Chapter Seventeen

“It’s not just the wind that plays tricks in the fog. Sound itself is morphed into strange beasts when your eyes are removed from the sailing equation.

In fog, sound bounces off the water particles in the air and the stillness amplifies those sounds so that the rumble of a boat motor five miles away may sound like five feet to the sight-starved ears of a wayward watch stander.”
Life of Sailing.com

I shouldn’t seek him out.

Hannah stared at the small, dark window across from the bed she was sharing with the two girls. He’s the enemy. She sighed, knowing her argument lacked conviction. Erik was trying to save his sister. Sophie of Denmark and Peter Kaas were the enemy, making Erik and his Wolf Warriors act against the Sinclairs.

They could have killed Bàs or tried to. They could have terrorized Trix and Libby, punishing them for sneaking onboard. They could have left the Pedersens to deal with Patrick Stewart on their own. But Erik and his men had done none of those horrid things. He stole me away.

The creaking of the ship kept her from falling back to sleep. It must be close to dawn. She and Erik had met again in the hull last night, coming together with silent passion. They’d found release in each other’s arms even if solutions still eluded them.

Footsteps thudded softly overhead, and she turned onto her back to stare up at the shadowed ceiling. Was that Erik? She wanted to talk to him about his plan. If it worked, she wouldn’t see him again after he left her at the Danish court. Didn’t he want to know if he had a child? How could she get word to him?

Daingead. Her emotions seemed to fly up and down like a sparrow in a storm, battling to rise only to be thrown low with worry and regret. Could she even be with child after three tuppings? Her hand slid over her slightly rounded stomach. I pray I am. Even if Erik was no longer in her life. Although, then there’d be no hiding that she and Erik had come together, and her brothers would…act poorly about it.

One problem at a time. Hannah slowly and silently rolled out of the bed, dragging a smaller blanket with her. She paused as Trix mumbled, turning. “Boo, come back here.” Her words came from barely moving lips.

Libby’s arm shot out, whacking Trix. “Shhh,” she murmured.

Hannah wrapped the blanket around her arms, waiting in the dark, feeling the gentle sway of the ship under her until both girls breathed evenly again. Stepping out of the room, Hannah paused in the heavy dampness hanging in the air. Fog. It had crept in the closer they got to land, and the wind’s lower strength had allowed it to squat around them. She didn’t mind the fog, not when it delayed them from arriving at the Danish court.

The lightening of the black sky to gray on one side indicated the east where the helmsman had pointed the prow of the ship. She walked in soft slippers, nodding to one of the watchmen who was running his fingers up a sail line, inspecting it.

“’Tis almost morning,” he said in broken English. The fog seemed to warp his words, making them seem louder. “The captain is that way.” He tipped his head toward the bow.

“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling heat in her cheeks. Did the whole crew know that they had been together? That she would want to seek him out? Hannah considered turning back to her room, but privacy was precious here, and her time was running out.

She walked forward, stepping over ropes and around barrels of freshwater and a covered pallet of wool from Girnigoe that they’d traded their silver for before stealing her away. Water droplets from the dense mist dripped from every line. A figure stood in the fog, looking out as if he might spread his arms like Moses and part it. He turned when she neared.

Her heart sped as she followed the lines of his cheekbones and strong jaw. It was time to memorize every part of him in case they were parted forever. Thoughtful eyes watched her approach. His hair was down, brushing just above his broad shoulders.

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes, but I woke early. Perhaps I can sense land nearby.” She looked out at the layers of fog. The entire world seemed swollen with it, pushing against their ship and wetting their faces. Wisps of it slid past them in the pre-dawn gray, but it was thick and showed no sign of clearing.

He leaned against the rail, looking at her, which made Hannah tug her hair over one shoulder. She must look tousled from sleep. “We will arrive at Denmark soon?”

“Aye.”

“And then…you will fulfill your mission to give me to Sophie.”

She heard him inhale. “I have never questioned my orders before,” he said, his words soft. “My men are perplexed by my actions over this whole misadventure.”

