Meadowland Tom Holt

by Meadowland (lit)

  'Careful with those,' Bits called up to us as we handed them down off the cart. There's always some clown who thinks he knows best, though; in this case, a man called Hrapp something-or-other, I can't remember now Anyway, he thought he could take the whole weight of one of these crates, and it turned out he couldn't; the crate slipped off the cart sideways, landed on a corner and smashed open. Turned out I'd been absolutely right in my guesses. It was full of weapons. Spears - short-headed Norway pattern and long-headed French type; Danish beard-axes, the sort that's not much good for cutting or cleaving wood, but works a charm on arms and legs; even a bundle of five swords, packed up in straw and tied into their scabbards.

  We all stood there, looking. Quiet? You could've heard a mouse fart.

  Bits came bustling up; he wasn't pleased. 'What's the matter?' he said, sounding a bit guilty. 'You lot never seen a spear before?'

  Nobody said anything, but I wouldn't have been surprised if at least one of us had said yes. Don't get me wrong; where I come from, we don't mind a bit of a scrap now and then. But there's a difference between settling a long-standing argument with a hand-axe or a big knife, and actual weapons. See, we like to think we're practical people; and if a thing's not going to get used, we don't bother with it. So maybe, somewhere about the farm, you may find an old spearhead or a cracked old bow with wormholes in the riser; tucked up in the rafters, maybe, or hung on the wall so long you don't even notice it any more. But when you see a crate full of weapons, obviously newly made, with the oil still glistening on the wood, you stop and ask yourself what's going on.

  I'd guessed, of course; I was also prepared to bet, though I don't suppose I'd have found any takers, that in these heavy barrels were mail shirts - apart from a ship, the most expensive thing a man can own where I come from, because it'll take a blacksmith all winter just to draw down the wire, coil it and cut it off into rings, and then another winter patiently linking them together, hammering the ends of each ring flat, punching a hole, cutting a rivet, sliding it into the hole and peening it shut, eighty thousand times. For a start, I don't think any of us had guessed that Bits was quite so incredibly rich. Kings can afford mail shirts by the barrel, and some of the bigger earls out East; and the King of the Greeks, of course, he's got factories where a thousand men do nothing else all day, all year. I'd never seen one in my life, and I'd never expected to, either.

  Now when I was a kid back in the Old Country, there was this old man who had a small farm at the other end of the fell; and everybody knew who he was because he was dirt poor, only had three cows and half a dozen sheep; but if you went in his house you'd see swords and helmets and shields, all greased up against the damp and wrapped in wool; put together, they'd have been worth enough to buy the whole valley, assuming you could find anyone who wanted to buy them, but the old man'd rather have sold his fingers. Years ago, they told me, he'd been a real blood-red viking, sailing up and down the fjords every season robbing the ships, or going out to Finland or Permia and making a nuisance of himself round all the coast villages. All the time he was away, of course, his farm went downhill; his brother was supposed to look after it, but he caught a fever and died, and when the viking finally learned some sense and came home, there was next to nothing left. So yes, there's people who have weapons just for the sake of it; but Bits wasn't anything like that. If he'd spent an earl's ransom on the things, it was because he figured they'd be needed.

  I guess we were all thinking the same thing, just then: the leather-boat people, who'd killed Thorvald Eirikson. It was a stroke of bad luck for Bits that the crate had smashed open, but it must've been at the back of other people's minds beside mine. The big difference between Meadowland and Greenland - or Iceland, come to that - was that there were people already living in Meadowland, and maybe they wouldn't want to share.

  Nobody had anything much to say after that. We got the weapons back in the crate, tied down the lid with ropes of twisted hay, and put it with the others, at the back of the barn. Then we went back to the house, where it was quiet as the grave and there were other things to think about.

  But next day three of the men who'd been the first to join up went to Bits and said they'd changed their minds. They didn't say why and he didn't ask, because there was no need. That was just the start. Next day, ten out of the fifteen women cried off, and that meant ten less men, too. Before long, the party was down from a hundred and five to sixty-four, with another twenty wavering.

