Meadowland (22 page)

Trouble with that is, though, it just makes it ten times worse when it starts up again.

I remember when we staggered out of that blizzard into the Booths, when we saw the shape of the roofs against the skyline. Part of me was thinking, thank God, I’m not going to freeze and die after all; the rest was wishing we could all stay out there just a little bit longer, to put off the moment when I had to see that stupid face grinning at me again. Now if you’d ever been so cold your fingers and toes stop hurting, you’d understand.

That was a very long winter. Didn’t just seem that way: the snow kept on falling, the thaw was late, we were rationing the food and the firewood, and every extra day we had to spend in the Booths was like torture. It’d have been bad enough if it’d been like the previous winter, where we’d all sat quiet. But it was worse than that. About halfway through, some of the men started picking quarrels, quarrels turned to fights, a man called Thorbjorn Elbow nearly got killed. Any other time, Thorvald would’ve stopped it before it got that far; but Thorvald seemed like he’d practically given up being in charge. All he wanted to do was huddle in a dark place up against the wall and worry himself sick about what the frost and the wet were doing to his ship, stuck up on a lot of poles with its belly open and its guts only held in with a few sticks. So when the yelling and the bad temper started, he just pretended he couldn’t hear it; and that made it all worse, of course. Really, it’s a miracle we didn’t all chop each other to pieces, like the heroes in Valhalla, except there wouldn’t have been any Choosers of the Slain to sort out the bits and put us all back together again.

But spring came, eventually, and still we hadn’t killed each other, so that was all right. The snow was still on the ground as we trudged back to where we’d left the ship, and all the way we were wondering if the bloody thing’d still be there, or whether the winds had blown it down or the thaw-waters had washed it out to sea. Last time I’d seen it - seemed like another life - it’d been stranded up in the air, which is a bloody funny place for a ship to be, and all those poles and props holding it together had made it look like a crane-fly caught in a cobweb. What I was expecting to see was a mess of smashed-up boards and timbers, scattered all over the place, like the mad woman’s shit.

Instead, there she was, bless her heart, more or less how we’d left her. She did all right by me, that ship. Remember, it was Bjarni Herjolfson’s boat to start with, and she wasn’t new when he got her. This was the third time she’d been in those parts, and she’d had to put up with heavy winds, pounding waves, a fair old bashing from rocks and floating ice. Now she’d just had her backbone ripped out and a new one stuck in, a rushed job instead of slow and careful, not to mention spending winter with damn great holes in her, with the melted snow trickling in and out. If she’d been a horse, you’d have knocked her on the head out of simple kindness, but we were relying on her to get us home again. That’s a lot to ask, really I reckon if ships were human instead of made out of wood and nails, we’d all drown.

Of course there were a few bits and pieces that needed tidying up, where some of the props had slipped, or timbers had warped. Bear in mind, our new keel was all green wood, so really we had no idea how much or which way it was going to move as it seasoned. We’d just done our best to get the frames up snug to it so that they’d go some way towards holding it in shape, and hoped for the best. As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad at all - a few shakes and wobbles here and there, but nothing we couldn’t live with. We finished off the work in no time flat, proofed and caulked the hull as best we could, broke up the scaffolding and launched the ship into the sea. It was a nasty moment when our home-made keel went under water, but she just sort of gave a little wiggle, sat up and floated on as though nothing had happened. I think, any other time, we’d have screamed and yelled and cheered and carried on like anything, but we stood there and looked at her and didn’t say a word. There’s times when you celebrate, and other times when you’re just grateful.

One thing: it perked Thorvald up no end, once we’d got the ship launched and given her a couple of days of trials up and down the coast and back. He wasn’t right back to his old self, mind. Mostly, if you wanted to know what you were supposed to be doing next, you’d have to ask him, else he’d just stay put and not say anything. It’s like after you’ve been ill with a fever, and then it breaks: you know the worst of it’s passed but you’re weak as a baby for days. Thorvald was back with us again from wherever it was he’d been in his mind all winter, but he’d lost all his strength. Really it was just as well we were going home, because he wasn’t any use at all.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, Thorvald called us all up onto the beach, where the wreck of the old keel was lying where we’d left it. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know it’s been tough and we’re all in a hurry to get under way, but there’s something I’d like you to do for me. I want to set up what’s left of the old keel here on the headland, as a seamark.’

