“Then it seems I maun let ye sail awa’ from me.”
It would be a long winter, unbearably long. And when she returned to Norge, would all this seem like a dream? As if it had never truly happened. Like those other dreams she’d had of Quarrie when he wore another man’s face and body—different yet the same. But thatwasreal. It was a past truth.
“I maun let ye go,” he repeated. “And doing so, I maun ha’ faith. I canna believe fate brought ye to me for this moment in time, only so we might be parted again, forever.”
“Not forever.” A sob rose to her throat. “But ja, perhaps for this life.” She did not want to admit that, did not even want to think it, but it might well be so.
“Then—then, Hulda, we will meet again in the next life. This I do promise ye.”
“Love me,” she beseeched him. “Love me now.”
And he did.
Time, so Hulda decided as she sheltered there in his arms, as she took him inside her, was a fickle commodity. It flew when she was with him. Dragged when she was not. Terrified her when she thought of the span of it before spring.
Became unimaginable when she considered the remainder of her life. She was not yet a score and four years old. How would she live the many years without him?
He was right—she had totryto believe. Believe in something beyond the reach of her own intentions, in the same destiny that, out of a world of men, had brought her to him.
This love they shared was wondrous. It was also terrifying. Could she trust that it had a power of its own?
They lay lost in loving till dawn, when they rose and dressed without words, the cold of the outside world stealing in with the morning light.
Not until they prepared to part, he to take one path through the woodland and she another, did he catch both her hands in his and ask, “Hulda, how many days do we have left?”
“I do not know. If I takeFreyaout for a few more raids, that may keep the men content and make them willing to linger yet a while.”
The corners of Quarrie’s mouth tightened. He hated it when she went raiding—the price of keeping her near to him.
“Even that takes ye awa’ from me.”
“Ja.”
“Time has become verra precious.”
The tears in Hulda’s eyes blurred his face. She blinked them away. “Quarrie, we must be together as oft as we can before I takeFreyahome.”
Once more, she saw the emotions flicker in his eyes. Doubt. Protest. A weighing of risk against desire.
He said only, “Aye.”
“Tonight.”
His fingers tightened on hers. He should refuse, as a sensible man would. Instead he said again, “Aye.”
Very well, then. She could live another day. Stave off the thoughts and the dread that accompanied them.
They kissed goodbye, a lingering of lips on lips, a clinging of soul to soul.
“Tonight,” she whispered in parting.
But before the night came, a message arrived in camp brought by one of Quarrie’s guards. The man asked to speak with Hulda alone, and delivered his message with narrowed eyes.
“Chief Quarrie bade me let ye know there is trouble at hand. A fleet o’ longships has been sighted movin’ in fro’ the outer islands.”
Hulda’s heart fell.He would not be able to come. That was her first thought before she focused on what the man had said.
“Longboats?”
