Chapter Seven

“Do you think the weather will hold?” Tinnie, no stranger herself to the cruelty of northern seas, measured the fjord with careful eyes before she glanced into her husband’s face.

At the moment, the conditions could hardly be better. A clear blue sky arched overhead on this bright morning, though the air felt cold enough to kiss Tinnie’s face with frost.

Daylight became a precious commodity at this time of year, and she did not fancy being out on the water in the dark, especially in a storm. But her husband had kept his word, and so she had no intention of losing her courage.

During the time since she had made her request, he had prepared the strongest of his ships for their journey. This was not the longship in which he went raiding but another she could only suppose his favorite. The others of the fleet had high prows carved in the likenesses of dragons, a familiar threat to her people when sighted on the horizon.

This one—Tinnie stared at it again, in amazement. The wooden prow, obviously carved by a master, broke the foam in the likeness of Claus’s favorite creature, a reindeer, its antlers reaching high into the sky.

What would folk think when they saw that coming? Her heart twisted in anticipation. Already Claus and his men had loaded so many things: barrels of salt herring and of grain, some of it thieved from Tinnie’s own clan; great batts of warm wool; treats, like dried berries.

She had overheard much during this time, she who had learned to understand Claus’s tongue even as he spoke hers. His men grumbled that the passage was too dangerous, that they would all perish.

To each who complained Claus replied, “Then stay behind, if you will. I do not force you.”

Not one chose to stay behind; he commanded their liking and their loyalty. Why? What made them love this man so? Was it his great heart?

She had also heard his friend Nels mutter to him amidst the ordered confusion of loading the ship, “You will beggar yourself for this, Claus—for her. Many of these things you saved for trade in the south next season.”

“Ja, Nels,” Claus had replied, “but I have so much. Surely I can spare.”

“You are too generous.” Nels had sent a rueful look in Tinnie’s direction. “Too giving, to her.”

And now, this morning, they prepared to sail. Last night she had lain in Claus’s arms in their bed, and he had loved her well. For the last time? Tinnie, who had grown up at the far shore of this same sea, had no illusions about what she asked of him.

And what he proved willing to give, for her sake. This fine, beautiful ship could soon lie at the bottom of the cold ocean, and all of them dead.

Knowing the risks, she had debated long over taking Frost with her. But the pup fretted so when apart from her that now, prepared to board, she stood with him in her arms.

“Pray the kind weather holds, Missus,” Claus bade her, and surveyed the sky.

She had, hard and long, on her knees in the chapel. Two days and a night it would take them to reach the shores of Scotland in favorable winds. But at the moment the sea lay so still the reindeer on the prow of Claus’s ship could see its own reflection, and not a breath of wind stirred.

She searched the face of the man at her side. Did she condemn him to death? Was that not what he deserved, he who had destroyed all she loved?

She was no longer sure. For last night he had held her so gently, covered her lips with his warm ones, and wooed her so very long and tenderly. And, honest woman that she was, she had to admit she had felt something besides duty toward him.

Quite possibly his men spoke true when they said that Claus had a generous heart.

Her arms tightened around Frost, who nuzzled her neck. Aye, she might pray for many things.

****

“Keep down, Missus, and hold to your hund very tight!”

Claus shouted the words into Tinnie’s face from a mere breath away, yet she barely heard him. The wind—so noticeably absent at the beginning of their voyage—now struck at them with a vengeance, and the fullness of the winter storm had them in its teeth. Again and again the valiant reindeer ship shuddered throughout its length, and Claus’s sailors fought as hard as warriors on the battlefield to keep it afloat.

And, amidst it all, Claus—Claus thought to worry for her, the woman who had sent them all into it.

Halfway through their journey they must have been, when the storm hit. Now sleet beat the oaken planks, and ice coated the mast. The men had lowered the big, square sail so the wind would not pull the ship over, and they struggled at the oars, shouting out what sounded like curses and sometimes wailing aloud.

Claus, never one to set himself above his crew, had taken his turn at the oars. She had watched his muscles bunch and strain before the snow drove into her eyes and she could not see at all.

Now she tried to read her husband’s expression while blinking against the stinging sleet. The ship began to climb yet another wave, a great swell that thrust the reindeer’s head into the gray sky, and Tinnie’s stomach tightened in terror. Claus had tried to warn her of this. How he must reproach her!

Yet his strong arms came around her, held her and Frost tight as the ship reached the top of the swell and began its terrible plunge down the other side. He drew her against his heart even as they waited to see if the reindeer would succeed in struggling above the waves, and his big body blocked the worst of the icy spume that reached for her.

Surely mere wood and mere flesh and bone could not withstand such an onslaught. Why had God sent this fury, if Tinnie’s intention had been good? Did He seek to punish these pagans? Yet her people needed the wonderful cargo on board this ship.

“We are going to die,” she gasped.

Somehow he heard her above the screaming wind. “Nei, Missus. You must believe.”

The words tumbled into her ear even as one of his men, forward, hollered to him. His arms tightened for an instant before he released her.

“I must go. You hold fast, Missus. You, of all the things on this ship, are most precious to me.”

He loves me, Tinnie thought quite clearly even as Claus stepped away forward. How can he love me, when I have been nothing but hard and cold and resentful of him? Yet she could not deny the truth of it. The touch of his hands did not lie. And surely only love could bring a man on such a terrible voyage.

Her heart quailed within her then, for she understood what it meant to be loved by such a man. And she feared she could never love him in return—a pagan, a savage, an enemy to all she was. Yet his emotions were like this storm that beat at her—impossible to endure or to turn away.

Another cry came from forward, echoed by a score of voices. Tinnie’s heart seemed to seize in her chest. Had someone been lost to the water? What if it were Claus?

Then, surely, she would be free.

She tried to contemplate it even as Frost trembled in her arms. She strained to see through the wall of snow, and failed. She bent her head and spoke a prayer, this one not for the ship or even her people or herself.

As if in response, she heard Claus’s voice, like a clarion, call through the storm. Her heart quieted and, along with it, almost imperceptibly, the wind slackened. Had they weathered the storm? Did they begin to come out the other side?

Had she?