A Flame Put Out (20 page)

Chapter 20

Gunnar’s ship loomed large at the dock as they approached. It held forty men, only ten more than Alrik’s ship, but it was nearly twice as big. The more room for transporting its human cargo to market, apparently.

Selia fought back a wave of nausea as they stopped in front of the ship. Her heart pounded, her throat dried up, and her hands shook with apprehension. She remained several steps behind Ingrid and the children and kept her head lowered in the typical submissive posture of a thrall.

“Ahh. My lady,” a familiar voice drawled. Selia barely contained a shudder as she recognized the voice belonging to Einarr Drengsson. “Gunnar told me you were boarding with us but he neglected to tell me your name.”

“Inga Elfradsdottir,” Ingrid replied.

“And your mother is Dagrun Ragnarsdottir, am I correct?”

“You are.”

“Then I am delighted to inform you we are cousins,” Einarr said in his most charming voice. “I am Einarr Drengsson.”

“Is that so?” Ingrid asked, keeping her voice firm and matter-of-fact. Selia had warned her to watch out for him. “I do not recognize the name.”

Selia could see Einarr’s deep bow even with her head lowered. “It is so. We are distant cousins, but cousins nonetheless.”

Ingrid stepped closer to him. “In that case, cousin Einarr, I would like to ask you to keep us under your protection for the duration of the trip.” Ingrid dropped her voice and put her hand on Einarr’s arm. “Some of these men appear a bit unsavory. I would like to return to my father with my honor intact.”

“Of course! Of course, dear cousin. You and your children will arrive in Dubhlinn unmolested. You have my word.”

Ingrid beckoned for the children and they stepped forward. “Children, meet your cousin Einarr Drengsson. We are under his protection. Einarr, these are my sons Gisi and Fasti, and my daughter Edda.”

“What lovely children. Beautiful.”

“Thank you. Where shall I have the boy put our things?”

“We’ve got a corner for you, over here. Come with me, boy,” Einarr called to Selia over his shoulder.

“Hakon can hear you but he doesn’t speak,” Ingrid said to Einarr as Selia stepped on to the ship. Of course Ingrid had chosen the name of Bolli’s lover to be Selia’s moniker for the remainder of the journey. Selia had thought to protest but didn’t bother. It was as good a name as any.

Selia could see Ingrid make a motion up by her head, as if indicating the skull injury to Einarr. Selia froze as she felt Einarr come close and bend over her. Einarr made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat as he examined the divot in her skull. “Was it a horse?”

“Yes,” Ingrid laughed. “The boy was too stupid to get out of the way, I suppose.”

Einarr joined in her amusement as he strode to the spot that would be their home for the duration of the journey. Selia’s heart sank. It was just big enough for the five of them to lie down comfortably, but not much else. There was no tent set up for them as Alrik had erected for Selia on the trip to Norway. No place to hide from prying eyes. No place to relieve her bladder in privacy. No place to hold her children in the night and tell them she loved them.

Selia would be completely exposed during the journey, with no possibility of a respite from her disguise.

She set the pack down on the planks of the ship and blinked back tears. The overwhelming need to cross herself and pray for protection was a bit surprising. Selia hadn’t prayed since the awful incident with the rabbit after Alrik had returned from his ill-omened fall trip so long ago. It seemed wrong to pray, after that.

Better to just do nothing than to ask for forgiveness for such a sin. As though by not praying she could postpone the inevitable punishment she would receive. What would God do to a Christian who had dabbled in heathenism?

There was a ruckus as two men boarded the ship carrying another man between them. The man was drunk, clearly unhappy about being dragged onto the ship so early in the morning. There were shouts and laughter from the others, and someone threw a hunk of bread at the drunken man. “Where was he?” a man called out.

“In the brothel. Where else?” one of the men carrying him answered. “It was his wife who told me where to find him.”

This elicited another round of laughter from the crew, but no one seemed surprised. They dropped the man onto the deck and Selia was able to get a quick look at him. He wasn’t recognizable as one of Gunnar’s men, and her heart lightened a bit.

Gunnar had a reputation of being a hard man to sail for. His crew might very well have changed. It could be many of the men were recent additions to the war band and weren’t with Gunnar the night his crew had stayed at Alrik’s farmstead.

