West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  “It wouldn’t dare,” said Astrid coolly, and it occurred to him that she was probably right. There was something about Astrid that would make even the Nis think twice.

  She moved closer to him. “It would talk to me if you asked it. Why don’t you call it? Ask it to come down.”

  “Why should I?” Peer neither liked nor trusted Astrid, and saw no reason why he should do anything for her. “Besides, someone might hear.”

  “They won’t,” said Astrid. “They’re all listening to Hilde, telling about your adventures under Troll Fell.” She put a slim hand on his shoulder. “It’s a shame you’re up here by yourself, especially when it’s your story too.”

  Peer couldn’t help secretly agreeing. He imagined the gathering back there on the afterdeck, Hilde’s animated face, her hands gesturing as she told the story.

  “Do ask the Nis to come down,” Astrid wheedled. “I’d like to make friends with it. And look! Here’s its little red cap. It’ll want that back.”

  She opened her hand and showed him the tiny cap, dark in the darkness against her white fingers. It was true that the Nis would be glad to have it back. And where had she found it? Probably inside her goatskin bag.

  “All right,” Peer said gruffly. “I’ll try, but I don’t know if it’ll come.”

  He chirruped gently, and saw the Nis’s humped outline go tall and thin as it sat up like an alarmed squirrel and looked around.

  “It’s only me,” Peer called. “And Astrid,” he added, in case the Nis thought he was trying to deceive it. “She wants to say sorry to you. Come on down.”

  He didn’t truly think the Nis would come. However, it skipped on to the forestay and slid cleverly down. Astrid jumped, as if half afraid, then stretched out a coaxing hand.

  The Nis grabbed the cap from her fingers and crammed it on its head. It made a rude noise with its lips, and jumped away to crouch on the iron fluke of the anchor, fiddling with something it held in its skinny lap, and chanting some odd-sounding gibberish:

  “Half hitch, clove hitch, bowline, sheep-shank.

  Sheet bend, double sheet, reef knot, splice.”

  Peer leaned over. “Whatever are you doing?”

  “Practising knots,” squeaked the Nis. Its fingers flickered like spider legs. “Make a little hole,” it muttered to itself. “Out pops the rabbit, round the tree it goes, and back into the hole again.” It held up a piece of looped string in triumph. “See! Bowline.” It undid it busily and tried another. “Reef knot!” It held out the end. “The harder you pull, the tighter it gets,” it explained importantly. “Pull!”

  Peer pulled, and the knot slid apart. “That was a slip knot,” he said.

  The Nis snatched the string back. “Over here and under there… No, round here and over there… Pull!” Peer tweaked, and the knot came apart again. The Nis scrunched the string up. “I could do it before,” it said crossly.

  Astrid laughed. “Why are you learning knots?” she asked. The Nis wouldn’t answer, but Peer guessed. “They’re all knots that sailors use. The Nis is turning into a real seafarer!”

  Astrid caught on fast. “Goodness, yes. Why, I’m terrible at knots. I’m nothing but a landlubber. However did you learn so quickly?”

  The Nis could not resist flattery. Flicking her a sideways glance, it said with shy pride, “I watches, and I listens, and I sees Magnus showing Floki. And I thinks to myself, I am a ship nis now, I must learn the things that sailors know.”

  “How clever,” Astrid praised. The Nis swaggered its thin shoulders, spitting a tiny white speck over the side in uncanny imitation of Magnus. “I knows all the right words, too,” it bragged. “Ahoy there! Haul, me boys! Lee side! Luff!”

  “That’s wonderful.” Peer’s voice shook.

  The Nis nodded complacently. “Now I must go up to the mast head, like I does every night, and keep look out. Every evening I goes aloft” – it looked sharply to see if they had noticed the nautical term – “I goes aloft and I can see lots from up there, and I keeps a good look out for icebergs, Peer Ulfsson, so no need to worry. And I looks for storms, too, and rocks, and sea-serpentses and whales…” Its voice trailed off as it sprang for the forestay and scampered up hand over hand.

  Peer and Astrid caught each other’s eye.

  “Well! It’s forgiven me,” said Astrid.

  “Maybe,” said Peer. “Just keep buttering it up.”