Well, we didn’t argue; but I don’t reckon I was the only one who thought: right, and who’re we putting this mark up for? I couldn’t imagine for a moment that Thorvald was planning on coming back there ever again; same for all of us, should go without saying. Maybe he meant it more as a symbolic thing, like a thank-you to God or whatever. Anyhow, we did as he said; and then we pushed on east till we came to a place where the mouths of two fjords joined. There was a little tongue sticking out between them, all covered in dense forest. We didn’t need to stop for anything, but Thorvald told us to put in and take on some extra firewood. I think it was just an excuse on his part, so he could get off the ship and walk about for a bit. Why he wanted to do that, I have no idea; but he could be like that sometimes, right down one moment and right up the next. Anyway, we went ashore and stood about, not really having any idea what we were supposed to be doing; Thorvald walked up and down a bit, looking around him like a man at a farm sale, and then he stopped and grinned.

‘You know what,’ he said, ‘I like it here. I think this is where I’d like to build a farm.’

Well, we didn’t say anything, but you didn’t have to be clever to guess he’d finally come loose from his pins, as we say back home. Not difficult to see why: winter at Leif’s Booths, the worry about the ship, everything going wrong and the tension in the crew Obviously he was somewhere else inside his head, because that was no place for a farm: no grass, no meadows, just a rocky finger covered in trees stuck out into the sea. No, my .guess is that, just like all of us, he had a picture of his farm which he’d been carrying round inside him for God knew how long, the place he went back to when he shut his eyes. Now we were going home and the whole trip had been a failure, he must’ve known deep down that he was never going to find his imaginary house, same as the rest of us; so I think he’d got to the stage where, instead of it just being there when he closed his eyes, it was starting to be there all the time. It’s sad when somebody goes like that, and it makes things awkward even if he isn’t supposed to be in charge of the ship and everything.

Just then, somebody (Big Thorbjorn I think it was, the man who followed the bees) got all excited and started pointing at something a way up the beach. Once we realised he wasn’t kidding around we looked where he was pointing, and sure enough there was something.

First off, it looked like three small sand dunes; except there weren’t any dunes anywhere else on the beach. We went a bit closer and saw it was three little boats upended. Funny things they were, too. Not made of wood, like proper boats; they had frames made of skinny old poles with hides stretched over them. Sigurd Squint reckoned he’d seen something of the kind in Ireland, or rather his grandfather had. Not that we could give a damn.

For a moment, I thought maybe they’d been washed up there; but as we got closer, I knew I could forget about that, because they weren’t just thrown up on the beach like driftwood, they’d been hauled up and set carefully straight and side by side.

Question was, of course: who by?

We couldn’t see anybody, naturally So we stood around for a bit, talking in whispers; then Thorvald seemed to remember who he was supposed to be, and started giving orders. He told Big Thorbjorn and Kari and me to come with him, and fetch along our axes just in case.

Must admit I felt a bit of a fool, creeping along the beach in broad daylight like I was stalking birds. A few moments earlier we’d all been strolling up and down talking out loud, so it was a bit late for stealth; also we could see a long way up and down the beach, which was open and flat, no place to take cover, and there wasn’t anyone besides us. But what the hell, we crept along on the sides of our feet until we were right up close to the first boat. Thorvald held up three fingers, then folded them down one by one to count us down, and when he’d folded down the third finger we jumped on the boat and turned it over.

Bugger me if there wasn’t someone under it, fast asleep. Three men, all snuggled up together like puppies in the barn. Can’t say they looked all that different from us; they were dressed in buckskins and furs, with hide boots on their feet and their hoods pulled up over their heads. Their skins were a bit darker than ours and they didn’t have beards. Sound sleepers, though, because they didn’t wake up.

