What did she feel for him? Desire. A need to protect. A devotion that—
Nei.That could not be.
He said, “It might be any number of men fighting on the shore that day who killed your brother. I will tak’ the punishment for any o’ them.”
“Nei.” She strove mightily to master her protest. “My man says it was an older warrior.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your faðir?”
The briefest narrowing ofhiseyes betrayed his reaction. Ah, so it was.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “Ye wish for vengeance.” If he could have spread his hands, he would. “Here ye have it.”
“I want the man who did the deed.”
“Ye canna have him.”
“Then we will destroy your settlement.”
He continued to gaze at her steadily. “Wi’ one boatload o’ warriors?”
She tossed her head, contemplated attempting to continue the delusion, and gave it up. “I can send back home and bring the number I promised.” Another lie. Faðir had indulged her in this. He would not be pleased with how it had gone.
And she asked herself, not for the first time, did Faðir not also want vengeance for the death of his son? Jute, of whom hehad been so proud. Over whose headless corpse he had wept. Faðir, whom she’d never before seen cry.
He had seemed to recover from the loss far more swiftly than she. Jute could not be replaced. Her own heart would not so swiftly leave go of him.
And yet…she did not want this man to die.
She said, “Someone in yon settlement will want ye back. They will bargain to get ye.”
“If that was so, would they have let me come awa’ wi’ ye? Nay, mistress. Ye will ha’ to vent yer spleen on me, or no one.”
Determined he was, to sacrifice himself. Even among a race of men noted for their reckless courage, Hulda could only respect that.
She turned to Lars and Garik, whom she trusted. “Guard the prisoner. Trym and Bjorn, the three of us are going back—to bargain.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hulda Elvarsdottir’s twoboatmen did not look happy with her when Quarrie watched them go over the side of the small boat. They did not want to row to the settlement through the rain.
In fact, none of the Norsemen looked particularly happy with her, and the one who had argued it so vehemently—a big, rawboned man whose wet hair looked dark brown—wore an ugly grimace of dissatisfaction.
Was he the one who had witnessed the death of her brother? Likely so. He had the look of a warrior, with scars on his hands.
They searched Quarrie for weapons, taking his sword, the knife from the small of his back, and thesgian-dubhfrom his boot before lashing him to the mast. He sat there, legs thrown out before him in the pelting rain, and regretted the loss of his sword. Da had given him that when he turned sixteen, replacing the poorer weapon with which he’d trained up till then.
He wanted that sword back almost as much as he wanted his life. Not as much as he wanted to preserve Da’s life, though.
He figured things were about to end for him. Here on the deck of this boat, or mayhap on the island. Better on Scottish soil than foreign oak planks. His spirit would have less trouble journeying home.
Curious, though, for he’d thought to have more time. The wheel of his life had barely turned. And yet if this was the purpose he was destined to serve, he woulddree his weird, and serve it.
The Norsemen stood around him and conversed in their own tongue. They seemed to be complaining about the course things had taken, or perhaps about Hulda Elvarsdottir’s actions. Mayhap they argued about what to do with him.
Aye, he had heard the stories. They could cut out his beating heart. Haul his lungs from his body. As a final insult, castrate him.
They argued over it a while, the brown-haired man working himself up to quite a fervor, during which time the rain pounded down. Their tongue sounded guttural and strange. Odd, he could not even discern what would be coming to him.
At length, the brown-haired warrior—had Hulda called him Ivor?—hunkered down in front of Quarrie and spoke in Gaelic so heavily accented, Quarrie could barely understand.