  Bits took it quite well, or that was the impression he gave. It was just as well, I overheard him saying, that they'd changed their minds now rather than later; and there was still time before they were due to leave for recruiting others to fill the empty places. The general view, though, was that he was kidding himself The most striking thing was that four of his own crew, Easterners who'd been with him for years, announced that they'd be staying over when the thaw came. Needless to say, Leif was delighted; told them they could stay as long as they liked, he'd be glad to have them on the farm, or he'd ask around the neighbours to see if anybody was looking to take on more hands, if they didn't want to stay at Brattablid. He was rubbing it in, of course, trying to encourage more of Bits's men to leave him, hoping to scupper the whole project and so keep Gudrid within arm's reach. He could've been a bit less obvious about it, maybe, but that wasn't his way Bits pretended nothing was going on, and that just made Leif angry.

  So; while everybody else was changing their minds about the project, why should I be the only one left out?

  The point is: I'd had those leather-boat people in mind all along. It was a shock, yes, actually seeing the weapons. But unlike the others, who'd heard the story of how Thorvald died but hadn't really thought it through, I'd already taken it on board; and I'd realised that that wasn't why I had this bad feeling about Meadowland in general. So for me it was the other way about; the fact that Bits was taking weapons with him made me feel better about the idea, not the opposite. Far as I was concerned, the spears and mail shirts were just like the boot-nails and the wire, or the bull: they told me that Bits was taking it all far more seriously than the Eiriksons had ever done, and that could only be good. Looked at from the other direction, the worse things got around Brattahlid, the more I wanted to get away from there; and if the only ship out of Eiriksfjord was headed for Meadowland, then so be it. It came down to a simple choice, really: who would I prefer to take my chances with, the leather-boat people - or the household at Brattahlid? Put like that, it didn't need a whole lot of thinking about.

  Well; if you make up your mind to do something, might as well do it in the best possible way I could've waited till I had a chance to talk to Bits nice and quiet; but instead I went up to him when he was talking to Leif - rare thing, at that stage - and a bunch of other people, and I pushed my shoulder in between Bits and Leif, and said in a loud voice, 'I changed my mind. If you still want me along, I'll come.

  Bits looked blank for a moment, then grinned all over his face. I couldn't see Leif, of course, I had my back to him, but I wouldn't have minded the loan of one of those mail shirts, to keep Leif's scowl from coming out through my chest. I knew, see, that what Bits wanted, and Leif didn't, was a big vote of confidence, from someone who mattered. Normally, that wouldn't have been me; in this case, though, because I'd been with Bjarni Herjolfson and then Leif and Thorvald and Thorstein, and everybody knew I'd refused to go this time, of course it mattered that I'd changed my mind. It was just the sort of thing, my deciding to join up, that could save the whole project from falling apart.

  Ah well. Sometimes I get these good ideas; and then I have to live with them afterwards.

  There wasn't any going back after that. Leif Eirikson hated me now, which meant I couldn't stay at Brattahlid; and I had nowhere else to go. You ever wondered what it must be like to be a fish with a hook through your lip? Just ask me - I can tell you.

  Much later that day, just as we were all turning in to go to sleep, I went up to Bits and asked him straight out w
hat was in the barrels. I didn't say which barrels I was talking about; I didn't need to.

  'I think you know,' was all he said.

  'Mail shirts,' I said. He nodded. 'Well,' I said, 'that's all right, then.'

  He looked at me for a bit, then grinned. 'You know,' he said, 'you've really screwed things up for yourself here; with Leif, I mean. Not that I'm not grateful:

  'Doesn't matter,' I said, trying to sound like I meant it. 'I mean, it's not like I'll be coming back here, is it?'

  Bits nodded slowly. 'You've got the picture,' he said. 'And you're all right with that, then?'

  'If I wanted to be here, I wouldn't be going away,' I said. It sounded really profound when I said it, too.

  'That's fine, then,' said Bits.

  But there was still something bothering me, though really it was none of my business. 'Just one question,' I said. 'If it hadn't been for Gudrid, would you be reckoning on staying there for keeps?'

