Nei.
Not him.
But why not?
She lay with her eyes stretched wide open while the crew members snored around her, and contemplated it. Came up with only a few answers and more questions.
Why had she kissed him?
Ja, that was the question of questions, was it not? A hostage. A Scot. And her mortal enemy. She had gifted him his life and taken a kiss in payment.
The urge had come from deep within. A source as vital to her as the need to breathe, to stay alive, to direct her own life. There had been an overmastering need to touch him. To taste him. To tell him—
What? That in some curious, heretofore undiscovered way, she knew him? Desired him?
Nei, neither of those things.Rememberedhim.
She could not possibly remember the man. She had never before set foot on this stretch of shore. Had not been there when Jute died. But ach, by Freya’s heart, she remembered…
Nei, it was nonsense. Fancy. Anyway, it was not he who drew upon the strings of her memory so much as some elusive details in him. The way he turned his head, mayhap. A glint of light in his eyes. The timbre of his voice.
Gone now. Gone. She wondered if—hoped—he had made it back to his settlement. A long swim, even if through calm sea, and he had been battered. What if he had drowned?
Nei, and nei, she could not lie here and worry for him. The next time someone got up to piss—
An outcry came. Alarm and fury. At once, the whole of the crew was on their feet as if under attack.
“He is gone! The prisoner is gone!”
In the way of such things, everyone spoke at once. Hulda, also on her feet, let them exclaim until, predictably, Ivor stepped forward and turned on Garik. “You it was on watch. What happened?”
Garik gaped at the sliced ropes left on the deck where the prisoner had been. They had talked about this beforehand, she and Garik, in fierce whispers. He would play stupid. So would she.
“He is gone?” Garik asked, doing a good job at the stupid.
“As you see!” Ivor roared. “Where were you that you did not give the alarm?”
“I was at my post, aft.”
“And did you not see him?”
“Nei. I was watching the water. Looking out for signs of attack.”
All eyes turned to Hulda. “You also kept watch,” Ivor said accusingly. “You did not see?”
She yawned. “It was quiet. He was securely tied and injured. I took my rest.”
Mumbles greeted this, and a few grumbles of outrage. Ivor’s eyes nearly bulged from his head. “Careless! It is not to be believed!” He stooped to examine the ropes. “These have been cut. Someone”—he leveled an even harder gaze on Hulda—“has freed the prisoner.”
“The work of Loki, perhaps?” Garik suggested innocently.
Ivor glanced around. “Do you see Loki here on the deck of this longboat?”
“He tends to come and go,” Garik said.
Hulda drew a breath. “The prisoner must have had a knife—one of those wee black ones—hidden about him. Who searched him when he was brought aboard? You missed a weapon. He has cut his own bonds and slipped over the side.”
One of the men moved to the rail and looked out as if thinking he could spot the miscreant. Hulda hoped he could not. These men were capable of going after Quarrie with the færing and clubbing him down.
