West of the Moon (34 page)

A rope flipped past her ears. Arne jumped down into the ship and pushed off aft. Bjørn tossed another rope down to him. Harald took the tiller. A gap of water opened between the ship and the jetty. Hilde stared at it. It was only a stride wide. She could step over that easily, if she wanted.

With a heavy wooden clatter, the oars went out through the oarholes: only three on each side, but
Water Snake
was moving steadily away. For a moment longer, the gap was still narrow enough to jump: then, finally and for ever, too wide.

Pa's arm lifted. Sigurd and Sigrid waved, and she heard tem yelling, “Goodbye, goodbye!” Even Eirik opened and closed his fingers, and Sigrid flapped Elli's arm up and down. But Ma didn't move. Hilde raised her own arm and flailed it madly.

Too late to say the things she should have said.
I love you. I'll miss you all so much
. Too late to change her mind.
Ma, please wave…

And at last, Gudrun's hand came slowly up. She waved, and as long as Hilde watched she continued to wave across the broadening water, till at last the jetty was out of sight.

Hilde's throat ached from not crying. She turned a stiff neck to look round at the ship: her new world. Her new home. And there was Peer, wrenching away at one of the oars. He looked up and caught her eye, and gave her an odd, lopsided smile.

It's going to be all right
, she thought, comforted.

“Oars in,” Gunnar bellowed. “Up with the sail!”

Water Snake
began to seesaw, pitching and rolling over steep, choppy waves. Peer laid his wet oar on top of the others in a rattling pile, and scrambled to the stern to help pull on the halyard that raised the yard.

“Hey – up! Hey – up!” Each heave lifted the heavy spar a foot or two higher. When it was halfway up the mast, Arne yanked the lacing to unfurl the sail, and swag upon swag of hard-woven, greasy fabric dropped across the ship. “Haul!” Up went the sail again, opening out like a vast red hand to blot out the sky and half the horizon: a towering square of living, struggling, flapping cloth. The men on the braces hauled the yard around, fighting for control. The sail tautened and filled, and the ship sped forwards so suddenly that Peer hd to catch at the shrouds to keep his balance.

“Right lads, listen up!” shouted Gunnar. There was a better colour in his face: he straddled forwards, his good hand on Harald's shoulder to help his balance, bad arm tucked under his cloak.

“Some of us are old friends already. Magnus, Floki, Halfdan…” His eye roamed across the men, who grinned or nodded as he named them. “The way I like to run things is this: you jump when I say jump, and we'll get along fine. We're going a long way together, so if you don't like the idea, you'd better start swimming.” He bared his teeth ferociously, and the men laughed. “I lost my hand a few weeks ago. If anyone thinks that makes me less of a man, speak up now.” The men glanced at each other. No one spoke. “We're going to Vinland, boys, and we'll come back rich! That's all, except… we're the crew of the
Water Snake
, we are, and there isn't a better ship on the sea.”

The men cheered. Even Peer felt a stirring in his blood.
The crew of the
Water Snake –
sailing to Vinland, across the world!

Waves smacked into the prow. The dragonhead nodded and plunged. They were out of the fjord already, and the wind was strengthening.

He looked back. There was the familiar peak of Troll Fell, piebald with snow-streaks, but behind it, other mountains jostled into view, trying to get a good look at
Water Snake
as she sailed out. As the ship drew further and further away, the details vanished, and it became more and more difficult to pick out Troll Fell from amongst its rivals, until at last they all merged and flattened into a long blue smudge of coastline.

K
WIMU IS WIDE
awake and wonders what has woken him. He's in the wigwam, feet towards the fire, which still burns enough to warm the air. It's the dead of night. Around him, his family sleeps, wrapped in warm furs.

He raises himself, listening. Behind and above, his shadow rears against the sloping birch-bark walls. Everything seems well. He scans the sleeping faces near to him: Sinumkw, his father. Kiunik, his mother's brother. Beside him, the pale face of Skusji'j, the Little Weasel. Across the fire on the women's side, his mother, grandmother, aunt and sister sleep. Even the dogs are fast asleep, noses buried in their bushy tails.

An owl calls:
koo koo!
Perhaps the owl woke him. He settles back on the springy fir boughs that layer the floor, draws the warm beaverskin robe up to his chin, and folds his arms behind his head, staring up to where the slanting poles of the wigwam come together high overhead, framing a patch of black sky.