  “You’re fond of it, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.” Peer discovered that he also felt very proud of the way the Nis was coping with its sudden uprooting from everything it had ever known. “I think it’s doing better than I am,” he added soberly.

  “You’re a nice person, Peer,” said Astrid softly. “Why doesn’t Hilde notice?”

  Peer stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes you do.” A gleam of mischief came into Astrid’s eyes. “I expect I could help. Shall I?”

  “No!”

  “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” she teased. “Why? A handsome boy like you shouldn’t be afraid of girls.”

  Peer was blushing so hard, he was glad of the darkness. Astrid stepped closer. Before he knew what she was going to do, she slid one hand up over his neck and kissed his cheek. “There! Now you can say a girl’s kissed you.”

  “Astrid!” Peer felt his whole skin scalding. “You’d better go,” he said furiously. “What if someone —”

  “What if someone sees us?” Astrid made her eyes go big. “Oh, yes, Gunnar would kill you, wouldn’t he?” She laughed. “Don’t worry, Peer, you’re safe with me. I won’t frighten you any more. I like you. I really do. And I can’t say that about many people.”

  Her voice was half sad, half mocking. Peer remembered what Hilde had told him, about the young man Astrid had loved. Erlend. The name rose to his lips, but he bit it back. He looked at Astrid. She was staring at the stars, her white skin luminous against the darkness of the vast sail. Did she know the story of Erlend’s curse? He pitied her.

  “Hilde told me your secret,” he said gently.

  “What secret?”

  She rapped it out so sharply, Peer wished he had said nothing. “About – having to marry Gunnar, and then Harald killing Erlend,” he stammered.

  “That!” To his amazement, she sounded relieved. After a moment she said, “Well, it was dreadful. But I’m married to Gunnar now. I don’t think about it any more.” She was suddenly in a hurry, pulling her cloak around her. “Gunnar will miss me. I’d better go.” And she whisked away, stumbling over the curved wooden ribs of the ship’s side.

  Peer’s hand went to his cheek, and he rubbed the spot where she’d kissed him. Did she love Gunnar? Had she loved Erlend? He couldn’t make her out at all.

  “Floki!” Magnus yelled next morning as a line came apart in his hands. He waved the loose end under Floki’s nose. “Call yourself a sailor? That was a slip knot. Came undone as soon as I pulled on it, you – you landsman, you!”

  Floki examined the line as though it could tell him what had gone wrong. “I’m sure I did it right,” he grumbled.

  “Never mind who did what. Pull that sail in!” bellowed Gunnar. The corner of the sail had blown free and had to be recaptured. All day, knots came mysteriously loose, or undone, or were found re-tied in the wrong way, until Gunnar was diven nearly crazy, cursing his crew for a nest of unhandy landlubbers. Peer began to fear fights would break out again – but luckily, after a day of turmoil, the Nis finally got all the knots figured out, and peace was restored. Floki muttered that Water Snake was an unlucky ship. When Magnus heard, he threatened to throw Floki overboard.

  A few days later, just after daybreak, Peer heard an excited shout from Halfdan in the bows: “Land ahead! There’s old Blueshirt! Greenland, me boys!”

  Everyone who was free rushed forwards. Peer was holding the starboard brace and couldn’t join them, but by shading his eyes and leaning out over the side, he caught a glimpse of it: a jag of bluish-w
hite on the iron horizon.

  Gunnar ordered Magnus, on the tiller, to alter course south of west. It was a freezing cold morning, the wind gusting almost dead north. As those white, unfriendly mountains drew nearer, snow began to scud down the wind. The horizon in all directions vanished. Grey snowflakes plastered themselves against the sail and whirled away again. The wind piled the sea into great ridges, and the ship reared and plunged over them like a frightened horse.

  “Reef!” Gunnar screamed. They shortened sail. Peer sat jammed against the starboard side, hanging on to the sheet and the braces. The waves rushed at the ship, foam spilling greedily down their fronts. He could see forward, under the sail, the dark neck of the dragonhead with seas bursting around it. Then hail rattled across the deckboards, knocking against his skull like elfin hammers.

  Someone shook his shoulder. Arne, shouting into his ear. Something – the steering oar? “Broken,” Arne bawled. Peer cawed his way to the stern, where Magnus waved a splintered peg-leg of wood – the remains of the tiller. A wave had wrenched it out of his grasp, twisting the steering oar upwards and snapping the tiller like a stick of firewood. Peer clung to the side. The steering oar was lifting and falling uselessly in the waves. “It’s not broken,” he yelled. “The withy’s snapped.”

