Northern Lights Trilogy (8 page)

In her opinion, the sailors who carried her trunk did so with all the care of those carrying straw bales, but she had ended up in a perfect position. As soon as she felt the rolling of the open sea, she had
escaped her cramped quarters and felt around in the darkness to get a sense of her surroundings. Finally, sure that she was the only living thing in the cargo hold besides the squawking chickens, grunting swine, lowing cows, and a few rats, she pulled a candle from her pocket and lit it.

In the soft, flickering light, she stifled a small “oh.” The ship seemed enormous down here, and not the least bit comforting. The huge cargo hold rose up through a portion of all three decks and was filled with crates and barrels and trunks of various sizes. She was at the bottom, with the stairs rising not far from her perch. The wide-stepped staircase led up to the huge cargo hold doors that allowed sailors to load and unload the
Herald
. The candle shed little light, and a shiver ran down her back as she squinted, trying to peer into the farthest reaches of darkness to reassure herself.

How she longed to climb the stairs, bang on the doors, and surprise them all with her presence! But no, she told herself, she must stay put until she could hold out no longer. By then, it would be impossible for Peder to turn the ship around.

She shivered again and raised her candle in search of the other trunk of clothes Vidar had smuggled aboard with her. Tora discovered it two chests over and immediately rummaged through it for her cloak and some of the food she had hidden there. The night watch, which she assumed she would hear, had not begun clanging their bells, her only way to ascertain the time. She assumed it was about noon and time for lunch. She would call it that, anyway, until she knew better.

Nothing in her life had tasted better than the remains of Elsa’s wedding feast, which Tora had smuggled away with other precious stores. Yesterday it had tasted dry and flat; today it was like manna from heaven, as Mama would say. The thought of her mother brought Tora up short. She was sorry to cause her pain. But Papa was getting his just desserts. The old man had forced her to this. Yes,
today, her first day of freedom and new life, all food tasted like manna.

After supper on the second day of their voyage, Peder pushed away his inexpensive porcelain plate and Cook, a man whom Peder liked to joke had come as cheap as the dinnerware, immediately cleared it away. Peder watched the old Chinaman move, his feet shuffling along, as Karl and Kristoffer debated the profit potential of different cargoes and Stefan—Peder’s steward—looked on. Although his cooking skills left something to be desired, Cook was indispensable. In all the ten years Peder had traveled with the man, earlier as second mate, then as first mate, and now as captain, he had never known him to show up late from port or shirk his duties in any way. One thing he would grant, Chinamen knew how to pull their weight.

Peder glanced down the elegant mahogany table to his wife, who watched Karl and then Kristoffer speak, seemingly delighted by their banter. She was a quick study, and he could almost see her mind working as she considered first one man’s comments and then the other’s. When either man glanced at her, Elsa nodded politely, obviously listening, but not intruding.

He watched as Karl glanced at Elsa and saw his first mate do a double take. Peder smiled. He knew that Elsa’s unfaltering blue-eyed gaze was enough to make any man take a step back. Her eyes begged one to stare back into them, as if one could ascertain his future simply by staring into their blue depths. “Gypsy eyes,” Peder had whispered to her during their first night together. She had demurred, calling Tora the gypsy. But underneath the blond halo that glistened in her hair from the cabin’s candlelight chandelier, she was a gypsy. And Elsa’s eyes were only the beginning of her siren’s call for him.

As Elsa dropped her gaze in embarrassment when Karl did not look away, Peder cleared his throat. For an instant, he thought he saw a guilty look cross Karl’s face as he glanced up at him, but
immediately dismissed the idea. He knew Karl had always had a mild crush on Elsa. What man in Bergen who knew her had not? But Karl was Peder’s best friend. He knew his bounds.

“We need to review our supplies,” Peder said to Karl and Kristoffer, returning to the conversation at hand. “I want to know before we near Scotland if there has been any oversight in planning.”

“Why not review them right now?” Kristoffer asked.

“It could take us hours,” Karl said.

“Let’s go and get it done,” Peder said with authority. “Kristoffer, I want you to take the helm and see out the port watch. We’re near the shoals that we’ve been studying.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” Kristoffer said with a curt nod, then turned to Elsa. “If you wouldn’t mind … if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” he said with a hesitant smile, “could you look in on Astrid tonight? I think she and Kaatje would welcome a woman’s touch.”

“Certainly, Kristoffer. I meant to get there all afternoon, but your boy kept me busy.”

“I appreciate you looking after Knut,” Kristoffer said, clearly unsettled at having to rely on others. “I know he is not the easiest child.”

“Not at all. I love being around little
gutts
. They’re not much different from you big boys, you know.”

The three men laughed, and Karl and Kristoffer said good night to her as they left the cabin. Peder stayed back to give her a quick kiss.

“I will not be long,” he whispered.

“Hurry back,” she responded, giving him a meaningful glance.

He raised one eyebrow at her and followed his men out the door.

Out on deck, Karl took a deep breath, appreciating the fresh breeze on his face. These dinners in the captain’s quarters with Elsa were bound to get more and more difficult. Perhaps he would suggest to Peder that the captain should entertain other passengers on a rotating schedule, making them all feel welcome. He sighed in relief. Yes, that
would certainly be an idea that Peder would find appealing and would rescue Karl from such close proximity to Elsa.

It was a beautiful summer night on the sea, and several of the passengers were strolling around the deck, studiously keeping away from the rigging as instructed. There was nothing more irritating to sailors than landlubbers underfoot.

Karl nodded to two sailors, and the men immediately hurried over to join him. Without a word, just a look that would soon earn Karl his own captain’s position, they unhooked the cargo hold doors and, with a
heave-ho!
pulled open first one mammoth door and then the other. Another sailor hurried over with a kerosene lamp, and Peder and Karl carefully stepped down the stairs. They had just reached the hull floor when Karl was sure he heard a muffled sneeze.

