by Tom Holt
Once I’d got all that sorted out in my mind, I discovered that actually things weren’t quite so bad. Perspective; there’s a wonderful Greek word. It’s all perspective. Once I’d told myself I wasn’t much more than a walking corpse playing out my last few sad years, I found that life at Herjolfsness wasn’t so bad after all. We cut the hay, turned it, got it stacked and thatched; and Bjarni came up to me when we’d done thatching the last rick and asked if I was planning on staying for good, because if I was, it’d be all right with him. That made me feel better straight away I was doing something right - in Meadowland you just got on with it, and nobody said good or bad, because it didn’t matter, there wasn’t anybody else to do your work so you couldn’t be fired or sent away I told Bjarni that as far as I was concerned I was there for good, and he shrugged and said, Fair enough - and that was that. I’d come home.
And then there was the girl. Well, that’s how I thought of her, because when we left Drepstokk she was eight, little Bergthora, and her mother used to yell at her because she’d be out back of the barns playing with the dogs instead of helping churn the butter. Next time I saw her she was thirty-three, and her second husband had died of the fever the previous winter, and her face was thin and full of lines. She had a son who was fourteen and a daughter who was ten - crazy I thought, how can little Bergthora have kids who are both older than she is? - and they were both getting a bit wild, they needed a father. I’m not quite sure why I married her, but it turned out to be a good move. We didn’t see all that much of each other - you don’t, when you’re hired hands on a big farm, where all the men work outside all day all the women work in the house or the outbuildings, and then everyone eats and sleeps together in the main hall -but sometimes at night, when she was asleep on the bench next to me and I was lying awake - I often had trouble sleeping after Bits’s expedition - I used to pretend that we’d been married for twenty years, I’d been there all that time, and the boy and the girl were my son and daughter, not the offspring of two men I’d never even met; and I’d convince myself that it was true, this fantasy because if it had been true, if I’d never been away, then here was where I’d have ended up, in that place; like when two of you go for a walk, and one of you takes a short cut that goes badly wrong, through the bog, up and down the fell, and then you meet up again on the road that you should’ve taken in the first place. I won’t say I was happy at Herjolfsness; but it was the best time of my life, absolutely no question about that.
‘So you didn’t go back to Meadowland with Kari,’ I interrupted.
‘I’m coming to that,’ Eyvind replied.
Red Eirik had three sons and a daughter; Lucky Leif, Thorvald who was killed by the leather-boat people, Thorstein who died of the fever, and Freydis, who stayed home. Let me tell you a bit about Freydis.
She was, what, a year or so older than me, and she was married to a man called Thorvard, who lived at Gardar, on the far eastern side of the Eastern Settlement. I can save a lot of words by telling you that Thorvard was generally known as Space, because that’s all he was: a space where a man could’ve stood. You could be in the same house with him for a week and never know he was there. Each morning he’d put on his coat and go out, get on with his work on the farm, and you’d forget he existed. As far as everybody was concerned, the farmer at Gardar was Freydis Eiriksdaughter, and anybody with any sense didn’t go there.
There were plenty of stories about Freydis, and some of them were even true. Like when her stockman challenged the Einarsfjord people to a horse-fight- ‘Excuse me?’ I said.
‘Horse-fight,’ Eyvind repeated. ‘It’s a bit of fun for the long summer evenings. You get the nastiest, most vicious horse in your herd, the one you gave up trying to break years ago, and your neighbour brings along his; you haul them into a small cattle-pen, and you prod them with goads till they’re good and mad; then you get out of the pen quick. The horse still standing at the end wins.’
‘I see,’ I replied.
‘It’s meant to be just a way of letting off steam,’ Eyvind went on. ‘But people do like to gamble, and once money comes into it, there’s always the temptation to cheat. Pity, because that leads to bad blood, which leads to feuds, killings, law cases and God knows what. Still, it’s a pretty sight, two bloody great horses kicking and biting shit out of each other.’
