Meadowland Tom Holt

by Meadowland (lit)

  I was on my feet now, and I looked at Freydis. She was drinking water out of a wooden bowl, and it was dribbling down her chin onto her chest. Thorvard was coming out of the inner room; he had something wrapped in a cloth, and he was peeling the wrapping off. Starkad was watching him too (he was much closer to him than I was) and I heard him say, 'Thorvard, what've you got there?' Thorvard didn't answer, but he wound away a turn of cloth, and I saw a sparkle, gold and red, and I recognised that the thing he was holding was a sword.

  So I thought: thank you, Thor and our Heavenly Father -thanks for nothing. But it'd been a long shot anyhow, because when did the likes of them ever listen to the likes of me? I noticed that something was missing; something hadn't happened that should have. Took me a moment to figure out what it was, and then I knew Nobody'd asked what this morning's jobs were: nobody'd asked, because we all knew.

  Freydis put down her bowl and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She looked slowly round at us; maybe she was counting us, I don't know. Then she nodded, very slightly at Thorvard, and he walked to the door. He had the sword in his hand, no scabbard; maybe it didn't have one. I'd just put my axe in my belt, it's second nature first thing in the morning, you aren't dressed without it; but today it didn't seem like all the other times; it was like I'd somehow done it on purpose, rather than out of habit. I remembered I'd sharpened it the day before yesterday and hadn't used it much since, so it probably still had a good edge on it.

  We were all on our feet now, except for Eyvind- Kari paused, and looked at his friend for a moment. 'You want to tell the next bit?' he asked.

  But Eyvind shook his head. 'You carry on; he said, and looked away.

  Well (Kari went on), Freydis noticed him still sitting on the bench. 'Get up; she said.

  But he didn't stir. 'I'm not feeling too bright; he said. 'It's my head. I think I'll stay in this morning, if that's all right.'

  Nobody moved or made a sound; the two of them just looked at each other for a bit. Then Freydis said, 'Get up. I need all of you for this.'

  'You don't need me; Eyvind said.

  'No, all of you; Freydis replied. 'Thorvard.'

  Thorvard came back down the hall towards Eyvind, and everyone stepped back to let him through. I remember the look on his face; it was blank, like he wasn't in there. Before Thorvard reached him, Eyvind stood up. 'It's all right; he said, 'I'm coming.'

  'That's fine, then,' Freydis said. 'Come on, we're wasting time.'

  I saw Starkad and Bersi look at each other, then look away like they were both embarrassed at something they'd done, or not done. Their lot, the berserkers' men, were all up the front end of the hall, with the Gardar men bringing up the rear. I tried to remember if that was how they usually slept in the hall, but now I came to think of it I wasn't sure, one way or the other. Everything seemed different somehow, and I wasn't sure that these were the same people I'd come to Meadowland with, this time or any other. Their faces looked the same, but to me they felt like strangers.

  When we got outside into the open air, I was surprised by how early it still was. It felt like half a day had passed since Freydis had woken us up; but the dew was still fresh and wet on the grass - the fat, sweet grass of Meadowland that was going to make us all rich, every man a farmer or an earl - and the early sunlight was still straining through the trees, faintly stained with pink and green. Eyvind and me, we tried to stay at the back, as Freydis led the way at a cracking pace, stomping along like a mother who's angry with the kids; Bersi was up front with Thorvard, but Starkad hung back to talk to us. He looked guilty, no idea why I noticed he had a long knife, what we call a sax, dangling off his belt; it was so long that it was bumping his ankle-bone as he walked, and it was getting on his nerves. I hadn't seen him with it before.

  'You two,' he said. 'I know you were in that thing with the savages, the leather-boat people, but that wasn't a proper battle. You ever done any real fighting?'

  Both of us shook our heads.

  'Didn't think so,' Starkad said. 'You don't look like you have. You can always tell, if you know what to look for. It's a sort of flinching, very quick, when anyone moves.

  'You must've done a lot of fighting when you were with the berserkers,' Eyvind said.