She stepped closer, thankful that the fog could give them a bit of privacy. “They aren’t the only ones perplexed.” She swallowed. “You stole me from my home. You might try to kill the four men I love the most in the world or, at least, force them to bend to foreign rule. I should hate you.”

“You should,” he said. His hand rose, and he caught a loose strand of her hair between his thumb and finger, rubbing it as if testing the softness of it. The dampness made the curls twist even more. “You should very much hate me, Hannah Sinclair.”

She stared up into his eyes, the dawn revealing more detail in the gray world. “But I don’t. And that…is perplexing.”

His brows furrowed. “This would all be easier if you did.”

“This? You mean leaving me?” she asked, her chin rising. He’d yet to say anything about his own feelings, but he continued to stroke the strand of hair. His strong fingers were gentle and so talented at teasing pleasure within her. Watching them move over her hair teased the smoldering fire heating her body.

“Aye,” he said and dropped his hand. “Our time together ends soon.”

“We could still come up with a solution,” she whispered, ire at his easy acceptance making her words tight. But she stepped forward as if he drew her despite her will. She gazed at the base of his throat above the edge of his tunic. She remembered kissing that warm hollow, feeling his wild pulse beneath her lips, licking the salt from his skin as they moved together under the stars on Shetland.

Erik’s arms came up around her, pulling her close. “If I wasn’t an enemy to your family before, I surely am now. Once they retrieve you, if they survive, they will never let you out of their sight, especially not to attend me in any way.”

Hannah rested her cheek on his chest, breathing in the scent of him. His was a warm, musky scent of fresh air and leather. “You have a point, one I wish could be ignored. Why couldn’t you have just been a bloody silver trader from Norway? Instead, you had to be a deadly Wolf Warrior bent on the destruction of my clan.”

She felt rather than heard his low chuckle. The creaking of the ship and the lapping of the water obscured the sound. “Do I look like a simple trader?” His arms tightened around her, his muscles evident.

She tipped her face up to his, which she could see even better now as the sky continued to lighten above them. “Maybe not a simple trader, but my brothers trade things, too, and they are built strong.”

“From training for war. ’Tis why your youngest brother was so suspicious of us.”

“We all were,” she murmured. “But I didn’t care. My brothers scared everyone away, and those they permitted near me did not make my heart race.”

She felt his hand slide down her back. “Do I make your heart race?” he whispered near her ear, which did exactly that.

“Yes. With both passion and fury.”

The wind blew around them, making the sail fill with a snap, only to fall again with the wind’s ebb. Several men came above deck, and Erik dropped his arms from around Hannah. Privacy was as fragile as the thick fog still cloaking them. They turned to lean over the rail, side by side. The dark water looked like cold death below them, lapping. She raised her eyes to the gray mist where one could imagine shapes of sea monsters and hulking ghost ships. It was as if they were stuck outside of time, buoyed only by the ship beneath them.

Behind her, she heard Trix and Libby giggle. “Tell us about your kittens again,” Trix said.

“They fit into the palm of my hand,” Frode said, his deep voice barely reaching them at the rail.

The rising sun tried to cleave through the fog in shades of orange and red. Layers of wispiness moved with the growing breeze as if the world yawned with its waking. With the increase in wind, they’d make landfall today, and she wouldn’t have another chance to talk with him.

“Erik,” she said, her face turned to the sea so her words couldn’t carry to those behind them. “How will I get word to you once we part? Do you want to know if I’m carrying your child?”

From the fog came a voice. “Child? Carrying a child!”

As if the new day’s light lifted a veil, before them a ship was revealed. The ghost ship of her imagination solidified a mere fifty yards away. This was no legendary vessel that rammed unsuspecting ships, taking the souls of all onboard, but a Sinclair ship.

“I’m going to foking kill ye,” yelled a deep, burbling voice, hacking through the mist standing in its way.

“Bàs?” Hannah yelled back as Erik pulled her away from the rail, shoving her behind him.

“Let her go!” yelled a woman’s voice.

