Isolda could see him weighing it—the risk of letting her go against the risk of costing his jarl a critical trade.
“One guard isnae enough,” he said finally. “I’ll call Gunnar as well.”
“Then be quick about it.”
She gathered her cloak from the hook by the door and tucked the document inside it, her heart beating faster now, though she couldn’t have said whether it was urgency or something else—some faint female intuition pressing against the base of her skull, whispering that this was a mistake. But she didn’t want to risk the document getting lost or misplaced.
Dinnae be daft. It’s a routine trade at yer own harbor, with yer own men, in broad daylight.
She silenced the whisper and followed the guards down the stairs.
When Isolda arrived at the harbor, she spotted the Bergen vessel immediately.
Men moved across the deck with the swiftness of a crew that had made this run a hundred times before, hauling crates toward the gangplank where Leif stood with a ledger, checking seals.
“Me lady.” Leif’s eyes went to the guards flanking her, then back. “We werenae expectin’ ye?—”
She drew the document from her cloak and held it out. “Ye left this in the solar.”
Leif took the parchment, unfolded it, and his expression tightened with surprise followed by quiet relief. “Aye. I’d have been up the creek without this.” He tucked it into his belt. “Thank ye, me lady. Truly.”
“Ye’re welcome, Leif.”
Isolda turned to leave, but then she noticed the captain.
He stood near the stern rail, a grizzled man with leathery hands and wind-scoured features, watching the unloading with an attentiveness that struck her as odd. This was not the relaxed stance of a man overseeing routine work. His gaze kept drifting from the crates to the dock to the road that climbed back toward the castle, as though he were measuring distances.
Why would he be nervous? He’s done this run before.
The thought passed through her mind and left. Perhaps he was worried about the currents. Perhaps he simply wanted to be gone before the weather turned.
“We should head back, me lady,” Ewan said from behind her. “Before the jarl notices ye’re gone.”
“Aye. Just a moment.”
Isolda watched the last of the crates being moved down the gangplank. Two deckhands hauled a heavy box between them, their movements practiced but their eyes too alert, too aware of the guards’ positions, scanning the dock the way men scan terrain before a fight.
The captain’s hand dropped to his side. A small gesture—fingers closing into a fist, then opening.
Then, the deckhands moved, but not toward the crates. The first blade appeared from beneath a coat. Then another. Then four more, and suddenly the dock erupted into violence so fastthat Isolda’s mind couldn’t process it as a single event—only fragments.
Leif’s ledger hitting the ground. A spray of blood, dark against the grey stone of the pier. Ewan drawing his sword and the wet, heavy sound of steel meeting flesh before he’d finished the motion. Torben shouting something she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears.
Run!
She spun toward the road, toward the castle, toward Ragnar—but hands seized her from behind. Arms like iron bands locked around her waist, wrenching her backward off her feet.
They were waitin’ fer me.
“Get her on the ship!” someone barked. “Now!”
The sound that tore from her throat was raw and as they dragged her backward toward the gangplank.
The dock had erupted into chaos. Two of Ragnar’s guards lay dead on the ground. Leif was fighting with blood streaming from a gash above his eye, his sword carving through one attacker before another drove him sideways.
“RAGNAR!” His name ripped out of her like a prayer she already knew wouldn’t be answered.
Rough hands shoved her over the rail. She hit the deck hard, her abdomen striking wood, the impact driving the breath from her lungs. Before she could rise, rope bit into her wrists.