A pair of heavy boots came into Selia’s line of sight and continued toward the drunken man. The boots stopped and a man knelt beside him.
Gunnar
. He spoke softly but his words were carried by the wind.

“We waited for you, Brudd. We lost precious time and favorable winds searching for your worthless hide. If you weren’t married to my sister I would slit your throat now and feed you to the fish. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it on the return trip and tell her you died in battle.”

No one laughed. The threat was a real one, not a joke. The man Brudd started to grunt a reply but another man shook him into silence. Gunnar stood up. His voice was deceptively calm as he spoke again. “Sober up, Brudd. And sleep with one eye open. You know I always do.”

Selia stared at the night sky, sleepless and uncomfortable. Her bladder was full to bursting and the rocking of the ship made it unbearable. But worst of all, she could not stop thinking of Alrik.

He would know she was gone by now, of course. And he would be furious she had taken his ship. What would he do? Go to Bjorgvin and charter another ship, most likely. He could easily be gaining on them.

As afraid as she was of Alrik finding them, there was a part of Selia that missed him terribly. Not the crazed, wild-eyed Alrik who had hurt the children and put a slave collar on her. Selia missed the other side of Alrik, the side that smiled at the boys’ antics and bantered with Hrefna at supper. The side that pulled Selia to him in the night and held her in his protective embrace; made her body shatter with pleasure.

For all the bad times in her marriage to Alrik, there had always been enough good to even it out. That balance had been irrevocably tipped, but Selia still mourned the loss of what she had. Those good memories seemed all the more precious now. There would never be any more.

Selia lay a few feet from Ingrid and the children. It was maddening to not be able to touch the boys, to whisper to them she loved them and was proud of them for being so brave. They had been reserved and observant in a way that made Selia both thankful and sad. Even Geirr, normally so restless, sat quietly with Faolan and Eydis. Both boys watched the men on the ship as though sizing them up and considering the best defense if anyone chose to attack.

It seemed to Selia her children had grown up overnight. Babies no longer, they now acted like miniature men who were prepared to protect the women in their charge.

The boys were asleep now, lying with Eydis and Ingrid between them. They were doing exactly as Selia had instructed. So why did she feel as though her heart had been ripped out of her chest?

Little Eydis had cried herself to sleep, muffling her tears in her cloak. Out of all of them it was she who was the most confused. Her life had been sheltered and uneventful until very recently. Now her grandfather was dead and she had left behind a father who loved her. Eydis missed Bolli terribly.

Ingrid had told her of her true parentage just last night and the news was still raw. Why would Eydis want to cross an ocean to find a father who was not only a stranger but a foreigner, when she had a perfectly good father right here in Norway? Even the knowledge Selia was in fact her aunt by blood didn’t raise Eydis’ spirits. In an odd way it almost seemed to make her dislike Selia. The little girl just wanted to go home and forget all this had happened.

An intense wave of nausea hit Selia and she breathed through her nose until it passed. She hated sleeping on the ship. She needed to keep her eyes on the horizon, which was impossible to do once she closed her eyes. The nausea would be unrelenting until they reached the coast. The Finngalls slept on land whenever possible, but this first leg of the journey would necessitate the crew to sleep on the ship.

Which had brought about a very uncomfortable realization for Selia. She was on a ship full of men, with no tent for privacy and—for a while at least—no nightly reprieve of land. How exactly was she expected to relieve her bladder? Ingrid and Eydis could wrap their long cloaks around them and squat down onto the bucket supplied for that purpose. The boys could untie their breeches and release their stream over the side. What was Selia supposed to do? Wet herself?

The men slept in shifts so there was no possibility of using the bucket without being noticed. But Selia’s bladder felt ready to burst. She needed to think of something.

She sat up, clenching her belly as though she were sick, fumbling about, then pulling herself to her feet she doubled over as if in pain. One of the crew noticed her and called out in a rough whisper. “Boy! In the bucket or over the rail! If you make a mess I’ll throw you overboard.”

Selia grabbed the bucket and ran with it to the side of the ship. She dry heaved over the rail, loud and long for effect, and then before she could change her mind, untied her breeches and sat on the bucket.