“Ella?” Hannah dodged Erik’s arm, her eyes opening wide at the sight of the hulking figure of a Sinclair ship growing sharper through the clearing air. What had they heard?

Staring back across the narrow stretch of sea, Hannah made out Ella and Shana, holding arrows nocked and pointed directly at Erik’s chest while Kára held a cocked sgian dubh.

“No!” Hannah yelled, jumping before Erik. “Don’t shoot!”

Behind them, thumping boots pounded across the deck while Nial called all below to arms.

Frode halted beside them at the rail. “The Sinclairs!”

“Don’t shoot,” Hannah called again, but her sisters didn’t lower their weapons. Bàs stared across, and even though he didn’t wear his skull mask, the promise of death sat in the lines of his face. Hannah had to admit that, at the moment, Erik was right in that her brother would never surrender to Denmark or Norway’s Wolf Warriors.

“Ye are going to die, Erik Halverson, after I cut your jack off,” Bàs said. Bloody hell, he sounded like Joshua. That wasn’t good.

“Trix! Libby!” Cait’s frantic voice screeched from higher in the misty air, and Hannah looked up the main mast where the girls’ adopted mother stood, rope in hand.

Trix and Libby ran to the rail, waving. “We’re here!” Libby called.

“We’ve had such an adventure!” Trix’s words tumbled over hers.

Cait balanced on the outside of the topcastle, her legs, in trousers, wrapping easily around the rope. She slid down to the deck. Several men murmured behind Hannah at Cait’s unique skill for climbing ropes and sashes.

“I’m coming over,” Cait said.

“Nay,” Bàs said.

“Don’t try to stop me, brother,” Cait retorted, climbing up on the rail with a thick rope that was used to swing across to other ships. “I’m coming, girls!”

Bàs threw his hands up in the air like he was severely annoyed. He looked across to Hannah. “Catch her.”

The two ships had drifted closer, but the distance looked great. “Erik,” Hannah said.

“I’ll catch her.”

Cait leaped out over the water, easily wrapped in the rope while Ella and Kára pushed her three times before she reached across far enough for Erik to catch the knotted end dangling under her. Hannah tried to help Cait off, but Sten grabbed her, setting her down on the deck.

“Girls!” Cait yelled, running toward them to fall on her knees, arms open wide to catch them. “Oh, my heavens.” Cait’s words were filled with a mix of anger, tears, and desperate relief. Her arms squeezed the two girls into her chest. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

Hannah’s heart clenched for the woman, imagining the searing pain of worry stabbing through after her daughters had disappeared.

“We’re sorry,” Libby said, tears in her own voice.

“We climbed upon the Wolf Warriors’ ship to save Hannah and Loinneil,” Trix said, remorseful at first but then her tone lightened. “And Libby threw up all over Frode. Then a storm blew us to Shetland where we met Eydis and fought Patrick Stewart.”

Libby’s face came up. “I threw rocks at his men from the ship, and now he’s tied up below. Chief Cain should like that.”

“I threw rocks too,” Trix added with a little frown.

“Wolf Warriors?” Bàs asked, all of them silent and desperate for any information.

“Erik Halverson and his men are Wolf Warriors of Norway,” Hannah said. “Elite warriors ordered by the Denmark-Norway government.”

Cait didn’t seem to be listening to Hannah. She stared up at Frode and Sten with brutal fury on her face. “You stole two little girls from their home. They could have died.”

The two Norse warriors crossed their arms. “We stole one big girl from her home,” Frode said.

“Those two followed,” Sten said.

“Hannah, stand aside,” Ella called across, holding the arrow still nocked, the string of her bow pulled back to her ear.

“Not if you’re going to shoot anyone on this deck.” Hannah’s voice carried easily over the water.

“Those bastards stole ye!” Bàs yelled, his usual apathetic voice abandoned for pure rage.

“There are reasons,” Hannah yelled back. She shook her head. “Why are you all here? Where are Cain, Joshua, and Gideon?”

“Right behind us,” Bàs said. “But we”—he glanced at his wife, Shana—“couldn’t wait. A thousand cavalry will be here any day.” It was a boast for certain. Even with the three vessels that they’d used to sail to Orkney, they wouldn’t have room for a thousand men, let alone horses.

