He found that interesting.
"Did ye ken?" she said. "Before taenight. That there might be trouble."
"I kent there was a previous betrothal." He paused. "And that it had ended badly."
"That's a delicate way tae put it."
"I'm occasionally delicate."
She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. Almost one. "Me faither didnae tell ye the full of it."
"Nay."
"Daes that bother ye?"
He considered that honestly. "It would've been useful information."
"Aye," she said quietly. "I imagine it would've."
Ahead, Torvald raised a hand and the column slowed briefly, then moved again, whatever he'd heard or seen resolving itself into nothing.
Ivar watched the trees on either side and waited until his shoulders settled before he spoke again.
"Are ye all right?" he said.
"Ye've asked me that several times taenight."
"Ye've given me an unconvincin' answer several times taenight."
She was quiet for a moment.
"I'm tired," she said finally. "And I'm angry. And I'm on a horse in the dark with a man I dinnae ken, ridin' away from the only home I've ever had." A pause. "But I'm nae hurt. If that's what ye're askin'."
"It was."
"Then aye. I'm all right."
He believed approximately half of that. He left the other half alone.
The forest thickened around them, the path winding south and west, the smell of pine replacing the smoke they'd ridden out of.
Somewhere to the left, water moved over stones, a burn running fast with the recent rain. One of his men said something low to another and was answered with a grunt.
"Can I ask ye somethin'?" she said.
"Ye've been askin' me things since the storage room."
"What did ye want tae ask?"
She shifted slightly. Not the uncomfortable shift from earlier, just settling.
"Yer men," she said. "They dinnae hesitate. Any of them. They moved intae formation before ye'd finished givin' the order."
"Of course, they're well trained."
"It's more than that." She paused. "They trust ye. There's a difference between men who follow orders and men who trust the person givin' them. Yers dae both."
He looked at the back of her head. At the dark hair escaping its pins in the wind, the straight set of her shoulders, the careful way she'd just described something most people wouldn't have noticed at all.