  The withy – the rope that pinned the steering oar against the ship – had gone. Only a broad leather strap kept the oar from floating away as the ship tossed and dropped at the mercy of wind and waves.

  Gunnar appeared out of the gale. He put his face close to Peer’s. “Can – you – fix – it?” He bellowed each word separately.

  “Not in this weather,” Peer shouted back. He was afraid Gunnar would argue, but Gunnar nodded as though this was what he’d expected, and disappeared again.

  “Get me a line,” Peer yelled. The steering oar was a heavy blade of oak as long as a man, scything about in the strong waves, capable of breaking an arm or crushing a hand between it and the ship. Magnus brought a length of cord which Peer knotted around the end, so that the oar couldn’t wash away when he loosed the leather strap. “When it comes free, haul!”

  Magnus nodded. At Peer’s other side, Harald leaned over the gunwale.

  “Now!”

  They grabbed for the oar. Magnus heaved on the line. Peer caught the middle of the oar and was nearly tugged overboard by the deadweight as the ship rolled and the water sucked away. For a second he stared into boiling froth and evil, licking swirls, then the water rose to engulf him, but the oar rose with it, and together Harald and he dragged it over the side and fell to the deck boards with the oar on top of them. Magnus lifted it clear.

  Soaked and breathless, arms nearly torn from their sockets, Peer and Harald exchanged glances. Harald was gasping, his hair plastered to his face in rat-tails. He bared his teeth in a savage smile of triumph, and Peer found himself grinning back as savagely. Harald pulled Peer to his feet, and clapped him on the arm.

  For a moment, Peer almost liked him. He was ruthless, selfish, dangerous – but enjoying the danger, twice as alive as most people, with a glow to him that you wanted to be part of. And he knows it, and he uses it.

  They moved apart, the bond already breaking. Already Harald’s eyes turned indifferently away. You couldn’t be friends with him. There was no warmth to his brightness. He was in love with action, and with himself.

  “Peer!” Magnus yelled. Gunnar was gesticulating angrily. “Port side – get over to port!” Peer flung himself across to help balance the ship. If she turned broadside to the waves, they would be overwhelmed – sucked down without a trace.

  Now Peer saw Gunnar for the shipmaster he was. With no steering oar to help him, he took his ship on a crazy ride over the rolling hills of water, bellowing orders to haul in or slacken off the braces – twitching the sail this way and that – till the touch of the harsh, soaking ropes was raw agony. With the others Peer staggered to port or starboard as Gunnar yelled at them. In flashes between periods of dazed exhaustion Peer saw his shipmates – Floki being sick, Tjørvi hauling on the yard like a giant, Astrid and Hilde steadily baling, their sopping skirts spreading around them like puddles. Loki crept to his feet and Peer stroked his cold, wet ears.

  At long last the seas dropped into heaving, sullen swells. The sun rose, poking white rays through the clouds like gigantic wheel-spokes. The mountains of Greenland were nowhere to be seen.

  Peer mended the steering oar. He threaded a new rope through it, with a thick knot against the outer side. The tiller, which slotted into the end of the steering oar, was too damaged to re-use, but he made a new one by trimming down an oar-handle. As soon as it was ready, Gunnar turned the ship about. They were sailing west again.

  Tjørvi slapped Peer on the back. Gunnar gave him an approving nod. Even Arne produced a faint smile. It was a good feeling. As Peer put his tools away, he heard Magnus say, “No sense trying to reach Greenland now. But where are we? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  A brisk discussion broke out. “May as well keep going west.”

  “Aye, but we could be anywhere. Did anyone see the stars last night?”

  “What if we miss Vinland altogether and sail over the edge of the world?” Floki piped up, conjuring in every mind a vision of the endless waterfall plunging over the rim of the earth.

  “Showing your ignorance, Floki,” said Magnus. “The world is shaped like a dish, and that keeps the water in. Ye can’t sail over the edge.”

  “That’s not right,” Arne argued. “The world’s like a dish, but it’s a upside-down dish. You can see that by the way it curves.”