Neither Ella nor Shana lowered their arrows, although they trained them away from Hannah and on Frode and Nial. Kára seemed to target Sten. But Cait and the girls were mixed up with them, shielding them whether they knew it or not.

“They abducted you from your home,” Ella said, calmly, her thirst for blood nearly as strong as Bàs’s.

“Cain abducted you,” Hannah said. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t shoot him?”

Ella hesitated and then the pull of her bowstring relaxed as she frowned back at Hannah.

“Ye said ye could be with child, Hannah,” Bàs said. “Explain.”

Heat raced into Hannah’s cheeks. “You were spying on me through the fog? Didn’t announce yourself, just listened?” She glared at her brother.

Bàs threw his arms out, indicating the fog. “We couldn’t be sure who was in this foking mist, and then when I heard your voice…” He trailed off, his hands going to his head. He clawed through his hair as if worry had driven him to the brink of insanity.

“I’m certain Cait would agree that Gideon would judge Erik Halverson to die for rape,” Kára said. Her gaze slid across the men, and her warrior-woman face condemned them all, thinking the worst. “All of you.”

“There’s been no rape here!” Hannah yelled quickly. “Lower your bloody weapons and listen.” Her heart thumped hard, sending an ache to her head. She waved her hands as if washing away anything they might be thinking.

“Did you marry him, Hannah?” Bàs asked. “Marry him and run away to be with him?”

“No, but—”

“Then he dies,” Bàs proclaimed, pulling his sword once again and pointing the tip of it over Hannah’s head where she knew Erik stared back defiantly.

“I will meet you anywhere you wish, Sinclair,” Erik said, the promise of death in his own voice.

This was going nowhere. Hannah stomped her foot and frowned, her arms outstretched and pushing downward. “Everyone put down your weapons and stop threatening one another. Discussion is what is needed, not violence.”

“But violence will feel so much better,” Kára said, sounding exactly like the man she married.

Shana went to Bàs and slowly uncurled his fingers around the hilt of his sword until it clattered to the deck. She whispered something to him, her hand sliding over her stomach absently.

“Bàs, how could you have brought Shana out here in the ocean when she’s with child?” Hannah asked, wildly flapping her hand at his wife.

Bàs’s fists rose into the air, his lips curled as he spun around, took two big steps, and turned back to stride to the rail. “Like I had any choice!” he yelled, his normally stoic personality gone, replaced by waves of irate emotion and frustration. “There are bairns onboard too!”

“I insisted,” Shana said.

“We insisted,” Ella said.

Shana gave up trying to catch Bàs’s arm as he paced. She went to the rail. “And I’m perfectly fine. I’m a midwife, so I would know.”

Bàs grabbed his sword off the deck. “They said it was their fault and they were sailing with or without me.” His gaze lifted again to Erik. “But my brothers will have landed at Girnigoe within two days after me and will have turned right back out to sea to follow. Once we are all together, nothing here will stop us from seeking revenge on you and your men.”

“Wolf Warriors,” Trix called. “The fiercest fighting men of Norway.”

“Then the Sinclair Horsemen seek revenge on the Wolf Warriors.” Bàs said the name of Erik’s army wryly as if the title lacked any weight.

“Wolves eat horses,” Libby pointed out, nodding as she lifted onto her toes to lean over the water.

“Hush,” Cait said, tugging both girls back from the rail. They yanked their hands away and ran to stand before Frode and Sten, their thin arms spread in protective stances. Kára lowered her sgian dubh, and Ella finally lowered her bow to her side. Only Bàs still held his sword as if ready to strike. If he had wings, blood would have already chummed the seas beneath them.

Cait turned to Hannah. “Clearly, things have…happened, and this abduction isn’t exactly what we thought when we sailed from Girnigoe to rescue you and the girls.” She took a full breath and released it, looking to Libby and Trix. “But everyone is sound.” Cait turned to the rail so her voice could be heard easily. She took on the calm cadence that Gideon used when presenting evidence of a crime. “A discussion of the facts and motivations is needed to sort this out. Weapons and threats will only muddy the explanation.”

