Meadowland Tom Holt

by Meadowland (lit)

  Starkad the berserkers' man and Freydis's husband, Thorvard Space, saw to most of the arrangements for the sports; they were good at that sort of thing, details and such like. They sorted out who was going to take part in which events, the order they'd go in, making sure that two deadly enemies weren't put together in the wrestling, that kind of thing. It took them a day or so, while the rest of us cleared a bit of space and marked out the courses and rings. We were all ready to go, in fact, when Freydis calmly announced that while we'd been busy with all of that, she'd gone over to the Icelanders' house and invited them to join in.

  Stunned, was what we were; and I guess Finnbogi's men must've been the same, or more so. Anyhow, while we were all standing there wondering if we'd heard her right, she said how it was a real shame and a stupid waste of time and effort, us and the Icelanders not talking to each other. It didn't matter whose fault it was, she said; far as she was concerned, she was happy to forgive and forget, with winter coming on and everything. This'd be the perfect opportunity to clear the air and sort things out, so that come the spring we could get on with the job we were all out here to do.

  I think Thorvard Space might've said wonderful, what a good idea; but the rest of us just stared at her, until she got annoyed and stomped away We couldn't make it out; not after all the work we'd put in felling lumber, and not having anything to do with the Icelanders since practically the day we arrived. The general view was that Freydis was up to something; Bersi went around saying it was an ambush, and suddenly at some point when they weren't expecting it we'd round them all up and cut their throats, like slaughtering the cattle at Yule. Actually, that thought had crossed my mind, but not for long. Oddly enough, I wasn't nearly as surprised as the rest of them. I figured that for some reason Freydis had simply changed her mind. I think there's some people who have very strong minds, just like others have very strong arms or backs; all the Eiriksons were like that, I reckon, they'd get an idea into their heads and then they'd bend the rest of the world till it fitted the way they saw it. That was my guess, but you never knew anything for sure with Freydis. She was like one of those trees I was talking about just now: you never really knew which way she'd fall.

  Naturally, sports day had to be put back a bit to give the Icelanders a chance to sort themselves out; which had the effect of building up the excitement at our place. You'd have thought that with all the bad feeling and attitude we'd had since we'd arrived in Meadowland, we'd have been way past getting excited, like a bunch of kids. Not a bit of it. Grown men, grim-faced old bastards like the Gardar lot, or evil buggers like the berserkers' crew, with nothing on their minds except whether they were going to get picked for the ball-game team. Crazy. But like I keep saying, nobody was his usual self in that place. Maybe it was because we were there on our own, so far away from anywhere and anyone that we might as well have been the only people in the whole world; whatever the reason was, those stupid games mattered. Men who wouldn't have bothered to walk from the barn to the yard to watch a horse-fight back at Brattahlid or Herjolfsness were up in the morning dark running ten laps of the palisade or down on the beach chucking great big rocks around. Kari here was dead set on going in for the swimming, but I managed to talk him out of it- 'Talk me out of it, you arsehole,' Kari interrupted. 'You said that if I put in for the swimming match you'd cut my hamstrings while I was asleep.'

  Eyvind sighed. 'You knew I was just kidding.'

  'Did I? Well, maybe I knew you wouldn't go that far, but you made no bones about it - if I went in for the sports you'd be really snotty about it, moaning and groaning at me. Didn't leave me much choice.'

  'It was for your own good,' Eyvind snapped. 'And you can't say I was wrong.

  Silence for a moment or so. 'Still don't see where the world would've come to an end if you'd let me go in for the swimming race,' Kari said doggedly 'Not that I cared all that much. It was just bloody typical, you telling me what I could and couldn't do.'

  'Really' Eyvind was scowling ferociously 'Well, if you'd listened to me the first time I told you not to go swimming-' He stopped; and the looks on both men's faces told me that Eyvind had gone too far. 'All I said was, don't go getting involved, it's all going to turn nasty. That's all I said. Apart from the joke about your hamstrings.'

