Meadowland

by Tom Holt

  ‘Maybe you know me,’ he said. ‘I’m Leif Eirikson. My father’s Red Eirik, who was the first man to come here. The point is, I’ve just bought Bjari Herjolfson’s ship, and I want a crew to sail to the new islands that he found when he was blown off course on his way here, fifteen years ago. Stands to reason his old crew would be right for the job, since they’ve been to the islands and they know the ship.’

  He paused a heartbeat or two, and the hall was dead quiet. Not that Leif was a shouter; in fact, sometimes you had a problem hearing what he said, because he spoke very soft; mumbled sometimes, so the words sort of strained out through his moustache, like draining the wort off the mash when you’re brewing.

  ‘I’ll be straight with you,’ he said. ‘Assuming we get there in one piece, we’ll be stopping a while. Maybe a year, maybe two - longer than that, even. We’ll be building houses, fishing, hunting, maybe planting some grain to find out if it’ll grow So, anybody thinking of coming along but who doesn’t want to be away that long, forget it, we’ll have to make do without you.

  He stopped again, and this time there was a soft buzz going round the hall as what he’d been saying began sinking in. A lot of the men who’d been with Bjarni weren’t likely to go; I knew that, either they’d told me straight out or I’d heard from someone else that they’d had it with sailing after what had happened that time. You could see their point. After all, we’d been blown right off course and fetched up God knew where. It was pure chance that we stumbled across the islands, and an even bigger one that we’d got that fine wind that blew us straight back there. Far more likely that we’d have come to harm, and either died or ended up wandering around through the fog and the ice for months, drinking rainwater and eating seagulls.

  To start with, I was one of them. Now I’d enjoyed my time on the Norway run, don’t get me wrong. But the sea-road between Iceland and Norway’s pretty well known, though even so it only takes one bastard of a storm and you’re way out and completely lost. Ships go down every year and men die. I wasn’t having the best fun ever carrying hay and mending rails in Greenland, but it was a life, I could put up with it. I didn’t really want to go to sea again.

  And then - it was all in the few heartbeats after Leif stopped talking - then I remembered Kari telling me he felt exactly the same way Fuck seafaring, he’d said to me, more than once. Fuck being cramped up and wet through. It’s just about all right when you’re a kid and you want to go to new places and see new things, but a man in his thirties wants to be settling down and doing some proper work.

  There’s only been a few times these sixty-odd years that I’ve agreed with Kari Sighvatson, but that was one of them -which meant, I realised, that Kari wouldn’t be going. And if Kari wasn’t going, then I was.

  Sounds like a really stupid reason, doesn’t it? But think about it. You’ve known him, what, a few weeks? I’d been putting up with him, the endless chattering, always saying the wrong bloody thing, getting to me like a dry boot chafing your heel, for nigh on thirty years. He spoiled my life for me, and that’s no exaggeration. Listen: a few years ago I was at some scraggy little Greek monastery somewhere, and they had a book. Bloody proud of it they were; it had pictures, and every page was written on both sides - psalms, I think it was, or something of the sort. But at some point some fool had spilt wine on it, and there was this dark blue stain. You’d turn the pages, and each one you came to would have the same-shaped blue mark on it, blotting out the words and muddying the pictures and spoiling the whole thing. They’d come to put up with it, because it was their book, and most of the time they hardly noticed, but it was always there, and try as they might, they couldn’t ever look at it without hating the clumsy bastard who ruined it. Same with me. Every day of my life was a stained page with Kari all over it. So, I said to myself, if Kari’s not going on the trip, Leif Eirikson can count me in.

  And then I thought - it was still only a half-dozen heartbeats since he’d finished his little speech - if I stick my hand up right now and say I’m going, what’s the betting that Kari’ll do exactly the same? Perfectly capable of it; the stupid bastard’d think he was doing me a favour, coming along to keep me company You know, maybe that’s the very worst bit of all. He thinks I like him. I actually believe he likes me.

  God only knows how he does it, but I wouldn’t put anything past that bugger.