There was this horse-fight (Eyvind went on); and the Gardar boys reckoned it was in the bag, because they had this really mean, savage bastard of a stallion. Biggest horse you ever saw, so they say, black with a white teardrop on its forehead; nearly killed a shepherd once, and a terror for kicking down the rails and running off. Only reason they didn’t knock the bugger on the head was, they were saving it for fighting. The Einarsfjord men had a chestnut stallion, not so tall at the shoulder but solid, just a mass of muscle. They’d fought it three times already and it’d pulped the opposition, so they were pretty sure of themselves.
The day of the fight came round; all the Einarsfjord people trooped down to Gardar to watch, they brought a picnic supper and a big barrel of beer, and Freydis sent out two more barrels so as not to be outdone. She’d let it be known she wasn’t happy about the whole business; reckoned the stockman hadn’t asked her first (which wasn’t true, but that’s what she told people) and she couldn’t see the good that’d come of her prize stallion getting all busted up in a fight; so she stayed in the house and watched through the doorway If she thought it’d spoil everyone’s fun, her not being there, she was a bit off the mark. They were all having a great time, the visitors as well as the locals - particularly the Gardar people, because they didn’t get much company
After they’d all had a drink or two and a bit of socialising, the Gardar stockman brought out his horse, and the Einarsfjorders brought out theirs, and the fight was on. Now the Gardar stockman, name of Hrapp, was almost as much of a bastard as the horse. He was from the Hebrides, and they’re all a bit rough round the edges out there; but Hrapp got slung off the islands for being a nuisance, which says a lot about him. The long and the short was, he was a bit happy with his goad, planted as many scats on the Einarsfjord man as he did on the horse, and there was nearly a free-for-all before the horse-fight even started. So feelings were running a bit high when the horses eventually got around to doing the business. The thing was, that nasty old black stallion of Hrapp’s took one belt too many off the Einarsfjord horse, and decided it didn’t like rough games after all. It picked up its heels and ran, and the chestnut chased it round the pen a couple of times and then ignored it.
Well, the Einarsfjord lot were pleased about that, you can imagine. They reckoned they’d won a few pennies off the Gardar people, plus they’d taken Freydis down a peg or two. So they were all cheering and chanting and throwing stuff at the black horse, which stood there trembling up the far end of the pen. Hrapp was stomping up and down looking very unhappy while the Einarsfjord man was making a few choice remarks about him in particular and Hebrideans in general.
Out of the blue, Freydis comes storming out of the house. She was a short woman, with a little round face and a pointed-up nose, and to look at her you’d have thought she rolled across the ground rather than walking; but she goes right up to Hrapp, snatches the goad out of his hand and gives him a scat round the back of the head with it that sends him staggering; then she hops up over the rail into the pen, marches up to the black stallion and lays into it with that goad so hard that it’s a wonder it didn’t snap.
First off, the horse rears up and tries to smash her head in with its front legs; then it has a go at sideswiping her onto the rails and crushing her ribs. But she’s quick on her feet, is Freydis: she sidesteps and darts in and out, all the time whacking at the horse on its shins and ribs, or stabbing it in the neck and belly So the horse turns round so as to get a kick at her with its back legs, which is what she’s been after. Soon as she’s got a clear shot, she punches the goad into the horse’s arse, and off it goes like a shooting star, prancing and lashing out, hur
ting like buggery and scared out of its wits. The Einarsfjord horse sees it coming, reckons it’s come back for some more fun, and leaps out at it; gets its teeth round the black horse’s ear and shreds it. Doesn’t realise its mistake till it’s on the ground, front leg busted, ribs stove in, the Gardar horse dancing round trying to stomp on its head; and that’s the end of the fight. Freydis stands there with her arms folded while Hrapp and the men get their horse under control; Hrapp gets a broken collarbone in the process, and one of the farmhands gets kicked in the head, dies two days later.
Of course, the Einarsfjorders aren’t happy at all. They all reckon the fight was over when the Gardar horse bolted the first time, and there was no call for Freydis to go setting it on a second time. They’re yelling all sorts and shaking their fists, but Freydis looks past them like they aren’t there and she can’t hear anything; and eventually they cut their horse’s throat and go home. Freydis has the dead horse flayed and the hide tanned and made into winter boots for the shepherds. For weeks afterwards, they say she was going around with a big smile on her face, nice as pie to everybody they’d never known her be so pleasant. She made her peace with Hrapp straight away, said there were faults on both sides and he was still the best stockman in Greenland so why not just forget all about it; and when his body was found out on the fells, beginning of autumn, not a single bone unbroken, everybody reckoned it must’ve been the Einarsfjorders being sore losers.