  'Me?' Starkad shrugged. 'A bit. More than I'd have liked, that's' for sure.' He frowned, like he was carrying on another conversation at the same time with someone we couldn't see. 'Look,' he said, 'really it's pretty simple. Always keep your eyes fixed on the other man, right? Got to pay attention, that's the main thing. When someone hits out at you, use your feet, get out of the way; don't try blocking or parrying unless you've got absolutely nowhere to go. When you want to hit, feint high and cut low; go for the kneecap, the shin, the inside of the knee if you can; it's the oldest trick in the world, but it always works. Don't try and hit too hard, you're only wasting strength and slowing yourself down. Basically that's it, all there is to it. You got all that?'

  I nodded. 'You think there'll be a fight?' I said.

  'Hope not.' Starkad shook his head. 'Yes, I can't see how it's to be avoided, if we're going to try and steal their ship. I don't think Freydis'll be happy till she's forced them to fight us. You know, I used to think it was bad when I was shipping with the berserkers; but she makes them look like kittens. Just remember; he went on, 'feint high, cut low and whatever you do, don't just stand there rooted to the spot. Got to keep moving, or you're dead.'

  He pulled a tight little smile, like he was letting us know how sorry he was to hear we hadn't made' it; then he hurried up and went forward to talk to Bersi. 'So that's that, then; Eyvind said to me. 'We're going to pick a fight with Finnbogi's lot. That's so stupid.'

  Couldn't argue with that, but what was I supposed to do about it? So I nodded, and we carried on walking. Nobody else was talking much, except us.

  When we got to the edge of the lake, Freydis stopped and went 'Shhh!', loud enough to be heard back at the Booths. I guess that was her idea of being a military leader. Past her I could see the Icelanders' house in the distance, all blurry and grey in the morning haze. I couldn't see anybody about. Maybe they're all still in bed, I thought; or maybe they saw us coming long since, and they're lurking in ambush, and we'll all be killed. Fact is, I was just starting to feel scared.

  Now I'd been scared before, obviously, but this time was different. It's like when it's your turn to get up early and go and feed the calves, and it's so bitter cold out, soon you can't feel your fingers or your toes. Usually I feel fear in my stomach, like a finger twisted in my guts; my knees go, and my bowels and bladder, and it's like there's something stuck in my throat so I can't breathe right; all I want to do is drop to the ground and curl up in a ball, like a hedgehog, with all my spikes facing out. This was different: maybe it was more horror than fear, like I was walking right up to something so nasty that I couldn't bear to be near it. Maybe it wasn't going to kill me, or else I'd have felt the other kind of fear, but that wasn't the issue, really I was cold, and sweating at the same time, and if I'd had any feeling in my legs I'd have run away, and the hell with what happened to me afterwards.

  We went round the lake and came to the door of the Icelanders' house. They'd worked hard on it, like they meant to be there a while. They'd stripped a wide patch of turf to build the walls and the roof- a few wisps of grass were just beginning to show on the bare earth - and the house itself sparkled all over, with drops of dew caught in the grass. I'm used to it, of course, but people from other places always take a while to get accustomed to the fact that we make our houses out of turf, that they're growing things, alive. I met a German once, who'd been to Scotland and seen the turf houses there, and he said they gave him the creeps, because who wanted to live inside a living house? It was like being inside a burial mound, or a grave. I look at it the other way: who wants to live in something brittle and dead, something piled up on top of the ground instead of shaped out of it? But Meadowland was different, as always. We'd come there for the rich, fat g
rass - grass that dripped with butter, as Leif said once - we walked on it and lived under it, and it grew so well, so fast and rich; but it hated us, and I hated it right back. It couldn't wait to close over us for good. There's all those stories about sailors who land on a small island in the middle of the sea, and when they light a fire the island starts to move, and they realise it's not land, it's the back of a whale or a sea-dragon. I'd laughed at those stories, I thought they were just plain dumb, till I came to Meadowland; because that place was alive, a big, broad-backed monster; and the houses there, Leif's Booths, were its mouth, and if you stayed inside too long it'd digest you.

  Freydis was being a great leader again. 'You six, round the back,' she said, without making it clear who she meant, so nobody moved. 'And I want three of you under each skylight, in case they try and shin out over the roof. Bersi, Starkad, when I tell you, bust the door down.'

