They Came On Viking Ships

by Jackie French

  Hikki sat down next to her again. Snarf wandered over, unaware of his part in anything that had happened, and curled up beside them, his ears pricked.

  Another thrall arrived and helped drag out the body. The singer finished and the last echoes of the harp died away.

  ‘Well sung, by thunder!’ roared Erik. His face was flushed but there were shadows under his eyes. He looked around the crowd. ‘A song of heroes! Are there any here who will do what I did, and my son? Sail the unknown waves to find new lands beyond the clouds? Found a colony where none have ever been before?’

  It was not said as though he expected an answer, except maybe a few ‘here here’s’ as people remembered how brave he’d been, before he’d shrunk with age. But suddenly Freydis spoke up.

  ‘I will!’ she cried.

  People muttered. Someone laughed at the edge of the crowd. Freydis ignored them.

  ‘I challenge every man here!’ she cried. ‘Who will join me? We will sail south, to the lands my brother found. Lands with trees as tall as mountains and salmon that leap like birds. We will explore the land and make our fortunes! And once we have settled there our ships will explore even further!’

  Suddenly everyone was still. Then someone cried, ‘Will you take your husband too?’

  Laughter rippled through the crowd.

  Freydis turned on them, her eyes flashing. And then she turned to Thorvard. ‘Well, husband?’ she challenged.

  Thorvard stared at her, as though considering. And then he grinned. ‘Well said, wife. I will come. Who will join us?’ His voice rose to a bellow.

  No one spoke. And then the singer, Snorri the Skald, pushed forward and joined his hand to Thorvard’s. ‘I’ll come,’ he shouted. ‘What is the use of singing of heroes, if you refuse to be one!’

  ‘My ship will follow them!’ someone else cried.

  ‘And mine!’

  ‘And mine!’ It was the man called Finnbogi.

  ‘Four ships then!’ roared Erik. ‘Or five? Leif, will you lead a colony to the land you found?’

  ‘I will,’ said Leif. ‘And I will take my household with me.’

  * * *

  25 honey wine

  26 The heavy, flat stones that weighed down the cheese to force any moisture out. A ‘wet’ cheese turns sour.

  Chapter 24

  A GREENLAND WINTER

  Hekja could feel Hikki stunned and silent beside her. Was this the end of Hikki’s hopes of a farm and freedom in Greenland, she thought. All about people chattered, and cheered those who’d said that they would join the expedition. She whispered, ‘Will we have to go as well?’

  Hikki nodded. ‘Yes. We are runners. They will need runners to explore this new land.’

  Hekja bit her lip. ‘Vinland is even further away, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

  ‘From what?’ asked Hikki.

  ‘From home,’ said Hekja quietly.

  Hikki’s eyes were sympathetic in the firelight. ‘A thrall’s home is with his or her owner. It just makes unhappiness to think otherwise.’

  Hekja was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘What is this Vinland place like?’

  ‘I have spoken to Leif’s men who were there,’ said Hikki. He sounded happier now he could instruct her again. ‘It is a wonderful place, they say. Rivers thick with salmon, weather so warm the cattle can eat grass right through the winter, and all the grapes that you can eat.’

  ‘What are grapes?’

  Hikki shrugged. ‘Berries I think, that they make a drink called wine from. But it is a good place. No ice, no snow.’ It was as though he was trying to convince himself. ‘There will be free land there too. Better land than here.’ Hekja could see he was remembering Leif’s promise to free him, and give him land if he worked well.

  Hekja gazed up at the mountains. The ice gleamed, even in the starlight. ‘Why don’t they all go to this Vinland then, instead of staying here?’

  ‘Because it is so far away,’ said Hikki. ‘And Leif only discovered it three years ago. Maybe they will all follow us in time.’ He was looking brighter now. ‘But by then maybe I will have a farm of my own. I will be free. Maybe,’ he added, ‘maybe we will both be free.’

  Hekja had assumed they would set out at once, but it seemed that it took a long time to plan an expedition like this. Besides, it would be winter soon, and the seas would be too full of ice to sail. Summer was the time to go a-Viking, when the days were long.