  He took a moment before he answered. 'Yes,' he said. 'That was the idea all along.'

  Usually, I know when I'm being lied to; this time, I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure, to tell you the truth. I never heard Bits tell a lie, before or since, so I've got no way of knowing what he looked or sounded like when he was lying. Or it could've been true, at that. Not that it matters all that much, I suppose.

  'Well, obviously it matters,' I interrupted. 'It goes to the root of his motivation, surely And that's important, if anything is.'

  Eyvind shook his head. 'Don't see why,' he said. 'Good people do bad things for good reasons; bad people do good things for bad reasons. A hundred years from now, nobody'll know or care why any of us did what we did. All that matters is actions, and what comes of them.'

  I frowned at him. 'Do you really believe that?' I asked.

  He scratched his head. 'Not sure,' he replied. 'I guess it depends on the action, doesn't it?'

  Anyhow (Eyvind continued) that stopped the rot, as far as people quitting the project went. But none of the men who'd already cried off changed their minds; nor any of the women, either. We were stuck at fifty-nine men and five women. Bits said it'd be enough; no bad thing, in a way, because less people meant less supplies needed for the journey, so there'd be space left over for more of the stuff we'd be likely to need once we actually got there. Bits was a great one for seeing the bright side; if you chopped off his leg, he'd say 'But think how much I'll save on shoes.'

  We brought forward leaving-day by a week, because it was getting painful to be at Brattahlid. Bits wanted an early start, so those of us who were going made a point of getting up while it was still dark and creeping out so as not to wake anyone else. We'd finished the loading the previous evening, right down to our personal kit, so all we had to do was stagger down to the boat shed and draw the ships down into the water. With Bits in charge, the operation was completely successful, which meant there wasn't anybody to see us off as we ran the ships out into the sea and clambered aboard. You couldn't have asked for a better departure: the sea was calm and flat, the wind was moderate but in just the right direction, and it wasn't raining. I guess you could say that a big crowd waving us goodbye'd only have slowed us up, maybe even made us risk missing the tide. And anyway, why would I be worried? Since I didn't have any family there, there'd have been nobody to wish me goodbye. Except Kari, of course; and the whole point in going was to get away from him. Even so.

  Even so.

  But he wasn't there, because I looked, even while we were drawing down the ships. Good riddance, I thought. Finally, after all those years, I was rid of him. Probably I only looked just to make sure he didn't come sneaking up at the last moment. I'm sure that was the reason.

  And then we were under way, and there was plenty else to think about. Needless to say, I was on board our old ship, the one that'd originally belonged to Bjarni Herjolfson. Bits wasn't on board, of course, he was on his own ship. He'd put his forecastle-man in charge of ours, a man called Ohtar Kolbeinson; an Easterner, but a good man in his way We were carrying a lot of cargo: mostly livestock, also some tools, clothes, bundles of cloth, and our own rations for the journey

  Once the sails were set and we were riding a nice fresh south-westerly wind, I found myself a place to sit, and sat on it. I'd learned to do that early during my previous jaunts. If you leave it too long, all the best places get taken, and you end up huddled in the middle of the deck, when where you want to be is at the side, snuggled under the rail for choice. That way you get some shelter from waves in hard weather; the spray breaks against the rail and sloshes down on the poor buggers sitting in the middle. Once you're a day into the journey, you'll be bloody lucky to change your sitting-place, unless you find someone who's willing to swap with you. Your sitting-place is your only bit of personal space, you see; so it's simple human nature to want to keep it to yourself and to get all stroppy if someone else tries to muscle in on it. Blood's been spilt for less on a long voyage.

  Anyway There was a big, tall barrel at the aft end of the cargo stash; I made a beeline for it and spread my stuff around, like I was building walls and marking out boundaries with hurdles. I reckoned the barrel'd shelter me in front, same as the rail sheltered me on my left side. Really pleased with myself, I was; and I was grinning like an idiot and congratulating myself on getting possibly the best berth on the ship when the lid of the barrel started to move.