  So I made up my mind. I’d wait till the very last moment, make absolutely sure Kari wasn’t going, and then I’d join up. Or maybe Kari’d join, and that’d be even better, because that way I could stay home; at any rate, the sensible thing to do was not commit myself either way until Kari’d said what he was going to do. Meanwhile, I thanked our Heavenly Father (Leif was a Christian, so it seemed only polite) for putting it into Leif’s mind to buy Bjarni’s old ship and go exploring, and maybe just possibly give me my life back.

  Anyhow; Leif hadn’t quite finished yet. He said he was stopping at Herjolfsness one more night, and he’d be going back to Brattahlid next morning, just after milking. Anybody wanting to join him had till then to let him know, because after that he’d be going on to Stokkaness, and maybe the Western Settlement after that. Then he sat down, and Herjolf waved to the women to fetch round the beer.

  Clearly I didn’t have much time; I had to find out what Kari was going to do before sunup next day So I hopped up from my bench, making it look like I was going out for a piss. I actually went out the door and stood outside in the dark and the cold for a bit. Then I came back in, and on my way down along the benches I stopped next to where Kari was sitting.

  ‘Well,’ I said, shoving in next to him. ‘What d’you reckon?’

  He looked at me. ‘What, about going on this trip?’ he said. ‘No bloody chance. We were there, remember, we know what happened. It’d be just plain stupid - we’d have to be touched in the head.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ I said.

  ‘Well, of course you were,’ he said, and the way he said it put my teeth on edge. ‘I mean, just look at the facts. Last time, we only fetched up there because of a fucking great storm, followed by days and days in the fog. Point being, we haven’t got a bloody clue where those islands are. No way in hell we’d ever find them again.’

  I looked at him thoughtfully Twice in one night I’d found myself thinking the same way as Kari. Bad sign. ‘Still,’ I said, more to myself than him, ‘we know the way back, don’t we? That strong north-easterly took us straight from the useless rocky place with the glaciers to here; so if we just set a course south-west, then follow the coast straight down once we get there-‘

  He shook his head, bloody annoying know-it-all. ‘It’s all right you saying south-west,’ he said. ‘But I don’t remember you or Bjarni or any of us taking the position of the stars or cutting a bearing-dial or anything like that at the time; we were too busy keeping our heads down in that gale, trying to keep the sheets from splitting. The last thing on our minds was making notes of how to get back there, we just wanted to get to Greenland.’ He sighed, drank some beer, spilt most of it down his beard. ‘South-west you said,’ he muttered. ‘You only got to be a tickle out either way, you could sail straight past an island, specially in the fog or if a big wind gets up, and then where’d we be? Lost in the middle of the sea counting ice floes. No, you take my tip, don’t you have anything to do with it. If this Leif wants to get himself drowned, I say let him get on with it. You and me are staying put.’

  Well, that was pretty definite, so I’d got what I wanted. Good. But as I went back to where I’d been sitting, it started preying on my mind. I hate it when Kari’s right. I hate it when the truth smells of him, if you get my meaning. But he was right, sure enough. A man’d have to be completely crazy to launch off into the open sea with nothing to go on but what we knew I was so frustrated I could’ve cried. Here was my chance to get away from that pain in the bum after thirty years, but it’d mean I’d probably be going to my death. Would it be worth it, I asked myself? Just how
much did I hate Kari: enough to risk dying for?

  Well, yes.

  But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Where’d be the point of going on this trip in order to get Kari out of my life, if my life only lasted a week or so? I might just as well go back out, there and then, and cut my own throat, save myself getting wet through on a poxy ship. There were all sorts of things to think about. Sure, Leif was the son of the man who’d discovered Greenland; but did that necessarily mean he knew anything about sailing or finding his way at sea? He’d been bloody vague about what his actual plans were if he did manage to find Bjarni’s islands. Was he planning on starting a settlement, like his dad, or was he simply after a cargo of lumber? I hadn’t wanted to start a new life in Greenland, but I hadn’t had much choice in the matter. The Greenland settlement had at least been up and running when we got there. Buggered if I wanted to pioneer a place from scratch: camping out nights in the rain, no way of knowing where your next meal was coming from, and what about the islands themselves? We hadn’t gone ashore, so we didn’t know if there was anybody living there already who might not want us to take their land away from them. Or there could be huge ferocious wild animals, dragons, God knows what. Suppose we decided to stay and something happened to the ship; Leif hadn’t said anything about taking any women along, so we’d be stuck there for the rest of our lives, no kids to look after us when we got too old to work. I could picture it in my mind’s eye, the bunch of us all grey and hobbling and feeble, trying to hunt deer and drag logs lest we starve and freeze to death. Problem was, I could also picture this farm. It was set in the crook of a fat green-edged fjord, with a forest on the skyline and a sparkly silver river tumbling down the mountain into the plain; there were sheep on the upper slopes and cows on the flat, a hay meadow as far as the eye could see, and barns and outhouses and beehives and a boat shed, and a smiling old man standing in the porch watching his grandchildren playing happily, and the name of that farm was Eyvindsfjord.

