in hiding.” Quarrie MacMurtray seemed an intelligent man, but he was also a desperate one. And he, just like she, had no doubt chased his thoughts all night.
She did not enjoy chasing her thoughts. Like the men amid whom she’d grown up, she usually tended to make her decisions swiftly and then keep to them, considering the matter done.
Naught was as usual here. Her feelings were all stirred and would not stop with clamoring at her. Her feelings toward Quarrie MacMurtray—
Why should she have any feelings for him?
Yet she did. She did. Even though he may well be the man who had killed Jute. Even though she might have to watch him die after immense suffering. To perform the deed herself.
As the one nearest to Jute in blood, that would be her right.
Ivor scowled still more deeply. “I will not go back to your father and tell him you were killed upon this shore. You had best let me go with you so I can prevent it.”
Ja, Faðir was a powerful man in Avoldsborg. Not the jarl but close friends with the jarl and considered one of his cronies. And a man of great wealth, which he had amassed by a combination of ruthlessness and good sense. Faðir would not be happy if she failed to come home. He might well take it out on Ivor.
“I will go with the two men I took yesterday,” she told him, “and rely on the Gael chief’s honor.”
“Hishonor!” Ivor sounded incredulous. The other members of the crew had gathered to witness this battle of wills, looking curious rather than alarmed. Despite their youth, they had seen much, these men, and were surprised by little.
“These vermin have no honor,” Ivor declared, which was not truly fair. Though he had slaughtered them and taken many captive, he did not know them.
Quarrie MacMurtray has honor. She did not say that aloud. Could not tell how she knew, save by the way his eyes had met hers and, ach, the feel of him.
She could not wait to lay eyes on him again.
That thought shocked her. It shook her.
She told herself things might well have changed overnight. He could have people talking in his ear, as did she. His honor might well have bent.
“I will come back,” she told Ivor, told all the men. “I hope with the man who killed Jute.”
Trym grinned at her. “We will sharpen our knives.”
