That brought a hush of silence. Clearly, the men did not know what to make of it, no more than did Quarrie.
Giving up, Borald said, “Let us get him warm and dry. Seumas, ye run for the healer. Come.”
They half—in truth, more than half—carried him up from the shore and into their own hall, where they kept a good fire for the guards to take turns warming themselves.
As they set him down on the bench, he said to Borald, “She has my sword.” There seemed something significant about that, as if some instinct told him he could trust her with it, or as if all this had happened before, long ago.
Borald swore viciously. “I ken fine wha’ that sword means to ye.”
“Aye.” So it did.
They stripped off his wet, bloodied clothing without ceremony and wrapped him in someone’s plaid. Drachan, the healer, arrived and clucked over him in distress. He treated the wounds to Quarrie’s face and head, and the bruises spreading across his body.
“Ye mean to tell me, Master Quarrie, ye swam all the way fro’ Oileán Iur in this condition?” he marveled.
“Aye.”
“There is a story in it, I do no’ doubt.”
“They meant to kill me come morning. But listen”—Quarrie seized Borald’s arm as sense trickled back into him—“there is no fleet o’ six ships. Just the one we saw.”
The faces around him stilled, eyes staring incredulously.
“Wha’?” someone gasped.
“’Twas all a ruse.” On Hulda’s part, he did not doubt. “A means to bargain for the vengeance they sought.”
Angry mutters greeted this information.
“But,” Borald objected, “having got their hands on a means o’ vengeance—ye—why did this woman then let ye go?”
“I canna tell,” Quarrie said. Or perhaps he could, if he dared to. There was something between him and Hulda Elvarsdottir. Or was such a thought just madness?
Whatever the case, he did not doubt his story would be all over the settlement before dawn.
“Run,” Borald bade someone standing by, “tell Mistress and Chief Murtray their son is returned. Wake them if ye ha’ to. They will want to know.”
He turned even as a man dashed off, and fixed Quarrie with a stern eye. “Ye be sure there is nay fleet o’ longboats?”
“Nay, but the one.”
“Then rest, sleep, and leave it in my hands.”
To Quarrie’s surprise, he did.
*
He woke feelingworse, if possible. Every part of him hurt, and when he sat up, his ribs screamed at him. Several blows and kicks had done real damage there.
A few off-duty guards remained on hand playing at draughts and watching over him. They came swiftly when he roused.
They did not ask how he felt. It must be obvious. Both his eyes had swelled and one side of his jaw ached. Indeed, every bone in his body joined in the miserable chorus.
I might have been dead. That thought speared through his mind. For aye, clear morning light flooded in the open doorway, and he could hear bustle from outside.
Would he have survived till morning, on the longboat? He might well have been floating on the tide by now, headless, had she not saved him.
He had to digest that thought; he could not get around it.