  Magnus burst out laughing. “Then why wouldn’t the sea just run off? You can’t pour water into an upside-down dish.”

  “It’s like a dish with a rim,” said Gunnar, in a tone that brooked no arguments. “There’s land all round the ocean, just like there’s land all round any lake. Stands to reason. And that means so long as we keep sailing west, we’ll strike the coastline.”

  The crew’s worn faces broke into smiles. This was a good explanation, which everyone liked. There was no chance of getting lost or sailing over a precipice. Peer looked around at a collection of bloodshot eyes, bruises, cracked lips and dull, salt-white hair. Astrid was hollow-cheeked, with purple shadows under her eyes: the storm had blown away her beauty. Hilde’s looks were more robust: the wind whipped roses into her cheeks and tousled her yellow hair. Gunnar looked terrible, grey under his red, chapped skin. His good hand shook, and he clenched his fist to disguise it.

  Yet almost against his will, Peer found he trusted Gunnar to get them to Vinland. Rough and tough Gunnar might be, but he knew how to sail, and how to put confidence into his men.

  “Gunnar’s a good skipper,” Hilde whispered, and Peer nodded.

  Astrid came up behind them and draped her arm over Peer’s shoulder. He knew she was only doing it to tease, but he wished she wouldn’t. He saw Hilde’s eyebrows go up, and tried to move aside. Astrid took her arm away with a comical pout.

  “We were talking about your husband,” said Hilde pointedly.

  “Really?” said Astrid. “What about him?”

  “Just that he knows what he’s doing,” Peer said. “He’s a good skipper.”

  The corner of Astrid’s mouth lifted. She threw a glance at Gunnar, where he sat against the port side. He happened to look at her, and his bristly, hard-eyed face softened for a moment.

  “He doesn’t look well,” Astrid murmured. “He hasn’t slept more than a snatch since the storm began. Thank goodness you got the steering oar fixed, Peer. You’re so clever.” She tucked her arm through Peer’s, and pinched him playfully. “Don’t you think he’s clever, Hilde – this brother of yours?”

  “He’s not my brother,” Hilde contradicted – then frowned, as if wondering what she’d said. Astrid smiled.

  She dropped Peer’s arm and went on, “But I came to ask you: how’s the Nis?”

  “The Nis!”

  Hilde’s mouth opened in horro
r, and she and Peer stared at each other. “The Nis! How did it manage in the storm? Where is it?”

  Astrid looked at them with scornful amusement. “Really! You two are the ones who are supposed to look out for the Nis. I’m just the wicked woman who dragged it on board. I suppose neither of you fed it, either?”

  “If you were clever enough to remember about it, why didn’t you do it?” Hilde snapped.

  “Nobody had time to think,” Peer said. He imagined the Nis lying in some cold corner, wet, seasick and frightened; or clinging to the masthead in all that wind; or being blown off into the sea. “We’d better try and find it.”

  He made his way along the ship, tugging at knots and knocking on beams and joints as if examining them for strain after the storm. “Nis… Nis,” he called softly whenever he dared. Astrid and Hilde looked into barrels and crates, pretending to take stock of the provisions.

  The Nis wasn’t in the apple barrel. It wasn’t in the chicken coop, though all three of them checked it, even moving the bedraggled, seasick chickens to make sure it wasn’t huddling between their feathers. In growing dread they searched across the big cluttered hold. It was impossible to be sure the Nis wasn’t hiding there somewhere, but it didn’t answer their calls.

  They met in the bows, confirming with pale faces their lack of success. Loki plodded after them, poking an enquiring nose into the cranny behind the anchor. With the nagging worry growing into real fear, Peer even lifted the loose deck boards to look into the dark, triangular space under the foredeck, though he couldn’t imagine why the Nis would ever go there. There was nothing to see but a little black water spilling about.

  “Oh, where can it be?” said Hilde in despair.

  “Lost something?” Arne took them by surprise.

  Peer jumped and clattered the boards back into place. “No! Just making sure we’re not leaking.”

  “You seem worried.” Arne sounded concerned, and for a fleeting moment, he looked like his brother. He turned to Hilde: “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Why don’t you tell me?”

  Hilde began to speak, stopped, and flung an unhappy look at Peer. Peer squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Everything’s fine,” he said brusquely.