The debate continued, a storm of words and old grudges.
Ivar let it run. He stood at the head of the table, a dark pillar of stillness, and said very little. It was not his usual mode in Council. He was typically the one with the sharpest tongue and the loudest laugh, and several of them noticed it, misreading his silence as uncertainty.
It wasn't uncertainty. It was the cold-eyed calculation of a man running two problems at once and not wanting either of them to know they were being weighed against each other in the dark.
The first problem: whether sending her away would actually make her safer, or whether it would simply move the danger to a location where he had less ability to respond to it.
The second problem, which he had no business thinking about in the middle of a War Council: the look on her face when she'd turned around at the end of the dark passage the previous night. The defiant brightness of her eyes. The way she hadn't reached for the candle on the wall bracket, choosing the shadow instead.
He ran the numbers on the first problem.
The answer was not clean, it was jagged and full of holes. If Callum's target was Matilda, then yes, moving her removed theimmediate threat on Mull. But Callum was desperate and close, and desperate men followed their obsessions.
Skye was defensible. Ragnar's holding was solid. But neither Erik nor Ragnar was Ivar, and Ivar was the one who knew exactly how Callum moved. The rhythm of his cruelty, the scent of his desperation.
If Callum's target was the Pact, if Matilda was merely the means and the destruction of the alliance was the end, then it didn't matter where she was. He'd find another angle. He always had.
"Ivar." Torvald's voice came from the far end. Careful. Grounded.
He looked up. The elders were looking at him, their faces expectant, waiting for the word that would settle the fate of the keep.
"Nay decision today," he said.
Bronn frowned, his heavy brows knitting together. "We dinnae have the time fer this, me laird."
"I said nay decision today." He kept his voice level, the tone that wasn't a discussion but a finality. "I'll consider what's been raised. We reconvene tomorrow morning. I want the guard reports from the north watch before then."
There was a moment of resistance from Aldric, the specific, bristling resistance of a man who felt his opinions hadn't been adequately weighed. Ivar simply waited him out, his expression as unreadable as the stone walls. The moment passed.
They filed out, their muttering fading as they reached the outer hall. Torvald lingered, and when the last elder was through the door, he crossed the room to where Ivar stood.
"Ye've already decided," Torvald said. It wasn't a question; they had known each other too long for questions.
"I've decided I need more time."
"Ye've decided she's staying."
Ivar looked at him, his jaw tightening just enough to be visible.
"Aye," Torvald said softly. "That's what I thought."
He picked up his cup, drained the dregs, and looked at the door. "Fer what it's worth, I think Ketil's right. But I'd have that conversation with her before Sigrid daes, if I were ye. News travels fast in this keep, and Sigrid has never been one fer secrets."
He went.
Ivar stood alone in the empty hall and looked at the scarred surface of the table for a long moment, the silence of the room feeling heavy and expectant. Then he went to find her.
She wasn't in the library. She wasn't in any of the places she usually was. Not the garden, not the kitchens, and by the time he'd crossed the keep twice, he’d accepted that the conversation was going to happen on her terms rather than his.
She'd heard it from Sigrid.
It hadn't been delivered carefully, or with any intention of causing a stir.
Sigrid had mentioned it the way she mentioned the state of the weather or the price of grain, plainly and without decoration. She’d been in the middle of asking whether Matilda wanted the blue gown or the green one for the gathering, holding the fabrics up to the light.
The elders were arguing this morning about whether ye should be sent tae Skye.
Said, and done, and then Sigrid had moved on to the subject of the green gown's hem needing attention before the weekend.