“Your faðir’s heart is broken, just like mine. Just like yours. Jute was a son in a thousand. Your father expected grand things of him.”
Hulda’s lips trembled when she said, “Men go viking. They so risk not coming back.”
“This is so. Rota, where is that drink?”
A cup was thrust into Hulda’s hands. Móðir sat down beside her.
“Dottir, I believe it is time to give up all this nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” Hulda raised her gaze to her mother’s face, which looked worried. Weary. Wounded.
“Lay aside the weapons. The violence. The pursuit of blood. Be what you are.”
“What am I, Móðir?”
“A woman. A quite beautiful one.”
“Can a woman not be strong? Can she not fight for herself and those she loves?”
“We fight.” Móðir gestured to Rota and herself. “In our own way, we do. Women possess the strength of the stones beneath the hearth fire. The stones that hold up the walls of our dwellings. It is no less for being quiet.”
“And are you content to let the men you love die for you? I am not.” Hulda would have leaped to her feet, but Móðir’s grip on her hand kept her where she was.
“It is time,” Móðir said again, “to lay aside your flaming sword. Marry. Have children of your own. One of them may fill the hole Jute has left in your heart.”
Hulda said nothing. She blinked back the tears that filled her eyes.
“I thought,” Móðir went on doggedly, “when Haakon courted you, that you would wed him and settle. Let her get it out of her system, I told your faðir. All will come right.”
“Haakon showed he did not want me,” Hulda croaked out.
Móðir shrugged. “There are other young men. Some who do not go to sea.”
Hulda gazed at her mother uncomprehendingly.
“While you were away,” Móðir said gently, “Gothrum came to talk with me. He asked if your faðir and I would approve his suit.”
“Gothrum.” Hulda barely remembered him. She and the others near her age had all grown up together. She should know them all. “The silversmith?”
“Ja. A talented man.” Móðir’s lip curled. “He has his eye on you.”
“But—” Gothrum was tall, ja. Weedy. A bit stooped from the close work he did bending silver and gold wire into intricate brooches and chains.
“He asked me, honest and forthright, if I thought you would be interested. I said—”
“I am not.”
“—that I thought—”
“I am not.” Hulda had lent her heart to Haakon. She would not make that mistake again.
A vision of Quarrie MacMurtray arose before her eyes. Lips split and bloody. Eyes bruised, face battered. She had kissed those lips.
Nei, she wanted naught more to do with men.
“—he should place his suit before you when you returned.”
A nice enough young man, Gothrum. But he had nothing she desired.