She leaned over again, clutching her belly, rocking back and forth. The man gave her a look of disgust as he turned away. Selia had purposefully made her tunic large and baggy to better hide her woman’s body. It came down nearly to her knees and covered her well enough to sit on the bucket.

She nearly cried in relief as she emptied her bladder. But she would need to think of a better plan or she would have no choice but to feign illness until they reached land.

Dawn came early, and Selia squinted into the bright sun. Faolan was also awake and lay quietly next to Ingrid. But he was turned toward Selia, and his lip trembled a bit as he met her stare. Faolan’s beautiful eyes shimmered with unshed tears. The color of his irises intensified whenever his emotions were high, and right now they fairly glowed.

Faolan’s hand lay close enough to touch, only a few inches away from hers. She could reach out for him. She could pull her son to her breast and hold him close. Selia’s own eyes filled with tears as she held herself back. She gazed at Faolan for a moment longer, then rolled away from him.

Oh, to be through with this journey and safely in Ireland. She would hold her boys and never let them go. Damn Alrik for forcing this fate upon them.

The ship pitched a bit and Selia’s belly gave an answering lurch. She breathed through her nose and focused on the horizon, willing the nausea to subside. But it was too late. Selia leapt to her feet and made it to the rail just in time. She vomited violently over the side and then sagged against the rail with her sweaty forehead on her arm. The act of breathing seemed almost too difficult. Had the nausea been this bad last time?

The weather had been fine on Selia’s trip from Ireland to Norway, newly wed to Alrik. Now the sea was choppier and caused the ship to pitch harder. That was all. Once she was on land again everything would be all right.

It was frightening to allow herself to contemplate any other possible reason for her illness.

Such as the fact Selia had forgotten to take Hrefna’s tea for a time when Faolan was hurt. Alrik had ignored her for the most part, like a petulant child, but his lustful frustration got the better of him once and he had pulled Selia behind his curtained bench when everyone had gone to sleep. Her lack of response angered him, so he had finished quickly and pushed her away without speaking to her. But perhaps the damage had been done.

Running away with three young children was difficult enough. A babe would ruin everything. Selia’s plan, after finding Ainnileas and warning him of the threat to his life, was to buy passage to Iceland and settle there with Geirr and Faolan. The Icelandic settlement was young but promising, and many Finngalls who were tired of the poor farming conditions in Norway had decided to seek their fortunes in this untried land.

They couldn’t stay in Ireland, as much as Selia wanted to. Alrik would look for her there. They would only stay in her homeland long enough to find Ainnileas.

Ingrid hadn’t decided whether she and Eydis would go to Iceland or not—it depended on whether they could talk Ainnileas into coming with them. The possibility that he might already be married by now, with a family of his own, didn’t bear contemplating. Ingrid was confident that as soon as Ainnileas saw her again, they would be together. She refused to acknowledge divorce was a foreign concept for Christians.

Selia didn’t argue with Ingrid about it. She needed the girl, at least for the first leg of this trip. As soon as Ingrid took her to a blacksmith to have the slave collar removed, Selia would be more than happy to part company with her.

But a babe in her belly would change Selia’s plans drastically. Even though they had plenty of silver with which to start a new life, Selia wanted to find work as a servant in Iceland. It would be much easier to hide from Alrik as an ordinary servant than as the lady of a farmstead, living alone with two children. Selia had no doubt she and the boys would be able to find work on a farm in Iceland. They were young and strong, and Selia was an excellent weaver. Her cloth had always been in great demand whenever Alrik took a surplus of it to Bjorgvin.

But would her skills be considered fair enough trade for an extra mouth to feed? Children the age of Faolan and Geirr were seen as an asset on a farm, but younger than that a burden. It would be a dangerous business to travel all the way to Iceland and not be able to find a place to stay. If she were indeed with child, Selia would have to hide her condition as long as possible and hope to make herself invaluable to her new employer before they found out.

The sound of someone else vomiting made Selia raise her head from the rail. Poor Eydis was leaning over into the bucket, heaving through her sobs. The little girl was as green as Selia herself felt. Ingrid woke with a start and went to her. She murmured soothing noises to her daughter and stroked her narrow back.