"Aye," he said. "I'll say the word if I need it."
"Beforeye need it," Magnus said.
"Before I need it," he agreed.
Erik raised his cup. "tae the last of us finally gettin' it done."
"Ye make it sound like a punishment," Ivar said.
"Isnae it?" Erik said, and looked across the hall at Claricia, who was laughing at something, and his face did the thing it always did when he looked at her.
"Nae tae sound like her, but, ask me in a month," Ivar said. He saw her laugh at something Claricia said. It was a real, bright sound that cut through the low murmur of the hall. It made his chest tighten.
"I'll ask ye in a week," Erik said. "The way ye are looking at her even right now, it'll be settled well before a month."
"Nobody asked ye."
"Nobody has tae." He was grinning again. "She told Thorsten dinnae and he listened. That child has never listened tae anythin' in his life. She's goin' tae run this island inside of a fortnight."
"She's goin' tae run it," Ivar said, "inside of a week."
The words came out before he'd decided to say them.
Erik looked at him with the expression of a man who had just received the information he'd been fishing for and was being gracious enough not to make a production of it.
He said nothing. He drank his ale.
Torvald was looking at the ceiling.
Ragnar had found something interesting in his cup.
"Shut up," Ivar said, to all of them.
The King’s men arrived during the meal.
Four of them, travel-stained and deliberate, coming through the hall doors with the walk of people who knew they were interrupting and had decided that was acceptable.
The hall shifted around them, the comfortable noise dropping, conversations pausing and then resuming at a different register.
The one in front was lean and sharp-featured with the kind of eyes that catalogued everything they looked at.
He found the head of the table, found Ivar, and moved toward it.
"Laird Gunnarsson." He didn't sit until Ivar nodded at the bench, and then he sat with the efficiency of a man who had somewhere to be after this. "I'm Henry. The King's envoy. We've been sent to oversee the union and confirm it's completed under the terms of the Pact."
"I ken why ye're here," Ivar said.
"Then ye ken the weddin’ proceeds tomorrow." Henry looked down the table, at the lairds and their wives, at Matilda sitting between Claricia and Isolda with her hands in her lap and her face composed. "Under royal supervision."
"Tomorrow?" Ivar said.
"Aye. The King willnae accept further delay given the MacDougall situation." Henry looked back at him. "The union needs tae be witnessed and confirmed. Quickly and without complication."
The table was very quiet.
Ivar looked down the table at Matilda. She was sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in her lap. Her face was a mask of Highland composure, but her eyes were wide and fixed on him.
He saw the flicker of panic and he stood, his chair scraping loudly against the stone. He walked the length of the table until he was standing beside her. He didn't speak; he simply reacheddown and took her hand in his, his fingers interlocking with hers in a grip that was as much a promise as a command.