  'That's not quite how I remember it,' Kari said quietly 'But what the hell, it's a long time ago. And you're telling the story.'

  That made Eyvind flare up a bit. 'You don't like how I'm telling it, you carry on; he said. 'My throat's getting sore anyhow No, you go on, I'll just sit here quiet and listen.'

  Like he was just saying (said Kari, as Eyvind lay on his back with his hands folded on his chest), everybody was in a high old state over these games. Me, I think it was just because we'd been living on our nerves so long, it was good to have a chance to let off steam; plus, the Gardar men and the berserkers' men had been wanting to have a go at each other for some time, but obviously they'd reined back from actually sorting things out with axes and knives, because we were all stuck there together. It was good to have a chance of settling scores without half of us ending up dead.

  Well, the Icelanders came over early They fetched their women along; more to the point, they brought a barrel of beer. It was leftover provisions from the journey they said, and they'd been saving it for a special occasion. Now, one barrel between sixty-odd men is a piss-poor ration, but we hadn't tasted beer practically since we left Greenland; far as we could gather, the same went for them, and yet here they were sharing their last barrel with us. I think a lot of us changed our minds about the Icelanders on the strength of that, at least as long as the beer held out.

  So we had a drink or two to clear the air and relax our muscles, and then it was time for the foot-race. Five laps of the palisade, and Finnbogi put up a fur-lined coat and a new pair of boots for the winner. That annoyed Freydis, who'd been wondering if she should have prizes; she'd asked around, we all said yes but she'd decided against it. So she had a word with our runners - there was a Gardar man called Kolskegg, I remember, and Starkad's kid brother Flosi, and a couple of others - and told them they'd better win, or else. Now sometimes Freydis did make jokes and kid around, but she always looked so grim and ferocious when she was doing it that it was just as well if you assumed that she was being serious.

  Helgi and three men I didn't know were running for the Icelanders. Finnbogi asked Freydis to start the race, but she told Thorvard Space to do it for her. He stood up on a log and yelled out, two, one, go, and they set off at a hell of a lick.

  I don't know about you, but the sight of a bunch of men running in a big circle doesn't really get my blood up. Sprinting and hundred-yard dashes I can just see the point of, but pounding round and round the same circuit doesn't grab me. I was looking in the other direction when the race ended, watching some rooks mobbing a hawk; apparently Flosi won, with one of the Icelanders second. Freydis was grinning all over her face, and Finnbogi handed over the coat and the boots very graciously, I thought. Anyway that was the race safely out of the way and everybody happy, even Freydis.

  Next was the throwing match, where you've got to chuck a big rock further than anybody else. Now I was so sure that one of the Gardar men, can't remember his name offhand, was going to win, I even had a small wager with an Icelander over it, my knife against his hat. I'd watched our man practising, see, and I couldn't imagine anybody doing any better. Pity, it was a good knife, and I'd had it a long time. Serves me right for gambling.

  For the swimming, we'd tarred over a barrel and anchored it with a rope tied to a big stone: first man to touch it was the winner. I still reckon that should've been me; I could have taken the Icelander who won it, easy. The water was freezing cold, mind; even though the swimmers covered themselves all over with lard, they came out blue and shivering. There was a fur blanket for a prize, courtesy of Helgi and Finnbogi; very suitable.

  Anyhow, our side was two-one down at this point, with wrestling the next event, and Freydis was getti
ng upset; so she pulled out one of the berserkers' men and made Thorvard Space go instead. He wasn't happy, but he had to do it, because she said so. Don't know what else she said, but whatever it was it put the fear of God in old Thorvard. Never seen anything like it, he fought like a mean old bear, and the Icelanders didn't stand a chance. Freydis had insisted on giving the prize for that one - Helgi had brought along a fancy whetstone, but Freydis told him to keep it, she'd got a better prize. But when Thorvard came out the winner, I guess she must've changed her mind, because she made Helgi give him the whetstone after all.

