He was. A vicious one. She sometimes thought Ivor killed for the sake of it, even when he did not have to. Did he not know slaves were more valuable than dead men—and women?
“If you are going to attack,” he said now, in full hearing of the whole crew—the men she commanded—“then attack. Morning is the best time, when the lazy bastards are still trying to lever their asses out of their beds.”
“I know what I am doing,” Hulda told him. She had a plan, one Ivor would not like. Nor would Faðir, truth be told. But this was her venture, her chance to avenge her brother.
Ivor needed to learn he must accept her decisions. Answer to her will.
Perhaps a punishment, if he continued to speak out so freely against her. He did not think her woman enough to do that. He would learn.
She had questioned many of those who had accompanied Jute on his last voyage, and had a good idea what had happened to him. She had also gathered knowledge of these islands, clustered like sleeping dragons off the shore. Many of them, like the one behind which they now hid, were small and uninhabited. Rocky and barren.
“There.” She gestured to a narrow inlet that pierced the rocks ahead of them. “Can you take us in?”
Garik eyed the rocks that flanked the inlet. Nodded. He was young but an excellent helmsman. A good crew all round, but for Ivor.
“Are you mad?” Ivor asked now, baring his teeth at her. “You cannot take us in there. You’ll scrape bottom.”
“Take us in,” Hulda ordered Garik again.
On a wild day with high seas and storms pounding the rocks, it would be impossible. And if weather came, as it did so often along this coast, ja, they would be trapped. Foolish, as Ivor said.
But no one would see them tucked in there against the isle, not from any direction. If it stormed, they would just have to sit tight. For days if need be.
Would that not drive Ivor to a berserker’s rage?
Once Garik had them safely within the rocky arms of the inlet, she walked to the rail and stood looking out as the men dropped anchor and prepared to settle. Not much to see but those stony arms, more stones on the shore, and the rough green turf of the barren island. From here, she could not even see her goal. Her target.
As she might have predicted, Ivor was not done with her. He approached her with that swagger he so often employed. A tall woman, she nearly matched him in height, him being a not especially tall man. So their eyes were nearly on a level when he glared into her face.
Dark eyes, Ivor had, brown tinged with red, unusual for their race. It was rumored his mother had been a slave from the eastern lands, some place called Constantinople. He’d inherited her dark hair, though he had his father’s brawn and cunning.
Hulda could not say for sure, since the woman had died long before ever Ivor and Jute became such fast friends.
As she had many a time, she wondered what Jute had seen to like in the fellow. His slyness, perhaps for, ja, Jute had possessed a measure of that also. His cunning and his dark sense of humor.
“Before you begin to rant at me,” she said, “I will remind you of who is in charge of this war party.”
“It is not a war party,” he retorted. “It is a pleasure cruise, so far.”
She drew a breath and wondered how best to deal with him.
Before she could speak, he said, “Your brother died out there.”
“Which is precisely why we are here.”
“Skulking.”
“We are not skulking. We are the cat waiting for the mouse, which does not know it is there.”
That made him blow a breath between his teeth. “Cats! I came for vengeance.”
“And you shall have it.”
“We are Norsemen. We do not play at games.”
“You want to redden your sword?”
“Ja.”