Anyhow, that’s Freydis, and you can see why life at Gardar tended to be a bit exciting at times. One thing you had to say for her, she wasn’t afraid of anything on land or sea; and she was always close to her family particularly her father and her brother Thorstein. She even managed to be civil to Gudrid while Thorstein was alive, but after he died and Gudrid married Thorfinn Bits, it was as much as Freydis could do to say a couple of words to her without spitting. For some reason Freydis was always down on her brother Leif, at least to his face, though by all accounts you didn’t dare say a word against him when she was around if you valued your skin. But every time she went to Brattahlid she’d find some excuse for giving him a hard time. If it was autumn and the cows were still out, she’d bollock him for overgrazing; if he’d brought them in, she’d call him a fool for wasting good hay while there was still grass above snow If he bought stock, he’d always paid over the odds; if he sold an animal, he’d practically given it away That sort of thing, all the time, relentless, like water dripping; and Leif never cussed her back or anything like that. He’d just sit still and listen, and I’ve seen him myself gradually freezing up till he was so tense that if he’d toppled out of his chair onto the floor he’d have shattered in pieces. And once she’d gone home again, if anybody said anything against her, even hinted, he’d fly into a rage, knock a man’s teeth down his throat; I don’t think anything ever got him so worked up as someone bad-mouthing his sister.
Well, not long after Bits came back to Greenland, Freydis made up her mind it’d been far too long since she’d been to visit her brother, so she and Thorvard Space and a few of her men set off for Brattahlid. Just so happened that, a day or so before they arrived, a ship put in from Norway It belonged to a couple of brothers called Helgi and Finnbogi; they were Icelanders originally from the Eastfjords. Helgi was the elder brother, about forty-seven or forty-eight years old, and Finnbogi was maybe four years younger: traders, quiet men. They’d hit it off with Leif straight away and of course Leif’d told them all about how he’d discovered Meadowland; and then Gudrid and Bits had joined in and said how it was a nice enough place, but you wouldn’t want to live there; but if you had a good ship and wanted to turn a profit, there was all that timber just waiting to be felled, not to mention furs and all that. They were just trying to impress their guests, they didn’t mean anything by it. But when Freydis showed up - she hadn’t thought to send ahead to say she was coming, that wasn’t her style - everybody was still talking about Meadowland, of course.
A friend of mine from Leif’s expedition, man by the name of Third Horse head, was sitting close by the top of the table, the first night Freydis was there. She had Leif on one side and Bits on the other; the two Icelanders were sitting opposite. That was Freydis all over: had to be in the centre, so everyone was in reach.
Third told me Leif had put him up on the top table that night so he could tell Helgi and Finnbogi some details of his expedition that’d slipped his memory, something about the currents in the bay; he reckoned they went one way Bits insisted they went the other, and Leif wanted Third to back up his version. Well, Third did as he was told, and Bits thought about it for a moment and explained how they were both right - the currents changed with the phases of the moon, or some such slit. Leif got grumpy and sulked because he hadn’t been completely right. The brothers asked Third a few questions, sensible and to the point. Gudrid broke in with some detail that all of them had missed, which supported what Bits had said. All very pleasant and civilised, if you turned a blind eye to Leif being snotty.
Freydis had always had the gift of being able to drink like a man. When she’d had just about enough, her face glowed red and her voice got louder, and she tended to lean across the table and talk right into your face. ‘Sounds to me,’ she said to Helgi and Finnbogi, ‘like you’re thinking of going out there yourself’
The Icelanders looked at each other; it was like they had the knack of being able to talk to each other without saying a word. ‘The thought had crossed my mind,’ Helgi said. ‘But it sounds risky to me.
Freydis laughed. She had a nice voice. ‘The savages, you mean? They aren’t anything to worry about.’
