Page 39 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

"Around her waist," he said. "Twice. And Njal takes the end, because Njal is the only one of you who will actually pull when I say pull instead of standing there having opinions."

He was cursing steadily under his breath the entire time he tied it, a low, continuous, deeply inventive stream of Norn that Samira could not understand.

"If I tell you to come up," he said, jerking the knot tight, "you come up. You do not finish what you are doing. You do not tell me you are nearly there. You come up. Do you hear me, wife?"

"Yes."

"Say it back to me."

"I come up when you say so and I do not argue." She met his eyes. "Torstein. Let go of the rope."

He let go of the rope.

***

SAMIRA WENT DOWN FLAT on her front on the wet planking. Torstein knelt over her and put one hand flat between her shoulder blades and pushed down, pinning her to the deck with his own weight so the roll of the ship could not take her over the side.

She pushed her right arm through the gap to the shoulder.

The sea came over both of them twice while she worked. She could see nothing. She found the withy by touch, thick, cold, slick as a fish, and traced it up to where it had slipped off the block. She got two fingers under the loop and pulled, and it came up, and then she could not turn her wrist far enough to get it over the top of the block and seated.

"I need the oar lifted," she shouted. "Only a little. A hand's width. It is pulling the rope down and I cannot get it over the top."

"Leif! Mathias! On three!"

The weight came off. She felt the withy go slack in her fingers.

She shoved the loop up and over the block, hauled it round twice more for good measure, and felt the whole thing bite and hold.

"Done! It is seated! Pull me up!"

Njal pulled her up.

Her sleeve was torn open from elbow to wrist and her arm was bleeding freely. She did not notice either of those things for another two hours.

Torstein got her upright and enveloped her in his arms, holding her tight. He had one hand still on the rope at her waist and the other on her shoulder, and he was looking at her the way a man looks at something he has just nearly lost, and he was still swearing, very quietly, in Norn.

"Your cursing is useless," Samira said. "I cannot understand you, Viking."

He cursed again before slamming his lips across hers in a passionate embrace. His ship, his men, the storm, all of it be damned. Samira responded with equal fervor.

When they broke apart, only then did Torstein untie the rope and place her hands firmly on the rail before returning to his post.

***

THE STORM RAN UNTIL well after dark.

Somewhere in the middle of it a crewman named Olvir lost his footing at the bow and went over the side as far as his waist. Samira had both hands in his belt before the man standing next to him had finished turning round. She was not strong enough to pull him back in. She only held him there for the two heartbeats it took for someone who was to get a hand on him.

Afterwards she saw Leif and Mathias look at each other. She did not know what the look meant.

By full dark the wind had eased. Men began moving around the deck with more ease. The sail was split in two places, four oars were gone, but the hull was sound.

Torstein came and found her sitting with her back against the hull and her knees drawn up.

"Your arm."

"It is nothing. A splinter from the rail."