“Ja, sure.” They rolled their eyes. She did not doubt they would follow partway and keep watch.
Again, an older crew would never have let her walk away on her own. A woman less a fool would not have gone.
She smelled the settlement before she saw it. Clouds had moved in overnight, and smoke from all the morning fires hung heavy in the air. The sea was the color of a newly forged sword blade, and Hulda felt a tremor of foreboding, lost, almost, in her anticipation.
There were men on the shore, workers as well as guards on watch, for they knew full well what lay around the curve of the headland. They all came to attention when Hulda’s foot hit their stretch of shingle.
She felt their sharp gazes like the points of so many spears. Did they breathe, for watching her? As she began to pass them by, she wondered how to handle such hostility.
Staring into the face of the nearest man, she gave him a bold “Good morning.” Head high and pace steady, she continued past them, scattering the greeting every so often.
Not one man replied.
When she reached the path that led up from the sea to the stronghold, she saw Quarrie just emerging from the building. Someone had run to inform him of her approach.
He came charging down to meet her, surprise in his eyes and alarm in every line of him. He’d not paused to braid his hair, and it flowed over his shoulders in a red-brown curtain. His gaze captured hers and did not waver.
Her pulse accelerated. She wanted to run to him but could not possibly do so, pinned here by so many eyes. Yet at sight of him, the world seemed to change color, the very air to brighten.
They met halfway down the slope, a well-populated spot devoid of privacy.
“Mistress Hulda? Is there some difficulty?” Before she could reply, he added with a frown, “Is there a problem wi’ the landing place?”
“Nei. My navigator managed to guideFreyain.” He would have had spies to tell him so. “We passed a quiet night. Indeed”—she shifted on the balls of her feet—“I came in hope to trade.”
“Aye, so?”
By Odin’s eye, she liked his voice. The sound of it in her ears was like singing, a music finer than any bard’s.
“We are in need of some supplies. Basic things.” She patted the purse that hung at her side. “I can pay.”
“Ah. Come along, then. I will introduce ye to my steward who keeps our stores. Will ye tak’ a bit o’ breakfast first? I was just about to sit down.”
So ordinary a thing, to take breakfast with him. To sit as two civilized people might, as two friends might, they that were born mortal enemies. His people had killed Jute, right down there on that shore.
Was it wrong of her, then, to desire him?
“I have broken my fast,” she said. “I am sorry to delay you.”
“It does no’ matter.” He said it easily, without rancor. “In a place like this, I am constantly being called awa’ from one duty to another. Come.”
He took her through the main gate into a narrow yard turfed in green and around the side of the stone building where lay a whole gathering of small houses. Stables, these must be, and what looked to be a blacksmith’s forge. Workplaces—perhaps an armory. Other structures. A bustling sort of place, yet once again each and every man or woman froze as they passed—froze and stared—as if a spell was cast by Hulda’s very presence.
A man came hurrying out from one low building and Quarrie addressed him. “Kalen, this is Mistress Hulda Elvarsdottir. She wishes to bargain for some supplies.”
The man, of middle years, balding but with enough bristle on his chin to make up for it, goggled at Hulda as he might at a monster that had emerged from the sea.
“Aye, Chief Quarrie.”
“Mistress Hulda, what d’ye need?”
“Some basic things, only.” She recited the list she had made in her mind. “Small measures, all.” She would ask for more later, if this agreement held.
If she got away from here alive. For she sensed—heard and felt—people edging up behind her, closing in a circle to listen. If she so much as breathed wrong, she’d be cut down before she could blink.
Yet Quarrie stood firm as an oak beside her. And she trusted him, did she not?
Ja.
