Aed decided he had stalled as long as he dared. Four of his seven ships were already moored, and the fifth, Dreambreaker, had just surged past the stern of Angel of Reckoning under sail, flinging herself upstream to ride the current back into a berth.
Sadb had to lean her weight against the door to squeeze herself through, and once through she had to tug on the handle to keep Muirgius from yanking it wide.
“Where is he?” Muirgius demanded.
“Come on now, girls!” Sophie groaned. “You can practice your princess walk at home! It’s time for our ordinary-lady march-up-the-hill!”
Astrid protested, “First we must descend the staircase!”
Lady Gwynn had thought there would be a poetic rightness in holding this meeting at Gunnilda’s old house on the hill, but she had not reckoned on the prosaic passage of time.
Iylaine could think of only one reason why Alred and Gunnilda together would come to her house on a Sunday afternoon; and why Condal, Gwynn, and Gytha would have to take the babies to visit at Mother Curran’s son’s house down at the road.
Sessot tipped the scalding kettle over the brim. A puff, a rustle as the first drops pounded onto the powdery nest of herbs, then a rippling gurgle trilled up the sides of the cup, rising in pitch as the water rose, until Sessot judged it half-full. Looking down from above, the surface was hidden by steam.
Domnall had not seen Lord Colban since his brother’s wedding five months before. He had not remembered him so tall, his shoulders so broad, his arms so big around.
Thorkell was halfway out of bed before he knew he was in it, with a knife clenched in his far hand and his feet flat on the mattress, ready to spring. Eirik was wary enough to have leapt more than an arm’s length away.
Surrounded by men he scarcely knew and men he did not know at all, Thorkell carried his cup from cluster to cluster and tried with nods and smiles to work his way into a conversation.
But the language of nods and smiles was too quiet for this buzzing hall. After a time he always went off to try another, bumbling around the room with the puzzled obstinacy of a bee at twilight, finding the flowers closed. It was not his way to wedge himself in and talk.
Young Aed’s narrow, barrel-vaulted hall hummed with the sound-heightening silence of caves. Every crack and pop of the fire was followed by pinging echoes. The whetstone walls sharpened even Eirik’s rich voice to a merciless edge.
“Do you realize how insufficient a reason ‘I love her and she loves me’ truly is?”
Chapters
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