Outside, the snow is thick, the cold is strong. His stomach grumbles, but he's not truly hungry. It's been a good winter for the People, with plenty of game. No need to kill the dogs, as they had to do in the famine three winters back. Dog is good to eat, but moose is better: besides, Kwimu likes the dogs. They are good hunting companions.

The worst of the winter is over. This is Sugar Moon, the forerunner of spring. Soon the sap will be rising in the sugar maples, and it will be time to collect it and boil it into thick, sweet syrup. Kwimu looks forward to showing Skusji'j how to pour little coils of hot syrup into the snow, where it cools into chewy candy. Then the thaw will come, the rivers will melt, and it will be time to move down to the seashore again. He glances again at Skusji'j. Hard to believe that nearly four seasons have passed since he and his father took the Little Weasel away from the deserted houses of the Jipijka'm People. The child had fought like a weasel, too, biting and scratching so fiercely they'd had to tie his hands and bundle him into the canoe all trussed up – till he realised they meant him no harm.

And he'd been quick to pick up words – a gruff greeting, a
yes
or a
no
. Still, it was months before he could tell in stumbling sentences who he was and how he came in his people's ships from a land across the ocean, a journey of a moon or more. Everyone there has pale skin. It sounds like the Ghost World. But the Little Weasel is no ghost.

“He is my little brother,” Kwimu murmurs, and his heart is warm.

He reaches for Fox, who doesn't stir, even when Kwimu runs his hand over the pricked ears and sharp, pointed nose. Outside, the owl has stopped calling. Perhaps it has killed. Kwimu yawns. Why can't he sleep? He's not even drowsy.

His mind roams back over a year of changes. He'd thought, after the Jipijka'm People had gone, that they could move down to the bay as usual. But Sinumkw hadn't liked the idea. “How do we know if the Jipijka'm People have gone for good? What if they come back?” The rest of the men, after discussing it, agreed with him. They arranged with the Beaver Clan to share their shoreline and fishing grounds for the season. But what will happen this year? Grandmother says those dark earth houses are haunted.
Angry ghosts sing songs there now
, she says. It is a place of bad memories, best avoided.

Kwimu lies thinking of it: the river where they built the fish weir, the shore where he's dug for clams and oysters, the marshlands where ducks and geese gather in hundreds, and where huge brown moose sometimes wander out of the forests to splash through the boggy pools.
Is it all lost for ever? Will we never go back?

A branch cracks: a sharp, splintering, tearing sound. Kwimu starts, although branches break all the time. They snap like pipe stems, weighted with snow or split by frost.

All the same, he holds his breath. The cold intensifies, the fire pines and dwindles. Just as he has to let his breath go in a cloud of vapour, he hears it again: another crack, and then heavy, slow footsteps in the snow.
Crunch. Crunch
.

Beside him, Fox twists into sudden life. All through the wigwam, the family wakes, eyes flying open, breath caught. No one speaks. Even the dogs know better than to yap. Skusji'j sits up. He looks from face to face. “
Muin?
” he mouths to Kwimu. “Bear?”

Kwimu shakes his head. All the bears are asleep. They won't wake, hungry and bad tempered, till late spring.

Crunch. Crunch.
Something shuffles about the wigwam. Kwimu's heart beats hard. The framework of the wigwam shudders as the thing outside jostles it, then picks at the walls, patting and fumbling. Kwimu's little sister is panting with terror. Any moment now, the frail birch-bark walls will be trn away, exposing them to the bleak wind and icy stars, and to —

Skusji'j cries out loudly in his own language, and as Kwimu turns on him in furious anger, repeats it in the language of the People: “See! See there!” He points. Something is blocking the star-shaped opening at the top of the wigwam: something dark and glistening that rolls about showing a yellowish-white rim, fixing for a malevolent moment on each person below.

An eye as big as your hand.

Sinumkw seizes his lance. Kwimu's mother shrieks. But Grandmother springs nimbly to her feet, shaking off her covers. She catches up two of the fir branches that line the floor, and thrusts them into the fire. They crackle and catch, and she waves them upwards, streaming sparks.

The eye vanishes. From high above, a terrible scream rings across the forest. The sound crushes them with its weight of cold anguish. They huddle, clutching each other, expecting to be trodden and trampled. But the frozen ground shudders to the impact of huge feet running away.

Before his father can forbid it, Kwimu dashes to the door of the wigwam, Skusji'j at his heels. He peels back the hide flap and scurries out into the bitter night. Around him the village is waking. Men stumble from the doorways of the nearest wigwams and call out in alarm. The treetops are dark against a sky hazy with moon-glimmer. A few hundred yards to the south-east, something crashes away through the trees, howling, brushing the very tops of the white pines.

