“D’ye want anything to eat?” asked one of the men.
He shook his head. But when the man shoved a mug into his hand, he drank, remembering the ale the Norse helmsman had given him.
“Yer ma was here to see ye,” another man, Gavin, said, “but ye were flat-out asleep. She asked ye should go to her and the chief when ye awakened.” He eyed Quarrie doubtfully. “Are ye able?”
“Aye.”I might have been dead. But he could do any damned thing, since he was not. “Gi’ me another cup o’ ale and I’ll go.”
It was not a quick or easy journey up to his parents’ quarters in the keep. The clansfolk who were out and about kept stoppinghim, exclaiming over his state, and demanding confirmation: “There is nay fleet?”
He assured them again and again. The main gate stood open, and his ma came hurrying out to meet him.
“Quarrie!” She embraced him hard, which hurt, but he did not mind. “Och, only look at ye!”
“Ma, it might ha’ been worse.”
“Come. Come. Yer father wants to see ye.”
Da was up on his feet hobbling with the help of a stick, his face livid with pain. He too came and embraced Quarrie, saying roughly into his ear, “We thought ye dead.”
He had been, good as.
“Sit,” Da told him, taking it as an excuse to lower himself beside the fire. “Tell us all.”
An interesting experience, following the emotions in Da’s eyes as he listened to the account. There was anger, aye, that Quarrie had gone against his wishes and given himself over in his place. Anger also that the Norse had played such a ruse and fooled them with the threat of a fleet. And vast relief that his son, however wayward, had returned to him.
It was Ma who, when Quarrie flagged, said plaintively, “But I do’ no’ understand why this woman let ye go, after coming all this way to seek vengeance for her brother.”
“I was no’ the right man,” Quarrie said soberly, “as her crewman did tell her.”
“Aye, but fro’ all we ken of these people, they might as well ha’ slit yer throat anyway. Wha’ do they care for a single Scottish life?”
“Aye,” Da put in, “and she had reason to be angered. She did come and try to bargain wi’ us for your return—something I did not find out till afterward. Your man, Borald, kept that standoff on the shore fro’ me.”
Good man,Quarrie thought.
“I would ha’ given mysel’ over, sure, to ransom ye,” Da added softly, as if to himself, “had I known.”
“I am that glad ye did no’. I ha’ nay an answer, Da, to why Hulda Elvarsdottir behaved as she did.” Only that something existed between him and the Norsewoman. Something more than mere attraction, though aye, that played a part in it.
He had not, after all, told his parents all. He’d left out the kiss that he could still feel like a brand on his torn lips. That kiss had awakened something inside him. He just could not identify what.
“Foolish wench,” Da said. “She must know ye will tell all of us she has but one boat, that we can surely fight off.”
She might well be a foolish wench, but, by heaven, had there ever been such a woman?
Chapter Nineteen
After Hulda watchedQuarrie MacMurtray slip over the side of her boat into the water and bob away, his head looking very like that of a seal moving through the quiet ocean, she wrapped herself in her blanket and rolled up, preparing to sleep. Ja, she was meant to be on watch with Garik, who stood astern, steadfastly gazing in the opposite direction.
There would be retribution to pay, especially on Garik’s part. She had spoken to him about it, and, steadfast heart he was, he had been willing to weather any blame that might fall on him.
Hulda would have to make sure it was not much blame. Letting MacMurtray go had been her choice and her decision.
She did not sleep, but lay thinking.Thinking. A thousand notions crowded her mind. Questions. Sensations.
Ja, she wanted vengeance for Jute’s death. She still hurt over that, and someone had to pay. Not Quarrie MacMurtray.
Why? Blood was blood, and Scottish blood easy to spill. She had worked hard talking her faðir into allowing this journey. She had just scuttled it. They could have taken home the Gael’s head.