  The traders sailed away two days after the feast, with their walrus ivory and walrus-skin ropes, their sealskins and eiderdown, but Snorri the Skald stayed with Erik and Leif.

  Now autumn was half over it was harvest time. The days of hunting parties were gone. Thorvard had the household up each day as soon as the world brightened, but there was no need to urge the men to work. Thrall, free man and husbondi27 all would starve together if summer’s harvest wasn’t stored in time for the bitter Greenland winter.

  The cows were left unmilked so that they might put on fat to help keep them alive in the hard times ahead. Hekja too was sent to gathering the grass that men cut for hay, to feed the animals when the snow lay on the ground. The cut grass was left to dry in the sun, then raked into heaps, then stacked by Erik’s man Arnkel the Strong Hand, who could make a haystack so tight that water flowed off it and the hay inside stayed dry and sweet.

  Whale blubber was boiled down for oil, the beaches were scoured for driftwood. Even twigs were bound together and dried for faggots. More fish was smoked or dried, and whale tongues too, as well as strips of blubber to chew in the cold weather.

  Then there was the grain to thresh and more grass to cut, and more grass again, till it seemed to Hekja that all of Greenland was either ice or rock or drying haystacks.

  Sometimes she heard Snorri sing as he swung his scythe, for in this season even honoured visitors had to work in the fields. At times Hekja found she was humming the tunes too. It made her long for music even more. But there was no chance to sing her own songs with everyone else around.

  Snarf enjoyed the grass cutting. The mice had bred up as the grain ripened and the scythes sent them scurrying. He could catch a bellyful on a good day, then bounce around the cows that grazed the stubble from the crops, and the hens pecking the grain that had fallen on the ground.

  But the best was still to come, from a dog’s point of view, for it was time to slaughter the bull calves and lambs and the oldest of the cows and sheep, and most of the hens and pigs as well. There was no way to store enough grain and hay to feed them all.

  So their necks were slit and the hot blood collected, mixed with oats and herbs to make blood puddings and stuffed into lengths of intestines that had been washed clean in the streams. They were then hung to dry up in the rafters, while Snarf watched and drooled and begged for leftovers.

  Calves’ stomach was kept for rennet, to turn milk into curds then cheese, the legs and back strips smoked and salted and hung to dry above the fire, the head boiled down for brawn, the fat boiled to a hard white lard and the lean meat cut into thin strips and hung to dry, along with fish, either gutted or with their roes, so you could hardly see the houses for the lines of drying food.

  All through summer the crocks of butter had been buried in the cool soil by the stream, and every second day a new cheese hung up in the dairy. Now the eggs were buttered too and stored in straw, the onions dug, their stems plaited and hung up in the storerooms, above the casks of sorrel dried into whispery flakes and watercress, angelica stems and rose root leaves.

  Then one morning Hekja woke and found the world outside was silent.

  The household was still sleeping. Hekja tiptoed over to the big wood doors, and peered outside. Everything was white. Even the air was white, the snow still falling, muffling every sound.

  Someone stepped up behind her. It was Thorvard. He took one look outside, then yelled, ‘Blizzard! Hurry! We have to get the animals inside!’

  He began to pull his cloak and over boots on, while inside the
men groaned, then scrabbled for their cloaks as well. But Freydis called Hekja back.

  ‘Here.’ She thrust some sealskin boots at her, that were lined with fur and a long calfskin cloak too. It was not much of a cloak—the hide was barely trimmed—but it was warmer than the one she had. ‘Thank you, mistress,’ said Hekja.

  Freydis shrugged. ‘If you lose your toes to frostbite you cannot work,’ she said. She nodded at the boots. ‘Mind you dry those out before you put them on, or your toes will freeze. We keep no crippled slaves in this household.’

  Hekja didn’t ask what happened to a crippled slave. She slipped the boots over her feet, fastened the cords of the cloak and ran outside after the others, awkwardly at first, till her toes got used to the clumsiness of boots.