There are enormous, pitted tracks in the snow.

Kiunik, Kwimu's young uncle, ducks out of the wigwam and races towards the trees, yelling a war-cry, his black hair streaming loose. Some of the other young men join in, but the older ones call them roughly back: “It's gone; let it go.”

“We've been lucky: you can't fight a
jenu
.”

“What was it?” The Little Weasel tugs Kwimu's arm. He looks like a ghost in the white darkness. “Kwimu,
what was it?
”

“
Jenu
,” Kwimu mutters. “Ice giant. We have seen the
jenu
– and lived.”

“T
HERE ARE NO
trolls in Vinland,” said Magnus confidently.

Peer sat with his back against the curve of the side, rocking to the steady up and down of the ship. He could see sky, but not sea, and it was comforting to shut out for a while the sight of all that lonely vastness. The sun had just set: the top half of the sail still caught a ruddy glow on its western side.

Water Snake
was on the starboard tack, lifting and diving over the waves in a rhythm as easy as breathing. They were far from land – further than Peer had ever been before. This big ship seemed very small now – a speck of dust under a wide sky.

The day had passed simply. At home there would be a hundred things to do: ploughing fields, chopping firewood, patching boats, mending nets. Here there was only one purpose, to sail on and on into the west.

Like an enormous, slewed curtain, the sail almost cut off the front of the ship from the rear. To be heard by someone in a different part of the vessel, you had to shout across the wind. Just now, Harald was steering, and Peer was in the bows, almost as far away from him as it was possible to get. He leaned back, watching Loki scramble over the stacks of crates and barrels amidships, sticking his nose in everywhere. Loki was having no problems adjusting to his new life at sea!

And neither was Hilde. On leaving home this morning, she'd been as close to tears as Peer had ever seen her – but now she was sitting on a crossbeam, chatting to some of the men.
Trust Hilde
, he thought to himself with a rueful smile. She knew the names of half the crew already, and was busy finding out about the others.

“No trolls in Vinland?” she was saying now. “So you've been there, Magnus – you've sailed with Gunnar before?”

“That's right.” Magnus was a middle-aged man, his face criss-crossed with tiny lines from screwing up his eyes against sun and weather. He beamed at Hilde. “Me, and Halfdan, and young Floki here, we were all with the skipper on his last voyage. Never saw a troll. Floki's my mate. I look out for him, and he does what I says. Like a father to him, I am, ain't I, Floki?” Floki was a youngish man with curly hair and a rather vacant expression. Magnus dug him in the ribs, and he sniggered amiably.

“What the skipper does, you see, Missy,” Magnus went on, “he splits us into two watches, so we can take turns to sail the ship and rest. There's us three, and your brother here, Peer —”

“I'm not her brother,” said Peer firmly. Hilde looked at him in surprise.

“Oh, aye?” Magnus showed three missing teeth in a grin. “And in the other watch there's Arne —”

“We both know Arne,” Hilde interrupted.

“And young Harald Silkenhair, and Big Tjørvi,” Magnus finished. He frowned at his hands and bent down gnarled fingers, muttering, “Six, seven… that's eight of us, counting the skipper, who's in charge but who don't do much hauling and rowing any more. See?”

“It makes ten of us,” Hilde corrected him. “Counting Astrid and me.”

“Women don't count,” said a deep voice. A man ducked under the edge of the sail and straightened up – and up, and up, a blond giant like a white summer cloud, the kind that towers up against a blue sky. His hair and beard were as fluffy as dandelion seeds. He regarded Hilde with a straight-faced, solemn expression.

“Why don't women count?” Hilde demanded.

“Too weak,” said Big Tjørvi.

“I like that! We may not be as strong as you, but brains count for something!” Hilde took in the men's grins and nudges. “You're teasing me. Aren't you?”

“Wouldn't dare.” Big Tjørvi's eyes gleamed.

“Better not,” Magnus joked. “This girl took on a whole mountainful of trolls, so she tells me.”

“Not by myself,” said Hilde. “Peer was there too.”

“Did you, now?” Tjørvi looked at the pair of them with interest.

“Tell Tjørvi about that troll baby,” urged Floki. “She saw a troll baby, Tjørvi. With a pig's snout and a purple tongue. Like this!” He pushed his nose up with his thumb, and stuck out a slobbery tongue.

“Don't tell that tale to the skipper,” said Halfdan darkly.

“Why not?” asked Peer.