  Stupid woman; you try busting in a house door, with just your boot and a hand-axe. They looked at each other, hesitating; but Thorvard walked straight past them and put his hand to the latch. It was open, and the bar wasn't up.

  So he went in; and I guess the Icelanders didn't get up as early as we did, because they were all still asleep. I heard drowsy voices asking, who's that, what're you playing at? But Thorvard started grabbing them, hauling them up by their shirt-fronts or their hair and bundling them out, like unloading cargo from a ship. As they came out, arms twisted behind their backs, eyes blinking, like you do when you're still mostly asleep, Starkad and Bersi caught hold of them and slung them down on the grass, and as each one fell one of our men put his boot on the poor bastard's neck, to keep him still. When Thorvard had hooked out half a dozen or so, Freydis nodded at the Gardar men, and they went in and helped. I was standing well back, but someone caught hold of the collar of my coat and dragged me forward, same with Eyvind, and we were given an Icelander each to look after; and I put my boot on some man's neck, pressing down hard until I knew it'd be hurting; and I could do it because, like I told you, my feet were numb and I couldn't feel them. I can remember his face, though, and how I jammed his jaw to the ground with my toe, so he couldn't turn his head and look at me.

  Thorvard went and pulled out Finnbogi, and Helgi came staggering out after him, yelling, 'Now wait a minute,' or something like that. I think he tried to grab Thorvard's arm, and then someone moved behind him. I didn't see, I was looking at the man under my feet, but I heard that very flat, chunky noise of an axe going into something solid. When I looked up, Helgi was toppling forward, and the hair on the back of his head was a sticky mess.

  Finnbogi started to wriggle in Thorvard's grip; and then Thorvard looked at Freydis, and she just nodded, once.

  I want you to believe me when I tell you that I didn't want to do it; but I knew I had no choice in the matter. There's a point where a thing's balanced and it tips just a hair's breadth too far; or where the man hanging by his fingernails off a ledge just can't quite hold on any longer. It's the moment when a man breathes out and this time he doesn't stop till all the air's gone out of him, and that's when you go from two possibilities to only one. I was telling myself, I don't have to, they can't make me; but I felt the axe-handle slip up through my belt, I felt the smooth weight in my hand, the weight as I lifted it above my head, to the point where I couldn't hold it up any longer and it came down. I screwed it up, of course; I meant to hit him nice and smart just behind the ear, good and crisp and clean; but I let the handle roll in my hand, and the edge gouged out a big chunk of scalp and blood and skidded off, and I had to do it again, and again, until I'd got the top horn jammed in smashed bone. I had to press down hard on the handle to lever it out again, like when you're splitting logs and you miss the line, and the grain clenches on the axe-head and grips it. Then I stood up and straightened my back; I felt sick and very scared; and mostly I felt really, really stupid, because I'd made a fuck-up of doing this one important job, I'd done it so badly and there wasn't even anybody I could tell I was sorry.

  So; we killed them all, thirty-two men, on the wet grass. Apart from Helgi and Finnbogi, none of them struggled or made a fuss; I don't think they had a clue what was going on, to be honest with you. It was all over, and the only sound was one of the Gardar men, swearing and whining because his axe had glanced off and nicked a fat slice out of his own shin.

  Then Freydis looked up - she'd been watching very carefully, to make sure we were doing a proper job - and she said, 'And the women.'

  Thorvard straightened up and said, 'Freydis, for God's sake,' but she acted like she hadn't heard him. Nobody moved, we all stood quite still and looked at her, and she frowned slightly like she was annoyed. Her eyebrows tightened and she pursed her lips; and then she said, 'All right, then. Somebody give me an axe.

  Still nobody moved; so she clicked her tongue, and she pulled out from her belt the pretty little axe that Finnbogi had given her, the one whose handle she'd busted. Then she went into the house. She wasn't gone long, and when she came back out there was blood on the cuffs of her sleeves, and a dab on her cheek, where she must've pushed her hair back behind her ear.