  I was so taken aback, all I could do was crouch there and watch. Gradually the lid lifted up, and I was on the point of yelling to the others when I saw a pair of beady little eyes twinkling at me from under, the barrel lid. Familiar? Oh yes. I'd have known those eyes anywhere.

  'Eyvind,' he hissed. 'That you?'

  It was Kari, of course. Stupid bugger'd stowed away till it was too late to turn back.

  I couldn't manage to get any words out, I was so - well, if you've been paying any sort of attention, you can guess how I was feeling without me having to tell you.

  'Don't just sit there, Eyvind, you stupid bastard,' he hissed at me. 'Help me get out of here, before I suffocate.'

  I couldn't have moved if I'd tried, and I didn't. It was like there was this ridiculous idea in my head of making him stay in the stupid barrel all the way to Meadowland; or maybe he'd die in there and I could fish him out with a boat-hook and throw his shrivelled corpse into the sea for the sharks and the whales to bust their teeth on.

  By now, most everybody at our end of the ship had noticed that there was a strange head poking up out of a barrel. There was pointing and yelling, and Captain Ohtar came scrambling across the hold, walking on the backs of the cows, to see what the hell was going on.

  'Stowaway,' was all I could say, and I pointed. Ohtar looked where I'd shown him, and did this great big comical double take.

  'Kari?' he called out. 'What the hell are you doing in that barrel?'

  He knew Kari from Brattahlid, of course; in fact, they'd spent quite a bit of time together over the winter, playing chess. Kari cheats, but Olitar didn't seem to have noticed.

  A couple of men grabbed Kari under the shoulders and out he came like a snail from its shell; all filthy dirty, of course, because the barrel he'd been lurking in also contained charcoal. They dumped him down on the deck, right up close to me for some reason, and Olitar came and stood over him.

  'Just a moment,' Ohtar said. 'Bits told me quite clearly; he said you weren't coming with us.

  Kari grinned at him, stupid great oaf. 'Change of plan,' he said.

  'Does Bits know?' Ohtar asked.

  "Course not,' I broke in. 'Bits doesn't want him, so he's crept on board and hidden.'

  Ohtar looked puzzled half to death. 'Why'd you want to do a thing like that?' he said.

  Huge grin from Kari. 'To be with my old mate Eyvind, mostly' he said; and everybody stopped staring at him and started staring at me instead. 'Also, you need me on this jaunt. Remember, I was the first ever to set foot on Meadowland. Probably if we took it to law or whatever, it'd turn out that the whole isl
and belongs to me by right of being there first. So you see, it's not up to Bits to say if I can come or not.'

  'I don't know,' Olitar said slowly But he'd figured it out the same as the rest of us by then. We couldn't go back, so either we'd have to take Kari with us or bash him on the head and chuck him in the sea. I know which choice I'd have gone for, but nobody asked me.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  'What's he been telling you?' said Kari. 'Whatever it was, don't believe a word of it.'

  I smiled at him. 'He was telling me how you both came to join the third - is it third, or fourth? Anyway, the expedition led by the man with the funny name.

  Kari sighed, all the way up from the soles of his ancient boots. They were rather too large for him but had been, at one time, extremely magnificent; and I had my suspicions about them. At the very least, I guessed, their previous owner hadn't parted with them willingly 'You mean Thorfinn Thordsson,' he said.

  'I think so,' I replied. 'Eyvind just called him Bits.'

  Kari let out a rather forced laugh. 'Wonderful language, Greek,' he said. 'Me, I'd translate it a bit different: Scraps is more like it. Like, a pile of offcuts left over from other jobs, and your workman's looking to make a bit on the side putting them all together and passing them off as the genuine article. That'd be more like it.'

  I scratched my chin. 'So you didn't like him much?'

  'You could say that,' Kari said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Eyvind had gone off to the stream for his daily wash. The Northerners are obsessive about washing, and I believe that's why so many of them look older than they actually are. As I see it, the human skin is just soft, thin leather; if you're continually getting it wet, sooner or later it'll start shrinking and shrivelling. If they used oil and a scraper, like we do, their skins would stay supple and they wouldn't end up looking like dried figs by the time they turn thirty. But there you are.