Awkward silence. Leif still sulking; Gudrid looking down at her empty plate and frowning, Bits stroking his beard, my friend Third trying to pretend he wasn’t there. ‘Really,’ Freydis went on. ‘No problem. I mean, if Gudrid could make them all run away just by waggling her tits at them…
Bits started to say something, but thought better of it; Gudrid caught her breath and scowled at Freydis. Probably Third told me, Freydis didn’t even notice. ‘No disrespect to Gudrid and Thorfinn,’ she went on, and everybody must’ve noticed the order she said their names in, ‘but they didn’t handle them right, that’s all. Got to be firm. Give ‘em a good smack on the nose, they won’t bother you. Besides,’ she went on, ‘you probably won’t see hide nor hair of them. I think they wander around, like the Lapps do, following the deer herds.’
The Icelanders were quiet for a moment. Then Finnbogi said: ‘Actually it wasn’t the locals we were concerned about. It’s just - well, it’s a long way away and a lot of open sea to cross, and it sounds to us like the weather’s very unreliable. We’re traders, we like to stick to well-tried routes. We need to know exactly where we’re going to be and when. I mean, it’s no good showing up in Norway with a cargo of stuff when you’ve missed the fairs and the King’s court has moved on up-country.’
Freydis waved all of that away with her solid little hand. ‘If you fill your ships with timber,’ she said, ‘you’ll find a buyer any time, here or back in the Old Country. No question about that.’
‘It’s not that simple, though, is it?’ Bits interrupted. He was quite red in the face now, though he was talking rather softly ‘You can’t just turn up, load up and go on. It takes time to fell enough timber to fill a ship.’
“Course it does,’ Freydis said, all sweet and patient, like Bits was a backward child. ‘Which is why you need to be a bit organised. You have a permanent settlement. Soon as the ships are loaded they sail home; and while they’re away you fell and trim out the next load, so it’s ready and waiting for when the ships come back. You could get it down so nice, you could fit in four, even five round trips in a summer. Keep that up for five years or so, you’d be nicely set up. You see,’ she went on, ‘where all the others screwed up, my brothers and Thorfinn here, no offence, they never really figured out what they wanted to do, or else they had a whole load of cock-eyed ideas. You-‘ (She was looking at Leif.) ‘You couldn’t
make up your mind whether you were founding a new settlement or you were just there to cut lumber; result, you fiddled around for a season or two, gave it up and came home. Thorvald was the same. Thorstein was so hopeless he couldn’t even find the place.’ Leif fiddled with his cup, turning it round with his fingertips; Gudrid, Third told me, just looked sick. ‘And you-‘ (Bits this time.) ‘You wanted to go and play at farming, but look at you, you’re a trader, same as these two; you’ll never make a farmer in a hundred years. You couldn’t build a settlement because you couldn’t believe in yourself being a farmer; you were in the wrong place, you couldn’t be yourself. What I say is, there’s this bloody wonderful opportunity out there, it just needs someone with a bit of sense to work out how to make the most of it.’
Thorvard Space - he was there too, of course, but down the table a bit - suddenly pipes up and says, ‘That’s right, that’s absolutely right. Marvellous opportunity going to waste, all it wants is a good leader.’
‘I agree,’ said Helgi unexpectedly ‘We were thinking that ourselves. But as you said just now: Thorfinn here’s a trader, and that’s what we are. If things didn’t work out for him, who’s to say they’ll work out for us? I mean, I don’t know anything about how you go about founding a permanent settlement.’
Then Gudrid turned her head and treated Freydis to a bit of a stare. ‘It seems to me,’ she said quietly ‘that the three of you should go into partnership - I’m sorry, the four of you, I was forgetting Thorvard. It sounds like you’ve got it all planned out in your head, Freydis. I suppose that’s only to be expected from Red Eirik’s daughter.’
Leif opened his face to say something, but Freydis got in first. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘that’s not a bad idea at all. To tell you the truth, I’m getting sick and tired of Gardar. No room to expand, that’s the problem. There’s only the little strip of grazing, no bigger than a rug, between the sea and the fells.
