Ja, Quarrie was here on this shore, anchored soundly to her heart, and ja, she carried his child. But they were together also in this vision, in this leaf of a boat on the water. The settlement she saw in the vision appeared much different, smaller, but it was the same stretch of coastline. Her lover’s place. His home under attack.
Seeing it doubly, then and now, she knew the outcome. They would put ashore. He would go to fight. She risked losing him.
What manner of woman must she be to deserve the risk of losing him again and again?
“Hulda? Hulda!” Someone shouted in her ear, taking her out of the vision that left her weak with misgiving.
Helje stood beside her, bawling. “It is Ivor! What do you want to do?”
Fight for him.As he had fought for her, life after life.
From the shattered pieces of her past, she reached for sanity. “Put ashore in our old harbor.”
She was no longer a helpless girl. If he fought, she would stand to fight beside him.
Helje called the order to Garik, who gave a yell. They turned to the shore.
Hulda faced her men. “I will go to fight with Quarrie MacMurtray. For all of you who do not know—he is the faðir of the child I carry. The rest of you, I understand this is not your battle. You may wait in the bay or leave me here and sail off. It is yours to choose.”
The deck ofFreyagrew silent so they could hear clearly the clamor of battle, the cries of men dying on the shore.
Then Varg said, “The battle does not look to be going well for the Scots. Ivor and his warriors press them hard.”
“Then MacMurtray will possess one more sword. Mine.”
Garik called out, “I have never much liked that Ivor, me. He is a snake.”
“And his crew,” Brynjar added, “forever looking down on us.”
“A score of swords,” called Varg, “will do more good than but one.”
“I am up for a battle,” Helje declared. “And mayhap we can earn a berth here for ourselves.”
“Then put ashore,” Hulda told them, “and we will go.”
Surely this too was familiar? Surely the tiny boat had come ashore, long, long ago, at nearly this same place, with the clamor of desperate battle echoing over the rocks, turning her stomach sick with dread. She had crept through bracken and gorse in this same way, on the tracks of her lover.
Who had gone to fight. To die?
Now they went in a silent mob, not just herself, who had been alone but for the gray hound at her side. The ghost of the hound seemed to accompany her now, as it had in the past.
Quarrie might already be dead.
That did not occur to her until their group paused amid the rocks to eye the battle. Ja, and fierce it was.
Most of Ivor’s men had come ashore. Hulda could see but a skeleton crew on the four boats, one of which appeared to be afire.
Fighting was intense on the shore and up the rise to the keep. Once again, Hulda’s view flickered. The stone keep disappeared, replaced by a sturdy roundhouse where men fought at the very door. Where her love fought.
Was he there now?
Ach, but the roundhouse flickered in turn and stood there no longer. Now there was a gate, one being stormed by Ivor’s men. Indeed, she thought she could see Ivor there, his dark hair flying as he struck, and struck.
The old events, the place, the people, all came round again and again as if borne upon the rim of a wheel, until the lessons were learned.
What was she meant to learn?
No time to wonder now. The men around her were muttering.