“Did you hear—” he began.

Peder held up his hand to still Karl’s voice, obviously listening with a straining ear. But with the noise of the waves against the hull, the animal sounds below, and the wind in the sails above deck, it was difficult to hear anything else. After a moment, Peder shrugged, and they moved to the port side to review foodstuff supply inventories. In the dark, even with the help of four lanterns, it was a difficult, tedious process.

“Perhaps we should have waited until the morning,” Peder finally said with a sigh. Karl could almost see that he was thinking about Elsa waiting for him in the captain’s cabin.

“Perhaps,” Karl said noncommittally.

It was then that they heard another muffled sneeze, and Peder whipped around to look at his first mate. Karl nodded.

“That is it, then,” Peder said, a little louder than was necessary. “Let’s give it up until we have some natural light to aid the process.”

“Aye, aye,” Karl said. They clambered up the steps, stomping loudly so that the stowaway would hear them. But just before they reached the top, Karl suddenly sat down with darkened lamp and flint in hand, and understanding immediately, Peder said, “Come,
Karl, join me in my quarters. I believe something interesting has transpired, and I wish to fill you in.”

Obeying Karl’s silent gesture, the confused sailors on deck closed the heavy hatch doors above their first mate. As they were securing the bulky iron fasteners, Karl stealthily crept down to the bottom deck. He sat there for an hour in the darkness before he heard any more stirring. It was larger than a rat, to be sure, and too far from the stalls to be an animal. The
Herald
definitely had a stowaway. Who? He was wary, to be sure, and Karl wondered if the stowaway had a light source. If not, his night might be spent observing an eye-draining dance of shadows.

He heard movement again, and his scalp tingled in anticipation. The stowaway was making his way somewhere when he ran into something heavy. At the sound of the soft cry and mumbled swear words, Karl’s eyes widened in surprise. It was a woman! Sure enough, she lit a candle and bent to take off her slipper and examine her wounded toes. With her back to him in the dim light, it was difficult to see who it was. But she was small and shapely, and Karl was mesmerized by the whole scene playing out before him.

Peder would have her hide. Two days out, and with no time to lose, they could not return her to Bergen. She slipped on her shoe and turned toward him. His breath caught. Tora! Make that two people who would have her hide, he mused.

Casually, he flicked the flint and spark met wick. As the flame caught and grew, so did the lamplight’s reach. Below him, Tora froze. Karl raised one eyebrow. “I don’t believe we have you on the manifest as part of our cargo, Miss Anders. Would you care to greet the captain and explain why you are down here among the chickens?” He rose and stepped down to her side.

Tora closed her mouth, lifted her chin, and stared into his eyes with a calm expression plastered on her face. Karl chuckled under his breath. She was a vixen, this one. She used her eyes with more power than any woman he had ever seen—and she was all of sixteen.

“I assume, since you have nothing better to do than sit there preying on innocent women, that I’d be better off with my brother-in-law?”

Her look was clear, and Karl found himself doing a double take. The shape and depth of her eyes so resembled Elsa’s that for a moment he fancied himself looking at her sister. He gave her a laugh devoid of cheer. “It is you that the world has to watch out for, Miss Anders,” he said, “for I’m afraid it is you who preys on the innocent.”

She shook her head as if dealing with a fool, picked up her skirts, made her way to the stairs, and climbed them. “Summon your sailors, first mate. I have no more time for idle banter with you. We might as well get this over with … unless …” she turned to him, her look beguiling. But she was no more than a child learning to use a woman’s body.

Disgusted, he stood, climbed the stairs past her, and banged on the doors above them. “You were brought up to be better than this,” he said.

The doors opened, and Tora whisked upward, ignoring the dumbfounded sailors’ gazes. She turned briefly to Karl as he took her arm and headed her toward Peder’s cabin. “Do not presume to lecture me again, Mr. Martensen. Although you are right on one count: I was born for better. And I shall have it in America.”

The few remaining passengers above deck stopped to gawk as Karl knocked loudly on Peder’s door. “Captain, I found our visitor.”

Peder opened the door with a grim expression on his face. Seeing Tora at Karl’s side, his expression grew decidedly more angry. Karl felt Tora shrink at his side, leaning slightly into him as if her strength waned. He resisted the feeling of protection rising in his chest. Were all men such saps that young women could twist their hearts with a small movement?

“Come in,” Peder ground out through clenched teeth.

They entered the cozy three-roomed cabin that was not as luxurious as the prosperous captain’s quarters many ships boasted, but still
attractive. The sitting room had paneled walls, gas lighting, bookshelves, two upholstered chairs, a love seat, and a potbellied stove. To the right was the attached dining room for six, and to the left, behind a closed door, the bedroom.

Karl pulled Tora into the sitting room and plopped her down on a chair as he would a child. Peder went into the bedroom and returned almost immediately with Elsa.

“Tora!” Elsa cried. Her hand flew to her mouth. “How could you? You impudent child!”

Tora lowered her face prettily and worried a lace handkerchief in her hands. “That is exactly why I
had
to leave, Elsa.” She raised her head to look at her sister, and Karl had to admire the dramatic tears she had worked up. She was a piece of work, this one. “I thought that you, of all people, would understand. They think I’m a child!” She rose and paced before the stove. “But I am a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions!”

She hurried over the few paces to her sister and took her hands, trustingly looking up into her face. “Oh, please, don’t send me home, Elsa. I promise I’ll be nothing but a help to you and dear Peder.”

Karl looked over at his glowering friend. While Elsa seemed in a quandary, as if moved by her sister’s speech and a little pleased to have a family member with her, Peder was stoic.