“Meet me upon the shore, Sinclair,” Erik said, obviously speaking to Bàs, “so we can…talk.”

Hannah turned, scowling up at Erik’s hard face. “I should be the one to explain…whatever this”—she indicated the two of them—“is.”

Erik glanced at his men and then back at Hannah. “I let you within arm’s reach of your brother, and he’ll throw you on his ship, and I’ll be chasing you all the way back to Scotia.” He shook his head. “I must be the one to explain unless you want to shout it to him from far away.”

She exhaled in a huff. “Don’t provoke him then.”

“Why not? He’s provoking me.”

“And he’s an arse,” Frode said.

Trix tsked. “Say it in Norse. Miss Cait doesn’t like cursing.”

Libby looked at her. “She doesn’t care when adults curse.”

“Well, everybody’s cross at everybody and curses don’t help.” Trix nodded.

“And Bàs is not an arse,” Hannah said, scowling at Frode. “He’s worried, like you all are worried about Iselin.”

“Who is Iselin?” Ella asked.

“Erik’s sister has been forcibly taken by Dowager-Queen Sophie and her chancellor in order to force Erik and his men to infiltrate the Sinclair Clan and steal me away.”

“Why?” Cait asked.

“’Tis a complicated miscommunication, I fear,” Hannah said. “And I tire of yelling across.” She indicated the water separating their ships. The fog was moving off with the increasing wind. ’Twas a wonder they didn’t crash into each other.

“Then come back over,” Ella said. “The girls, Cait, and you.”

“Did you say you have that bastard, Patrick Stewart, on your ship?” Kára asked, her face tight with a mix of bloodthirsty glee and distaste.

Erik stood beside Hannah. “Aye,” Erik said. “He’s a gift for the dowager-queen to give to her daughter, Queen Anne of Scotland. Since King James has declared his family traitors.”

“I don’t think King James will mind if he arrives with a few holes in him,” Kára said, obviously wanting to have a go at the bastard. Joshua and she’d had a poor experience with the man when Patrick, his brother, and his father tried to annihilate Kára’s people on Orkney Isle.

“For now, send the women and girls over,” Bàs ordered.

“I will send them all, except Hannah,” Erik said.

Frode murmured something in their language that sounded angry and relieved at the same time, and Hannah saw Erik cast his friend a glare.

“Send them all.”

“Or what? You will fire upon the ship that holds children and women?” Erik called back.

“Better yet, I’m coming over there, ye wolfy bastard,” Bàs said, sheathing his sword and striding toward one of the ropes. Shana ran after him, tugging his arm and then grabbing his head in her two hands. Hannah couldn’t hear what she said to him.

“Enough of this,” Erik said, annoyance thick in his words. “There is a deep-water dock due east, north of Copenhagen.” He glanced up the main mast to where the lookout stood in the topcastle, squinting east. The wiry man called Birch nodded to Erik, and Erik turned back to look across at the Sinclair ship. “Now that the fog is clearing, ’tis within sight. We will disembark there.”

“And discuss how ye will be handing Hannah and the rest over immediately,” Bàs said, his voice calmer. Hannah had never seen her youngest brother so openly angry before.

“You best control yourself, Horseman,” Nial called over to him. “We have a few more countrymen waiting there than you do on your ship.”

Hannah turned to Erik, and he cast his hard gaze down at her. Her breath caught at the ferocious warrior staring at her. His mouth was grim, and his deep blue eyes narrowed. Tight anger made all the angles of his handsome face seem deeper somehow, fiercer. It made her heart pound, which was foolish. She knew he would never hurt her, at least physically.

“Erik,” she whispered. “He’s worried like you would be if he had Iselin.”

“That doesn’t soften my stance. I must and will get my sister back.” He looked like he’d say more but instead held her stare.

No, he didn’t say the rest with words, but his inflection held all the information Hannah needed. He’d get Iselin back even if he must use Hannah to do it.