  All square, then, as we came to the ball-game. Now the most you can say about the ball-game is that it doesn't usually lead to as much bad feeling as horse-fights do. True, more people get killed or crippled actually playing it, but there aren't so many blood-feuds as a result. The rules are a bit complicated; the gist of it is, there's two teams, and they take it in turns to face off against someone from the opposing side. Each team has a base-line, and the object of the game is to knock or carry the ball over the other side's line: that's called scoring. Each of you has a bat, but strictly speaking you're only supposed to use it for hitting the ball, and then only at the start of the game; soon as one or other of the players has smacked the ball, you drop your bats and try to grab or kick the ball over the line. Apart from the offside rules, which are so complicated nobody really understands them, that's about it; everything else is fair. When everybody's had a go, the game's over and the team that's scored the most lines wins. It's not for the faint-hearted, obviously, but most people manage to keep their tempers, and it's bad form to send out your team's giant against the other side's dwarf. It's a good way for two men who don't get on to work out their differences without using weapons, and it can be good fun to watch, if you like that sort of thing.

  It was pretty obvious that the first pair were holding back; there was a lot of running about, but they hardly laid a finger on each other, and the crowd got impatient after a bit, so they called it a draw and came off. Next up were Helgi, for the Icelanders, and Thorvard Space for the home side. They were under a bit of pressure from the crowd to put on a better show, but you could see that neither of them wanted to start anything that could spoil the party. Helgi was the better runner, he was light and quick on his feet and had a good eye for the ball; but Thorvard had the brute strength, which meant he won the off- that's where you see who can hit the ball with the bat, right at the start - and sent the ball a long way down the field towards the Icelanders' base-line. Helgi went scampering after it, got to it way ahead of Thorvard, picked it up and started to run.

  Thorvard runs in for a tackle and launches himself at Helgi, who dodges; Thorvard ends up crashing on the ground, but he gets his hand to Helgi's ankle and pulls him down. The ball skips out of Helgi's hand and goes rolling over the sideline, which means it's out of play Now, here's where the offside rule gets complicated, because the player who puts the ball out of play forfeits the put-in to the enemy - in other words, if Helgi put it out, Thorvard gets the put-in, and the other way about if it was Thorvard's fault. What came out afterwards was that Thorvard reckoned it was his put-in, because Helgi was in possession when the ball was sent out of play Helgi reckoned the opposite, because it was Thorvard's tackle that made him drop it. Anyhow, Helgi tries to get up to grab the ball, but Thorvard won't let go of his ankle. Helgi thrashes about with his leg to get it free and, by accident or on purpose, kicks Thorvard on the nose. Blood everywhere, naturally Thorvard jumps up and swings at Helgi, who ducks out of the way stands on the ball and goes down with a hell of a bump. The ball scoots straight over to Thorvard; he picks it up, just as Helgi stands up again. Thorvard throws the ball, hard as he can, and it hits Helgi smack in the face. True, Helgi's standing with his back to his own base-line, and our side reckons it was all in the game, Thorvard was just putting the ball in, chucking it towards the line, like you do. The Icelanders, needless to say start yelling that it was deliberate. In other words, we're a heartbeat or so away from an all-out pitched battle when Freydis runs out onto the field, gets between Helgi and her husband so as to stop them going for each other, and gives Thorvard a smack round the face that sets him staggering. Of course, the Icelanders all cheer, and even our lot can't help laughing at the sight, because Thorvard's a huge bloke and Freydis had to stand on her toes to reach; and by the time Thorvard's head's stopped spinning, the mood's changed and everybody's happy again, except possibly Thorvard, who doesn't count.

  Well, Finnbogi had the sense to agree when Freydis asked him to call off the rest of the match; it was only fair, he said, because that way the whole of the sports day was a draw, too, and what could be better than that? At which, Freydis puts her arm through his and leads him back to the house for dinner, and we end up all mixed in together, instead of the Icelanders on one table and us on another, as was originally planned. There's no beer left, and the food's a bit sparse, but we're all such good friends by now and anxious to be nice that nobody seems to notice. Freydis cleans up Helgi's cuts and bruises herself, and she sits between the brothers on the top table.