Several of the men looked round. But Gunnar was in the stern with Harald and Astrid, and with the wind blowing as it was, there was no chance he could overhear this conversation. The men were uneasy, vague. “The skipper's a bit – you know…”

“Edgy,” said Halfdan, a small, skinny man with narrow-set eyes.

“He'd reckon talking about trolls is unlucky,” said Magnus. “Lots of things is unlucky at sea. Like whistling.”

“Whistling's unlucky?” asked Hilde, who could whistle nicely herself.

Everyone nodded. “'Cos it brings the wind,” said Floki. He pursed his lips and mimed a breathy little whistle. There was no true sound, but Magnus aimed a cuff at his head. “Stow that, you young fool!” he growled.

It could have been coincidence, but a strong gust sped over the water. The ship put her bows hard into the next wave. Several of the men glared at Floki, and a small shiver ran down Peer's back. Out here at sea, maybe these things weren't funny.

“There'll be no good luck this trip,” went on Floki, who seemed to have no sense of self-preservation. “Women on ships is unlucky, too, and here we are with two of 'em!” Hilde gasped indignantly, but the men weren't thinking of her.

“Astrid…” There was a general mutter.

“The skipper got a wrong 'un there.”

“What's she got in that bag of hers?”

“I reckon she's half a witch.”

“You know what I heard?” Halfdan said in low tones. “I heard she's got troll blood in her veins – it runs in the family. But her father tried to hush it up. Who'd marry a troll? Likely the skipper doesn't know. Well, who'd tell him?”

Peer tried to exchange a sceptical glance with Hilde, but she was examining her nails. Floki's rather protuberant blue eyes opened wide. Magnus sucked air in through his teeth.

Big Tjørvi stretched. “I reckon that's rubbish,” he said slowly. “At least she looks after the skipper. She's got healing herbs in that bag of hers.”

“Then why's he still sick?” demanded Magnus.

“What's wrong with him?” Hilde asked. “Not just his hand?”

Magnus seemed to take this as criticism. He glared at her. “The hand? Take more than losing a hand to stop an old sea-wolf like Gunnar. No. But he gets awful fevers and black sweats that shake him till he can't hardly stand.”

“That's no ordinary sickness what's wrong with the skipper,” said Floki in a melancholy sing-song. “There's a ghost a-following after him, ah, and it won't rest till it gets him.”

“
A ghost
?” Peer sat up.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Magnus lunged at Floki. He grabbed a handful of shirt and twisted it up under Floki's chin, shaking a hard fist under his nose. “I told you not to talk about that!” he said.

Floki screwed up his face, flinching and crying, “Sorry, Magnus, sorry. I won't do it again!”

“See you don't. Or see what you'll get!” Magnus dropped him. “Don't listen to him,” he added to Hilde. “He's simple, a moon-calf. The skipper would kill him if he heard. There's no ghost.
There's no ghost!
”

Peer and Hilde looked at each other. Peer got stiffly to his feet. With Loki at his heels, he made his way up into the prow, where the tall neck of the dragonhead divided the darkening horizon. Hilde murmured an excuse and came after him.

“
Well
. What do you make of that?”

“I don't know,” said Peer. “It doesn't sound good.” Ranks of surly waves slopped up at the ship and sank back. He wished they had never come on board: but if Hilde was here, he was glad to be with her. He leaned over the side and Hilde did the same, her left arm almost touching his right. He thought of saying,
At least we're together.
But before he could get the words out, Hilde said crisply, “Not good? I call it very odd indeed. A ghost? Whose ghost?”

Peer sighed. “Well, Gunnar and Harald killed a man in Westfold. Maybe Floki's thinking of him. But that doesn't mean there really is a ghost,” he added, seeing she looked disturbed. “I don't think Floki's very bright.”

“Then why did Magnus get so upset? And Astrid said Gunnar's afraid of the dark.”

“Did she?” Peer frowned. It seemed a strange thing for a girl to say about her husband. “Do you like her? The men don't. All that stuff about troll blood…”

“I do like her – I think,” said Hilde. “It's odd, though: she wanted me to come, but ever since we got on board this morning she's avoided me. If I sit with her, she moves away. If I talk to her, she barely answers. It's as though she's hiding something. What's going on?”

Peer didn't really want to talk about Astrid. “Perhaps she's feeling seasick.”

“A ghost,” Hilde repeated. “How could a ghost follow a man over the sea?” She looked out across the heaving water and shivered. “But remember the draug?”

