She sheathed her sword, thinking he was right. She could do nothing now but return home, and Faðir would not be pleased. In the north, summer months with their navigable weather were precious and not to be wasted. In the time this had taken, they might have sacked a church.
Still and all, she would have to argue hard when she got home. For more longboats and more men, and a return voyage.
Because she just had to return to this stretch of shore.
Chapter Twenty
Quarrie stood atthe highest point of the walls that encircled the keep, his eyes narrowed in a fixed stare upon the sea.
It had cost him something to climb all the way up here in his battered state. To be sure, the healer and his ma both had given him strict instructions to stay abed. But when Borald had popped into his chamber to say the longboat was on the move, he just had to see.
As it was, he nearly missed it. By the time he reached the best lookout point, the vessel had rounded the island behind which it had been hiding and sailed northward.
Away.
The sail once more made naught but a black shape on the horizon, one that for the distance seemed to move but slowly. Difficult to tell, at once, in what direction. But aye, north and away.
The breath left his body in a great rush, painful for his bruised ribs. Indeed, the rafts of black and blue had bloomed magnificently across his chest and sides where he had been kicked. Surprising he had no broken bones, and Drachan had raised his eyebrows at what he termed such strength.
“I dunna ken, quite,” the man had said in amazement, “how ye swam so far.”
Neither did Quarrie, thinking back on it. The memory had attained an air of unreality, the floating, the buoyancy of the water beneath him, as if it had willingly brought him home. Thescent of it all around him and the clap of it in his ears. Scotland had drawn him in. The water had carried him home.
What, though, of Hulda Elvarsdottir?
His eyes narrowed farther, as if he could spy her aboard that speck of darkness riding the sea.
Why had she let him go? He still had no answer to that. Why not just slit his throat, as her men had no doubt wanted?
Why had she kissed him?
Such a kiss, fast and fierce, that had reached inside him, clutched at the very roots of his soul. He would never forget.
Just as he would never see her again. At least, he had better hope he did not, for next time he would surely have a sword in his hand, and she a sword or axe in hers, and they would be expected to kill one another.
Despair touched his heart, a kind of searing disappointment such as he had never known. Aye, he’d felt dark emotions before, after a battle when he’d surveyed their dead. When Kyle had died. When he’d realized Da was not going to get well.
Naught to match this. And he did not understand why.
She was but a woman, was she not? The enemy. Seeking vengeance for her slain brother.
Only…only there was more to it.
“Good riddance,” said Borald, beside him.
“Aye.”
“Too bad ’tis only the start of the season. They will be back, or others like them.”
She would not be back. “Keep good watch,” Quarrie bade his captain.
“Aye, and ye need to tak’ your rest. I only thought ye would be glad to see them going.”
Quarrie returned to his quarters, moving slowly. His fellow clansfolk stopped him all along the way exclaiming over his condition or marveling at his escape from the viking longboat.
“Monsters they are,” cried one woman. “Naught but savage monsters.”
He gained his quarters at last, and the bed beckoned. He lay down with a groan. Difficult to sleep during the day. He was used to being on the move throughout daylight. Now his body screamed in protest at the very thought.
