He drifted off only to imagine he was back aboard the longboat and lashed to the mast, the deck shifting beneath him with the craft’s agile dance at anchor. The fists and feet came at him again, striking and dealing pain along with disparagement.
He awoke with a start.
What had she told her crew, Hulda, when they woke and discovered him gone? The fellow on guard must have been in it with her. But the others would be enraged, would they not? Cheated of their entertainment. Even if she was in command.
It bothered him that she might take on trouble for his sake. But she was not his to worry over.
He slept again and dreamed what did not feel like a dream. He stood outdoors in the sunshine at the side of a roundhouse such as his ancestors might have built long ago. How he knew it for such, he could not say, for he’d never seen such a structure whole, only the ruins with the stones scattered.
One existed here at Murtray, in fact, predating the present keep.
In the dream, sunlight had warmed the stones. He stood near a washing place as familiar to him as his own name.
Whatwashis name?
Not alone, he stood facing a young woman. An ordinary enough young woman she might be—a wee bit above average height, slim as a willow wand, with a mane of yellow hair and a pair of wide, true-blue eyes now filled with worry. Naught ordinary about her, though, for the sight of her, the very feelof her, raked up his emotions into a storm of protectiveness, of devotion, of love.
He loved this woman, if love could describe the power of what he felt. She loved him.
In the dream that was more than a dream, he reached out and captured her hands, raised them one after the other to his lips and dropped kisses into the palms. Leaned forward to kiss either corner of her mouth. Her cheeks. He dropped a kiss at the center of her brow, inhaling as he did so, her scent. Drawing in the feel of her.
A benediction. A blessing to keep her safe.Even though she sailed away from him.
He awoke with his heart pounding, surprised to be in his own bed and not standing outside the little roundhouse. So real had it been. So real hadshebeen.
He lay there struggling to breathe and wondering, had he ever loved anyone the way he loved that maiden standing in the sun? It made what he’d felt for Norah a shadow, or a delusion. And this made Norah’s rejecting him…och, nothing.
Indeed, any lingering hurt for that evaporated like dew before the sun. That had not been love.
Shaken, he lay and took stock of himself. Where had he journeyed in that dream? And who was she? It could not feel more real. The skin of her palms against his lips. The twitch at the corner of her mouth, the softness of her cheeks.
There had been grief in it, though, all tangled up with the love. And there had been fear in it, right alongside the devotion.
He struggled to his feet. His room had gone dark while he slept. Night had come. He could not remember the last time he’d slept the day away. His body protested his movements, trying to drive him back into the bed.
He pushed his fingers through his hair, desperate to think. Naught had changed. He was still the son of Chief Airlee Murtrayand would himself be chief one day—if he survived. He had been very fortunate to escape death at the hands of the Norsemen. But his life would continue in the way it mostly had. Waking and training. Keeping watch. Filling in for Da as best he could.
Nothing had changed, though everything had.
Where was she now, Hulda Elvarsdottir? He tried to picture the narrow boat out upon the dark sea. She would not be afraid to sail. She was not afraid of much. A woman like no other.
Except…
Had there not been a thread of what he’d sensed in Hulda Elvarsdottir in the woman he’d kissed outside the roundhouse? Possibly many threads bound up together, the same that had drawn him to Hulda without cause or reason. The same as had anchored him to the woman he’d blessed with his kisses.
He crossed to the narrow window of his chamber. Outside lay darkness, a flare of light from a watchfire. His window faced the sea and he could feel rather than see it moving restlessly, an eternal movement. As eternal and as unstoppable as time.
Keep her safe,he beseeched the sea, and perhaps time itself. He did not know which of the two women he meant.
Chapter Twenty-One
The voyage hometo Avoldsborg was grim and silent. The crew had hoped for spoils—they always hoped for spoils—and returned home empty-handed. They felt they had wasted their time.
Ivor remained angry at Hulda, whether out of damaged pride because he had failed to take up her challenge, or just because their mission had been fruitless, she could not tell.
But he acted sullen and surly. He tried to take out his temper on Garik, faulting him for the Scotsman’s escape, until Hulda had to intervene.
None of this was Garik’s fault, though he alone of the crew knew the truth about MacMurtray’s escape. Ivor was capable of getting the helmsman alone and forcing that truth out of him. Hulda must make sure that did not happen, if only in return for Garik’s loyalty.