  It was so bright in the daylight that her eyes hurt. Hekja helped the men drove the cattle in to their byres—the poor things were shivering, and glad to escape the snow. The pigs had already found their way into the pig shed. The sheep were drove into the house—they would live at one end and the humans at the other, to help keep each other warm.

  That first snow melted by the afternoon and there was no more for days after that, so the last of the hay dried out and was brought in. But the next snow lay upon the ground and the one after too, and then it was just constant days of more snow and ice. The snow piled up so high about the house that the men spent most days just digging out the door and tramping the snow flat to make a walkway to the byres and sheds, so that Hekja and Gudrun could feed the animals their winter rations of hay and grain.

  The household woke in darkness now, till Freydis lit the fish-oil lamp, but only one, as the oil had to last till summer came. By early afternoon it was dark again. They lived in shadows, for even when it was light outside there was little light indoors. It was a darkness that dragged at you and made you long for summer.

  The men sat by the fire and played chess or told stories of storms at sea or plundering villages. Even as they played or talked their hands were busy, carving wood or walrus ivory into spoons, or runners for the sleighs, needles or jewellery.

  The women worked too. Hekja mostly spent her days combing wool for Gudrun to spin into thread on her spindle, while Freydis sat up on the weaving platform with the loom, weaving the cloth for the household or for sails. Sometimes Gudrun sewed trousers or made dresses and aprons. She tried to teach Hekja how to use a sewing needle too. Hekja wasn’t very good, but she kept working at it, as one of the woollen dresses was for her, with a proper headdress too. She had almost outgrown the dress she had worn since her capture.

  Sometimes Hekja combed Snarf with the wool comb, which made Gudrun laugh, and threaten to spin his long hair into thread. But Snarf was not always there.

  In the first break from wind and storm Leif sent a thrall to see if Thorvard would join him and others on a hunt. Thorvard put on his furs and snow shoes, gathered his sleeping bag and leather tent, and a store of marrow fat and berries mixed with oats.

  And then he whistled and called out to Snarf, ‘Here, boy.’

  Snarf looked up at Hekja, as he always did, for her permission. She could see that already he was excited at the thought of bounding through the snow, hunting scents again in the cold air.

  ‘Go,’ she whispered.

  The men were gone for days each time they hunted. By now the days were so short it was impossible to travel far in one and most of the game about the farms was gone. The seas were now frozen so they could hunt seals across the ice, for the meat and their fur, winter soft and waterproof. Sometimes there was other game too, though as winter drew on, most animals lost their fat. But the fresh meat was welcome, after so much salt and smoky meat that had to be soaked for hours or days to make it soft enough to eat.

  Freydis never hunted with the men. But sometimes, when the hunters’ cries echoed as they strode out of the courtyard, Hekja saw her face go blank, as though she was dreaming of a time when she would not be bound in a small house with mundane sewing to keep her busy and the sheep and thralls for company, when she too could stride out across the world.

  Mid-winter brought the Yule feast. ‘And it’s a grand one, hey?’ said Gudrun happily. ‘A whole week long, our household and Master Leif’s and Master Erik’s!’

  ‘And barley beer enough for everyone and a bull calf kept to roast,’ said Conlan the Irish thrall longingly, from his place by the fire. ‘If I eat another fish I will turn into one and go swimming down the fiord with the mermaids.’

  Hekja looked up from the spindle she was twirling. ‘Do thralls go to the feast as well?’

  Conlan nodded. ‘We do indeed. And we can eat and drink as much as we want to, with singing and games too.’

  The wind died down Yule morning. The snow had formed a crust and Hekja’s feet left deep holes as she padded out to see to the animals. Even though the sun had risen low on the horizon the day was dim, as though the darkness had crushed all brightness from the air.