  Most of that night I lay in the dark staring up, and when I wasn’t watching a ship getting smashed into kindling by storm-waves I was either staggering home empty-handed through the blizzard with my tottery old knees buckling under me, or else counting my six dozen newly shorn sheep as the shepherd brought. them down from the shieling in spring.

  Probably it was counting the sheep that eventually put me to sleep. I woke up, and I saw light streaming in through the smoke-hole. That was when I realised I’d made up my mind: a pity, really, because I found I’d decided to go with Leif Eirikson, only he’d said he was leaving at sunup.

  Don’t suppose I’ve ever moved so quick in my life. I was wearing my shirt; I stuck my feet in the nearest pair of boots, which turned out not to be mine, grabbed my coat and my short-handled axe, and ran.

  Running isn’t my thing. I can walk all day, or I could back then, but more than twenty yards running and I feel like my heart’s about to burst. No sign of Leif in the yard, so I raced off in the direction in which we’d come back from Brattahlid. If he was walking, I might catch up with him, but the chances were he’d have borrowed a horse, or a wagon if he’d got any volunteers from our lot. Anyhow, I ran. Despite what I said about the strain of it, that wasn’t a total pain, because running warms you up, and I wasn’t wearing any trousers.

  A few piles of horseshit, still warm and steaming, told me that I was on Leif’s trail, and I forced myself to run faster. Just when I thought I couldn’t bring myself to run another step, I saw a wagon in the distance. It was just ambling along, or I’d never have caught up with it. Luckily, someone must’ve looked back and chanced to see me sprinting along and waving like a lunatic; they stopped when I was about half a mile from them, and waited for me.

  It was Leif all right, and half a dozen of the Herjolfsness men. I noticed that only one of them had been in Bjarni’s crew Unfortunately, I only noticed that after I’d panted out to Leif that I was coming with him, if that was all right, and he’d grunted, ‘Fine.’ That was when I saw Kari sitting there in the wagon.

  One of those moments. Had a few of them in my life; like the time I was carrying a big load of logs on my shoulders across the middle of a frozen lake, and the ice broke. Of course, I should’ve just turned round and gone home again; except that Leif saw me hesitate and he said, ‘Well, get in,’ and I knew it was too late. I’d joined up, see, and men like Leif don’t take kindly to people breaking their word. You can get an axe blade between the eyebrows for that sort of thing, unless you can get out of the way quick enough, as one of Eirik’s men had found out the hard way according to Brattahlid gossip. After all that running, I’d never be able to outpace Leif. Best I could hope for was waiting till dark and sneaking off nice and quiet, hoping that Leif wouldn’t come after me for fear of getting behind on his schedule.

  So I sat down in the wagon next to Kari, because there wasn’t anywhere else to sit; and as soon as I’d put bum to board, he scowled at me and said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  I couldn’t have killed him because I didn’t have the strength. I could’ve bust out crying, though, or laughing like a head case. ‘Screw that,’ I said. ‘Why’re you here, more to the point? After all that stuff you said-‘

  Kari shrugged. ‘Maybe I laid it on a bit thick,’ he said. ‘Actually, a lot thick. See, it turns out Bjarni carved a bearing-dial on the way home, and he’s told Leif precisely where to find the islands, and Leif’s a red-hot navigator, like his old man.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘So why did you tell me all those lies about-?’