  I don't know where Thorvard got to after the ball-game, but he wasn't at the dinner, and my guess is that Freydis told him to make himself scarce so that there'd be no awkwardness between the brothers and him. The Icelander I sat next to at dinner reckoned Freydis had saved the day and done a fine job; he'd obviously got her all wrong, he said, and he was glad about that. It was stupid that we'd been there all that time and not said a word to each other. There were faults on both sides, he figured, and now we could put it all behind us and get on with loading a cargo and making some money.

  When he'd finished saying all that, all I could do was nod and say, yes, right, you bet. For all I knew, he might even have been right - I didn't know what they'd been saying or doing over their side of the lake, after all, maybe they'd been as twitchy and suspicious about us as we'd been about them. Naturally I hoped the air had been cleared once and for all, and it was going to be apples and honey all the way from now on. But I wasn't convinced, and neither was Eyvind. Mind you, he's a gloomy bugger at the best of times, so that was nothing to go by.

  We finished dinner, and the Icelanders didn't seem to want to hang around very long afterwards; I guess they wanted to leave while we were all still friends, before anything happened to screw up the peace. There was the usual formal exchange of presents between Freydis and the brothers. She gave them each one of Thorvard's wool shirts, and they gave, her a dinky little hand-axe, which they said they'd had their smith make specially, out of the local bog-iron. Freydis seemed very taken with it, particularly because it was Meadowland-made. That was a nice touch, she said.

  Well, that was the end of that. The Icelanders went home, and we sat around for a bit in the hall, talking things over quietly It was all a bit subdued, after all the excitement, but I happened to overhear Freydis talking very fast and enthusiastically to Starkad and one of her men from Gardar, about how we could all get a move on with loading the felled timber, now that things had been patched up with Finnbogi, and maybe we might even get a ship out before the cold weather closed in. That sounded good to me, particularly since I'd made myself a promise that if a ship did leave for the Old Country, I was bloody well going to be on it. I got off to sleep straight away, which was unusual.

  Next morning, I woke up before the rest of the household. I needed to go to the outhouse for a piss, so I made my way outside careful and quiet, so as not to wake anybody I was halfway across the yard when I heard a tink-tink sound. I looked round and there was Freydis, kneeling down at the barn corner. She had the little axe that Finnbogi had given her, and she was bashing away with it at a bloody great big stone. She was hitting so hard that sparks were coming off, and she kept at it till she missed and gave the handle a hell of a scat on the edge of the stone. The handle snapped and the head flew off, at which point I made a dash for the bog before she saw me standing there watching. Later on that day, I heard her telling someone
to reset the edge and put a new handle on it.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  One morning (Kari went on), Freydis got up early It was dark, of course, and she woke me as she bumped into the partition on her way out. She'd put on Thorvard's cloak - presumably she grabbed the first thing she could find - and she wasn't wearing any shoes. I assumed she was going out for a pee, so I turned over and went back to sleep.

  Later on, when we went out to work, I saw that there was a heavy dew, and I could see footprints in the grass going up out of the home meadow towards the lake. I remember thinking, that must've been Freydis, where was she off to so bright and early?

  I was working that day with Eyvind and a Gardar man called Thorketil; he was all right, for one of Freydis's people - you could talk to him without getting scowled at or knowing that what you'd said would be reported straight back. We were cutting coppice for charcoal-making, and there was a good stand of middling-high birch on our side of the lake; I suggested we might as well try there. Maybe it was wondering about those footmarks that put it into my mind, I don't know.

  We'd been working for a bit and had stopped to put an edge on our hooks when a couple of the Icelanders came up through the ride. Since peace had been made and we were allowed to talk to each other, they came over to say hello. I knew one of them from the sports day, a man called Mord Squint, who'd been one of their swimmers. We chatted for a bit about the sports, the ball-game mostly, but I could tell that Mord wanted to talk about something else.