Everything made Quarrie think of Hulda Elvarsdottir.
He shrugged her out of his mind and put his arm around Ma. “Here now. Cry it out if ye need to. There is no one to see.”
Da refused to let them reveal to their clansfolk just how bad his condition had become. So when Ma went forth and answered their questions about their chief, she had always to put on a brave face. Quarrie did believe her woman knew the truth, and that Ma must have wept in her arms many times.
Her next words to Quarrie supported that belief. “I do no’ think I ha’ any tears left.” She rubbed at one of her cheeks absently. Da’s flailing hand had once more caught her there. Such was his strength in his pain-racked rages, he had fair knocked her sideways.
Quarrie drew her in against him and held her tight. A few moments respite only. He knew very well that as soon as he left to go about the morning’s business, she would be back beside the bed watching the man she loved sleep.
From the refuge of Quarrie’s arms, she whispered, “Son, are we ready? If he had perished last night, or should we lose him during this night to come—are ye ready to be chief?”
A question Quarrie had tried to face these many days now. One he should not have had to contemplate for a score of years yet. Da was so strong, so vital.
Washe ready?
“Do no’ worry yoursel’ for that, at least,” he murmured to her. “I shall tak’ up my duty when the moment comes.”
“I maun worry for it. All his life, he has lived first for this clan. When first we began courting—he said to me, Einid, we canna deal together unless ye understand, the clan will always come first. Our love second. I accepted that and ha’ lived by it. Even now…”
Aye, even now Da put the clan first, his concern for the defense of it making him hide his pain. Mayhap that was what made the fever rages so terrible. They had to break through a lifelong restraint.
“I will be ready,” Quarrie vowed.
She drew away far enough to gaze into his eyes. “We shall have to speak wi’ him, ye and I. Later today when he wakes. Ye maun assure him ye ha’ things in hand and will be the chief he needs ye to be, so that he can let go and—and cease suffering.”
The tears in her eyes spilled over. What would happen to this woman after the man she adored was gone? She had lived so many years putting him and his duties first. Caring for him, these past months.
So perilous was love.
“Aye,” Quarrie said softly. “I will come back.” They would try to talk to Da before the fever ramped up for the night and brought the madness again. “Ye get some rest while ye can. Lie down beside him while he is quiet.”
He should have followed his own advice, taken a few moments of sleep, however fleeting. Instead, after leaving his mother he choked down a breakfast he did not want and went out.
The sun was well up by then on what looked to be a clear, calm day. Quarrie’s gaze moved at once to the sea. Before he could send it ranging far, a cry came from the walls.
“A ship. A ship!”
His heart leaped in his chest, and all the night’s weariness flew. Nay, not an attack. Not now. He fairly flew up the treacherous stone stairs and joined Borald on the wall facing west.
“Where? How many?”
“But the one.” Borald’s face had settled into grim lines. “There. Just come round Oileán Iur.”
Quarrie’s heart thudded still more violently. Could it be? But nay…
A black sail, aye, poised there in the strong morning light. Only it was not truly black—likely striped like the last one, which had been red and white.
He blinked to clear his tired eyes and blinked again. Not Hulda’s ship, nay. This one had a different silhouette. Slightly smaller, and it sat differently in the water.
Not her, then.
How dare he think she would come back to him? They were enemies.
Were they not?
“Just the one,” he breathed at Borald. Men were running along the wall, spreading the word. “Looks to be, unless others are hiding among the isles.”
This one showed itself to them quite deliberately. Taunting them, perhaps, with its presence. Small and agile, it moved out from the isle, the same where Hulda’s boat had taken shelter when he was captive on it, and headed southward under strong oars.
