Page 21 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

Torstein ate little and spoke less. When two of the younger crewmen went out to see the lamplit streets, he watched them go without a word. Before the last of the lamb was gone, he rose, nodded to Njal and climbed the stair to his room.

Njal watched him go and said nothing.

***

TORSTEIN TOSSED AND turned on his narrow bed in the funduq. He could not get the woman from the souk out of his mind.

Below him the courtyard was still loud with voices and laughter, and the clatter of dishes being cleared. The smell of roasted meat drifted up through the shutters. He lay on his back and stared at the dark beams of the ceiling and saw only amber eyes and a dark braid disappearing over the rooftops.

He cursed his own stupidity for not following her. He should have gone after her the moment she turned her back. He should have climbed that stair and crossed the rooftops himself, and let Njal shout after him all he liked.

Something akin to panic had set in at the thought that he would never find her again. Fez was vast, a warren of lanes and courtyards and walls within walls, and he did not even know her name. Not once in all his life had he failed to act on his instincts. On the battlefield, at sea, in the jarl's hall, he had always trusted what his gut told him and he had never been wrong. Today his gut had told him everything, and he had stood in the street and let her run.

He turned onto his side. Then onto his back again.

He worried that she might be in danger. Those men had said they would come a third time, and she had believed them. She fought well, better than most men he had known, but she could not fight what she could not see. Next time they might not come with blades. A knife in a crowd. A cup of poisoned water from a well she trusted. A hand over her mouth while she slept. The thought drove him up from the bed and he stood at the shutters with his fists clenched, breathing hard.

The noise in the courtyard died away. The oud fell silent. Lamps went out one by one along the gallery.

Torstein did not sleep.

Somewhere in the deep of the night, the restless thoughts slowly hardened into something more useful. He began to plan.

She had fled up the stair between two houses near the souk. She knew the rooftops, which meant she lived close by, or often went there. She fought with a telek and a koummya, and someone had trained her, and a master of that skill would be known in the city. She wore good cloth and spoke like a woman of some learning. Someone in Fez knew who she was. He would ask quietly. He would watch that stairway. He would find her.

And when he found her, he would not leave this city without her.

He knew then with complete certainty that he would take her with him to Orkney.

***

TORSTEIN FOUND NJAL on the gallery above the gate, where he had taken the late watch. Njal was sitting with his back against a carved post and his sword across his knees, looking out over the dark courtyard and the olive tree silvered by the moon.

Njal did not turn his head. "Ye've been pacing for three hours. The whole funduq can hear ye."

Torstein sat down beside him. For a long moment neither of them spoke.

"I mean to find her," Torstein said at last.

"Aye. I ken that."

"And when I find her, I mean to take her home with us."

Now Njal did turn his head. He studied Torstein's face in the moonlight for a long time.

"Ye cannae be serious."

"I have never been more serious in my life."

"Torstein." Njal kept his voice low. "Ye want to take a woman you do not even know from this city and carry her onto a ship bound for Orkney? Think on how that looks. Think on how the men will see it."

"She would not be a thrall."

"Ye think the men will see the difference? They'll see their chief carrying off a prize, and every one of them will start thinking about the prize he'd like to carry off himself. Ye start taking women and ye'll have chaos on that ship before we pass the Pillars of Hercules. We could have blood on the deck and the whole city at our backs."

"I would not let it come to that."

"Ye might not be able to stop it." Njal leaned closer. "And what of the jarl? He sent us here to fetch a package and bring it home quietly. Not to start a feud with the whole of Fez. If this goes wrong, it will be Thorfinn's name they curse. And the Abbess's. And ours. We could lose everything we came for."