Ivor, thanks be to Odin, was not there. Garik indicated a bench in the corner and went to fetch their drinks.
Hulda sat and tried not to shiver. Their bench was too far from the fire—but private. She listened to some members of her crew telling tales of their voyage. It would be all over Avoldsborg by nightfall.
A humiliation, for certain. Faðir would not be happy.Shewas not happy.
Garik came back and put a mug of ale in her hand. He looked thoughtful.
“They talk,” he said with a jerk of his head at the members of the crew.
Ja, and what if they knew the truth, that Hulda had let their captive go?
“I am curious about something,” Garik said.
Here it comes,Hulda thought.He will press me over his silence.“What is it?”
“I think I understand why you let the Scotsman go. His end would have been long and bitter, and he was not the man who killed Jute.” When Hulda said nothing, he went on. “Someone like Ivor might say he should have died even though he was the wrong man. Someone needed to pay, and he was a Scotsman. It is enough.”
“Ja.”
“A head brought home in vengeance is a head brought home in vengeance.”
A silence fell, broken when Garik said, “Me, I despise Ivor.”
That made Hulda slant a look at him. “Do you?”
“Ja. He is a bully and a braggart with very little honor. I would not wish to sail with him again.”
“Oh?”
“I would, though”—he leveled a look at her—“wish to sail again with you.”
Hulda sighed. “You will have a long wait. I doubt I will be able to talk my faðir into another such venture very soon.”
“That is just it.” Garik took a deep drink from his ale cup. “I have an idea. It may be, as I say, a mad idea, but I cannot seem to stop thinking on it.”
Just as she could not seem to stop thinking on Quarrie MacMurtray. “As I say, mad ideas are some of the best. Tell me.”
“I am a good navigator, nei?”
That she answered readily. “You are one of the best I have ever known.”
“Yet because I am young, I am seldom offered the place I deserve. Only you offered me such a place. There are many like me, younger men who get pushed aside for those with more experience. The old men say we have not yet proved ourselves and they will not hire us.”
“A pity. So?”
“So what if you did not have to ask your faðir for a boat? What if the rest of us did not have to beg for places on a crew?”
“Garik, I am not following.”
“My friends and I have some wealth laid aside. Some earned from past voyages but most gifted to us by parents and grandparents. You may have the same.”
She did. Not enough, yet, to build a boat of her own. “Go on.”
“There are enough of us to man a crew. If we put our wealth together with yours, mistress, we might have a boat of our own, with you in command. Beholden to none but each other.”
It was the dream of everyone who went viking—to sail for himself and not an overlord or patron. She eyed her companion. “How young are these friends of yours?”
He shrugged. “Young. I am the oldest.”