“Yes…” Peer thought of the fearsome sea spirit that roamed the seas in half a boat, with a crew of drowned corpses. He'd glimpsed it once – a tattered sail and a dark hull, manned by stiff silhouettes. He began to understand why sailors didn't talk about such things. That ragged cloud on the horizon – could it be a sail?

“Hey!” said a voice behind them.

They both jumped. “Time to eat,” said Arne cheerfully. “Astrid wants you, Hilde. Serving out the rations is women's work!” And he winked at Peer, much to Peer's surprise.

“All right,” said Hilde mildly. She began clambering back along the ship towards the stern. Peer made to follow her, but Arne held him back. “A word, Peer?”

“Well, what is it?” asked Peer after a moment.

Arne lowered his voice, fidgeting. “You know I've always liked Hilde. More than liked her. She's a grand lass, and I don't reckon I could do better when I come to get a wife. No, listen!” He threw up his hand as Peer tried to interrupt. “I know, you're thinking,
Why's he telling me this?
You see, I always thought you'd taken a sort of boy's fancy for Hilde yourself. But after what she said the other night, I saw I was wrong.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I should have known you're like brother and sister. Shake hands – and if you could put in a good word for me with Hilde…?”

“No. Look,” Peer said in confused anger, ignoring Arne's out-thrust hand. “You've got it wrong. She's not my sister. I've never felt like her brother, and I never will.”

Arne recoiled. “So that's your game?” he said in a voice brimful of disgust. “And you told Ralf and Gudrun you were only coming along to protect Hilde.”

“I didn't! I mean, I am!” Peer stammered in dismay and increasing rage.

“Well,
she
says you're her brother. So what's this about? Using her trust to take advantage of her?”

“Leave me alone!”

“With pleasure. And you leave her alone.” Arne turned away.

Peer boiled over. “
It's up to Hilde who she spends her time with!
” he yelled, and saw Arne check and stiffen, before ducking under the sail and walking on.

The meal was cheerless: dried herring, and cold groute – barley porridge which had been cooked on shore and left to congeal in the pot. The crew sat around, scraping their spoons into the sticky mess. And although Gunnar had taken on fresh wter only that morning, it already tasted odd. When Hilde suggested warming the food, Astrid said scornfully, “Light a fire? On a ship?”

“Oh, of course…”

“There won't be any hot food till we touch land.”

“And when will that be?” asked Hilde, looking around. “How far is it to Vinland? And how do we find the way?”

“Depends on the weather,” Gunnar grunted, through a mouthful. “Three weeks. Four. As for how…” He shrugged.

Talkative Magnus waved his spoon. “See, first we go past the Islands of Sheep, just far enough south that the mountains show half out of the sea. And then we follow the whales past Iceland. And so, west to Greenland.”

“I know how to spot Greenland,” said Floki eagerly. “Don't I, Magnus? Remember, last time, you pointed out the old Blueshirt Glacier? I'd know that again.”

Magnus reached across and tugged Floki's ear. “That's right, laddie,” he said with a grin. Floki squealed.

“That'll be our first landfall, Greenland,” said Gunnar, ignoring this.

“You'll all be glad to stretch your legs by then,” said Magnus, relentlessly jokey. “And then off we go, west again, till we strike a rocky, barren sort of coast, and follow it south with the land on our right, till we get to Vinland.”

Peer hadn't realised it was so far. His teeth chattered. The wind struck a dash of spray flew into his face. “Such a long way,” he muttered under his breath.

Harald's voice came quietly out of the dusk:

“May the white-armed women of the waves

Speed us safely through the sea-kingdom,

Through the whales' home and the heaving waters

To the far strand where the sun westers.”

For a moment everyone was still. Even Peer was held by the music of the words and the rhythm of the waves. Then Harald broke the spell he himself had cast.

“Worrying again, Barelegs?” he jeered. “Wishing you hadn't come?”

Arne laughed out loud.

Peer's face flamed. Before he could think what to say, he felt a large hand grasp his arm. “Time to turn in,” said Big Tjørvi calmly. “Skipper? Gunnar? Who's for the first watch?”

Gunnar chose Magnus, Peer, Halfdan and Floki. Stringy, dark-haired Halfdan took the steering oar. Magnus and Floki propped themselves against the sides, each holding one of the long braces that trailed dizzyingly upwards to either end of the wide yard. Peer went off forward for the solitary task of lookout and tacksman. The rest of the crew unrolled their wide two-man sleeping sacks wherever they could find a bit of empty deck, and scrambled in.