  'Set fire to it she said; and someone told her, 'It's fresh turf, it won't burn'; and she sighed, like it was so annoying. 'Just pull it down, then,' she said. So we lugged the bodies inside, and four of the Gardar men who'd brought long axes went in and cut through the sills and the joists. They got out. in good time; the roof just sagged in the middle, like it was tired, and the whole house folded slowly in on itself and kind of sat, then lay down, as though it was curling up to go to sleep. 'We should've looked inside; Freydis said. 'We'd have found all the things they stole from us. But it's too late now, and I can't be bothered with it any more.' Then she sighed again, and turned round, and headed back the way we'd come.

  Kari stopped talking; he folded forward, with his hands crossed over his chest, and he looked very old. I turned my head away, and Eyvind was watching me. He nodded. 'Me too,' he said. 'Right up to the last moment I was going to refuse, I was going to do something to stop it. But I didn't.' He shook his head slowly 'Things like that happened all the time in the Old Country: men cut down in the fields or on the road, whole families burnt to death in their houses -they'd wedge the doors shut from the outside, nail bars over the skylights, and get a fire going under the eaves till the turf caught. But there was always a reason; a bad one, mostly, a blood-feud or a matter of honour, but a reason we could all understand; and they knew when they did it that it'd be their turn soon, nobody ever expected to get away with it, so when they lit the fire it was like they were burning their own houses too. It wasn't good, sure, but in a way it was fair, and at least we all knew why it had to be done.' He shrugged his thin shoulders. 'It all happened just like Kari said. Must be getting on for twenty years ago now, but I can remember it like I'd just come from there, like my coat's still wet with the dew'

  Kari lifted his head. 'When are those idle buggers finally going to get that wheel fixed?' he said. 'No disrespect, but you bloody Greeks-'

  'So what happened after that?' I said.

  When it was all over (Eyvind said; Kari just shook his head and didn't say anything), Freydis led the way back to Leif's Booths, and we all followed, like ducklings. She kept well in front of us, but someone told me that halfway back she started smiling.

  It was still early of course, the whole job had been very quick and easy, so it still wasn't even time for breakfast. We hung about outside the door, until Freydis came out again. I noticed she'd changed her apron, but she was still wearing the dress with the bloodstained cuffs. She started giving out jobs, like it was an ordinary day When she'd finished, though, she cleared her throat loudly and we all stopped and looked at her.

  'One last thing,' she said. 'If any one of you ever says a word about what just happened, to anyone, ever, I'll have him killed. When we get back to Greenland, if anybody asks after Finnbogi and the Icelanders, we just say they stayed on here. Pretty soon everyone'll have forgotten all about
them. That's all.'

  Freydis had her way on that score, but she needn't have bothered threatening us. I don't think anybody ever mentioned the killing of the Icelanders; there wasn't any point, we'd all been there, seen it all, been part of it. The whole business just lay quiet, always in my mind but never brought out into the open. Fact is, we didn't talk much at all, barring the usual work stuff, like who had the staffhook last and the log basket needs filling. The only chat beyond that was a little bit of growling between the Gardar crew and the berserkers' men; they tended to stay out of each others' way, mostly but there were a few flare-ups, always short and brittle, and nobody actually pulled a knife or took out an axe. I could tell the berserkers' men weren't happy though. Starkad did tell me he was worried, in case his lot were going to be next - that was the closest anyone ever came to mentioning the forbidden subject - but I thought he was fretting unduly Freydis mostly acted like the berserkers' men didn't exist, except first thing in the morning, when she was handing out the day's work. She got very sharp with Thorvard, I noticed; she'd criticise him in front of the men or behind his back, which she never did before. He shrank back inside himself like a snail. I never saw him say more than two words to her, and he was always the first out of the house and the last back. If you came across him during the day, he'd look straight past you. He was always working, hard enough for two men: felling and trimming lumber, dragging logs and building cords. One day I saw him beside the lake; he stood for a long time looking at the mess where the Icelanders' house had been, and then he opened his coat and pulled out that sword of his; it was wrapped in old cloth, but it was plain enough what he'd got there. Soon as he'd got it free of his belt, he slung it out into the lake as far as he could get it to go. When I told Kari, he was all for swimming out there and trying to find it, before it got all rusty and clagged up. I managed to talk him out of it.