When he’d done staring at them, Thorvald turned round and beckoned to where the rest of our lot were standing by; so up the beach they came, obviously wondering what the hell was going on. Between us we lifted off the other two boats, and sure enough there were another two lots of three men, also sound asleep.

It’s a good many years now, but I still can’t really figure out what happened after that. Kari reckons he saw one of the men reach for something inside his coat, and the way he did it made it look like he’d got an axe in there, or a knife. Helgi Thormodson told me afterwards that Thorvald gave the order, but if that was the case I didn’t hear him, and nobody else remembered it either. Sigurd Squint said many years later that Thorvald started it and we all pitched in after him, and that’s how I prefer to remember it. Doesn’t make a great deal of difference. You look for a moment, a point where the balance tips or something gives way and breaks, but generally it doesn’t matter, the details. It’s the main thing that leads to all the stuff that comes afterwards, and you’re just acting like kids if you try and say it was his fault more than mine.

Anyhow, we killed them; any rate, eight out of nine. The ninth one sort of got overlooked. He stayed there quite still while we were laying into his mates with our axes and our boots and what have you, and I guess we all thought someone else had seen to him; then, quick as you like, he jumped up and started running like a deer, not looking round to see if anybody was chasing him. He just ran, and we charged off after him, of course; he led us up the beach a fair way - he was quick, light on his feet - then suddenly doubled back and slipped through between us, neat as anything. We tried to grab him, but he was too nimble - it was like when you’re trying to catch up the chickens, and the last one always nips in between your legs and darts off across the yard before you can lay hold to her - and next thing we knew, the cheeky bugger’d dragged down one of the boats into the water and was paddling away like mad.

Four or five of us went splashing in after him, but they were too late, they just got wet and gave up. Thorvald dashed back to the ship after his bow and arrows, but he was wasting his time. The rest of us stood and watched the little boat getting smaller, and I was saying to myself, What the hell was all that about? We just killed eight men and I haven’t got a clue why

I say we. Me, I know I killed one of them for sure. He was right there at my feet, and I bent my knees and scat my axe into the top of his head, like you do when you’re cutting coppice and you stick your axe into a stump so you won’t lose it in the brash. I’d never done anything like that before, and I remember how it jarred my arm right up to the elbow, and I thought, Fuck me, that hurt - Then it was a bit of a struggle getting the axe out again, and he was twitching even though he was dead; and by then it was all done, and we had the ninth man running away to take our minds off it. I’ve thought about it a bit since then, and for some reason it seems to matter to me whether I killed that one before or after everybody else pitched in; but to be honest with you, I’ve got no idea. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been losing sleep all these years, or burning myself up with guilt. I’ve done worse things in my life, specially since I’ve been here in the Guards with you Greeks; got the commendations to prove it, too. And back home, of course, people are always a bit free with their axes, which causes no end of trouble; but there always seems to be a reason, just like when you’re a soldier and the officer says, ‘That lot over there, and don’t let any of them get away,’ so you don’t. No: I think that what’s stuck in my mind was the way that bugger ran. It wasn’t human, it was like an animal; the way, I don’t know, the way they’re always expecting to get attacked, so when you startle them they just run, no panic, no fear; and if you don’t happen to get the deer or the pig or whatever, you watch it into the distance, and when it’s half a mile away and it knows it’s safe, it just stops and drops its head and starts feeding again, because that’s how life is.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘What?’ Eyvind had been squinting up at the sun. In the distance, Kari and Harald were playing some sort of bastard chess with only one king. Their games tended to last a very long time, and always ended in bad temper and sulking. I noticed that both of them, the old man and the young, sat with their sword-scabbards pulled round on their belts and laid across their knees, the right hand resting on the grip. I’d always assumed that it was more comfortable that way

‘So what happened next?’ I asked.

Eyvind smiled, though not at me. ‘Ah,’ he said.

For a while nobody said anything; we just stood, catching our breath. Then someone or other - it may have been Saemund Limp, but who cares? - someone said, ‘So who do you reckon they were, then?’