  ‘Not lies,’ Kari said, sounding hurt. ‘Just the truth with a slant. All right,’ he went on, with a deep sigh. ‘The fact is, I’d decided to go-and I didn’t want you coming too.’

  Men have died of less. For less, too.

  ‘Is that right?’ was all I said, though.

  ‘Well.’ He seemed annoyed with me for screwing things up. ‘We’ve been mates a long time, you and me, and when we’re on dry land, you’re a pleasant enough bloke. But when you’re on a ship, I don’t know, you do tend to get a bit uptight and difficult. Like the time with Bjarni when we were becalmed off the second island, and you got all snotty with me for sneaking ashore in the night. No offence, old chum, but on a long voyage, that sort of thing’s a real drag. But never mind,’ he added cheerfully ‘So long as you try and make an effort not to be so inconsiderate, I expect we’ll rub along all right.’

  It was a long ride to Brattahlid.

  At this point, Eyvind stood up and wandered round the tomb for a bit. I decided he wouldn’t want to hear anything

  I had to say, so I kept my teeth together and my face shut. After a while, he sat down again and asked the young Guardsman, Harald, if he thought that it was time he replaced Kari on watch. Harald shrugged, and said he’d take the next watch.

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ Eyvind said. ‘I could do with a breath of air.’ He sighed, then turned back to me. ‘One thing,’ he said. ‘You may’ve noticed, we Northerners like to give each other nicknames. Mostly it’s because we’re an unimaginative bunch when it comes to our regular names. We haven’t got many to choose from, and most of the ones we’ve got begin with Thor-. When four of your neighbours are called Thorstein and the fifth is Thorgils and the sixth is Thorbjorn, it’s a damn sight easier to say Red or Fats or Flatnose. Well, that was the occasion on which I got my nickname, and I’ve been Bare-arse Eyvind ever since. I just thought I’d mention it,’ he added, ‘in case one of the others uses it, and you’re wondering who they’re talking about.’

  Then he ducked his head under the low doorway and went out.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  ‘We’ve been mates longer than I can remember,’ Kari said, ‘but he can be a funny bugger. You don’t want to go taking anything he says at face value.’

  When Kari’d come in from his stint on watch, he’d made me give him a précis of what Eyvind had told me. I’d left out quite a lot. Even so, Kari seemed concerned that I shouldn�
�t be misled or misinformed. Personally, I was prepared to take anything either of them said with a healthy drop of olive oil, but it seemed to matter to Kari that I believed his story, and that if Eyvind’s version contradicted his own, it was because Eyvind was an unreliable witness. Mostly, of course, I wanted to go to sleep. Unfortunately I couldn’t make Kari see that. Maybe he’d promised his mother not to take hints from strange men.

  ‘I could hear him banging on all the time I was out there,’ he went on. ‘Not the words, just the sound of his voice. He does talk rather a lot, bless him. Always has. The trick is making it look like you’re listening. Nodding your head from time to time and grunting helps, but you’ve got to be careful you don’t agree to do something. Like most things, it comes with lots of practice.’

  ‘Mostly he was telling me why he decided to go with Leif Eirikson,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, right.’ Kari nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘I talked him round in the end. Stupid bugger, he’d have missed out if it hadn’t been for me, and then he’d have spent the rest of his life kicking himself. Still, he came, and that’s what matters. And we were glad of him in the end, no doubt about it.’

  ‘Really,’ I said, without thinking. ‘What-?’

  (Only myself to blame. I’m like a cat with a bit of string; the story twitches, and I lash out for it.)

  Of course (said Kari) Leif Eirikson could’ve used his dad’s ship, or bought one off one of the other settlers; but he’d set his heart on having Bjarni’s old knoerr. Superstition, mostly He reckoned that if it’d been to Bjarm’s islands once it could go there again. Actually, a lot of people think like that: they get the notion that a ship knows the way, if you see what I mean.

  Bloody thing was a right old relic, of course. We’d had it out of the shed every year, given it a dab of pitch and wool grease, stuffed a bit of caulking in the cracks. But the ropes were all shot, the strakes were warped, we ended up stripping it down to the frame and putting it back together again; easier to start over from scratch, if you ask me.