  But today there was the scent of roasting meat from Erik’s farm across the fields. Hekja felt like dancing through the snow! It had been so long since she had left the house, apart from brief visits across the yard, so long since she had seen a person who was not from her household. And there would be fresh meat and feasting food, instead of hard dried fish. And music too…

  Freydis stepped out from her and Thorvard’s curtained room as Hekja took off her wet boots. Freydis had on her best cloak, and all her jewellery and Thorvard his best furs. Freydis picked up her cloak, then glanced at Hekja, who was putting on some dry boots—she had worn Gudrun’s spare pair to keep her new ones dry.

  ‘Not you,’ said Freydis shortly.

  Hekja looked up. ‘Mistress?’ she enquired.

  ‘Someone must stay and keep the fire alight and tend to the animals.’

  Hekja took the boots off again, and came back to the fire pit. She felt the disappointment like a blow.

  Gudrun patted her hand. ‘It will be your turn to go to the feast next year, perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘Next year,’ said Freydis, ‘we will be in the new land.’ And suddenly her face glowed, as Hekja hadn’t seen it shine since the days on the ship.

  * * *

  27 master of the household

  Chapter 25

  YULE FEAST

  They left her then.

  ‘Eat what you want from the storeroom,’ were Freydis’ parting words. ‘It is yuletide, after all. You may keep a lamp alight, and the fire, but use no more wood or oil than you must. Feed the beasts and give them fresh hay but don’t bother to muck them out—the men can do that when we return. A week of dung will do no harm.’

  The door closed behind them. Hekja could hear them chattering as they slid on the fresh snow and Thorvard’s laughter, as he picked his wife up in his arms to keep her feet dry.

  At least they had left Snarf, Hekja thought. She felt guilty at that, for she knew Snarf would have enjoyed the excitement of the feast. But without Snarf she would be quite alone, except for the sheep. And sheep, thought Hekja, were even stupider companions than cows.

  It was quiet, after they had left. No, not really quiet, she thought. The sheep bleated. The wind came up again and howled, though the sod roof kept it out. The fire flickered and a mouse rustled in the moss, chinking between the stones. Snarf snuffled after it, then put his nose on his paws and dozed by the fire, with one ear pricked to make sure the sheep didn’t push past the hurdle that kept them in their part of the house.

  Hekja sat by the fire and twirled her spindle. There was nothing else to do now the animals had been fed, except go to the storeroom of the main hall to fetch fish for supper. There were dried berries in a basket, and she took a handful of those too. After all, Freydis had told her to eat what she liked. It was little enough for a Yule feast, thought Hekja, as she chewed the hard, tough berries.

  The day passed slowly. Hekja felt its gloom sweep through her. Winters were so long and dark in Greenland, far longer than at home. At least she’d had the
feast to look forward to. Now there were just more dark dull days—the tomorrows seemed endless.

  Finally she went to sleep with Snarf and the sheep for company. It seemed so much darker and colder, Hekja thought, without other people near.

  There was no snowfall during the night, so the doorways were still clear in the dimness next morning. Hekja fed the cattle crammed up in their stalls, and the hens too, and carried in fresh hay for the sheep, while Snarf lifted his leg on the doorposts. But today, despite the cold, Hekja hesitated before going back indoors. The hill looked so inviting, white and pure despite the darkness of the day. She could run up there, just for a while, into the peace and freshness, just her and Snarf like they used to do…

  ‘Arf,’ said Snarf encouragingly. He leapt up and licked her face. ‘Arf arf!’

  Hekja shook her head. It wasn’t worth the risk. She had seen how worthless thralls were. She had been told to guard the house and keep the fire alight. If she left without permission Thorvard or Freydis could kill her and no one would even question what they’d done.

  It would be easy to escape, now everyone was gone. But where to? Only into the snow and ice and dark where they would surely die.

  Hekja went indoors again, and sat down by the fire. But this time she didn’t pick up her spindle. Why bother with the boring work when there was no one to order her around? At least she could spend this time as she liked.

  She would sing. But not an old song, not one of Pa’s. They belonged to the past. No, she’d sing a new song, for herself and Snarf. She reached out for the words and then the tune came too.

  ‘Snow on the hillside,

  Mountain and sky,

  The whole world shivers,

  As winter flows by.