“Difficult?” I ask, my annoyance cresting in my voice.
“Stubborn,” he clarifies. Finnbogi twists his neck once more to scan the trail that skirts the bogs. “Logatha will not like it that I allowed you to go off hunting with the men,” he says as he reaches up to rub the stubble of his beard.
“I’ll tell Logatha about my hunting plans myself,” I reply irritably. “She understands that the will to explore is in my blood.”
Finnbogi gives a little laugh just as another flock of honking geese flies past. “If I know you, you’ll tell her more than that,” he says. “Just please watch yourself. There are dangers lurking everywhere.”
Two days later when I find Logatha working hard to salt a catch of cod, I breathe in deeply and tell her all about what I intend to do. She clucks her tongue.
“You are a fool for wanting to take up your bow and arrow and do men’s work.”
“Logatha, I am desperate to explore the hills and wander out into the boglands where the autumn foliage is turning colors and the air is sweet and crisp.”
“You get that here,” she says impatiently.
“It’s not the same.”
She glances up from her work. “Be on guard for skraelings. Ivor says he spotted some lurking around our settlement the other day.”
“I’ll be vigilant,” I promise. She waves me off.
“I’ll tell Ivor the Keen to keep his eye on you.”
But Ivor the Keen isn’t pleased when he learns of my intention to come along. He complains that, as a woman, I won’t be able to keep up with all the men. What is worse, he is not alone in his opinion. I catch a few of the Icelanders making snide remarks. Some even slip in a few lewd jokes. After two days of this, I tell the men that I am Leif the Lucky’s sister and that they answer to me and to no one else. Then I threaten to turn them out of my brother’s longhouse for the winter. My tongue-lashing is so severe that the huntsmen slink away and I am left feeling smug. Finally, I have managed to regain control. The men now know that I am in charge.
On the day we leave Leifsbidur to go out hunting, it is blustery but warm for fall. We push our shoulders into the wind and journey inland in search of migrating caribou, deer, and fox. The men ignore me, but I don’t care. Reveling in the feel of the warmth on my skin, I lift my face into the sun and savor the freedom of being outside where the leaves are turning and the landscape is a tumble of browns and yellows and splotchy smudges of orange-red.
After crossing over marshy fields, an Icelander by the name of Harald is the first to spot the telltale signs that there are caribou grazing up ahead.
“Come!” he says excitedly. “Look at these hoof markings in the moss where the lichens have been nibbled down. It is surely a sign that the caribou feasted well.”
“There is no evidence that a herd passed through here,” a young Icelander with a freckled face whom I hardly know pipes up.
“Look closely, you impatient lout,” Harald scolds the lad good-naturedly. “A whole herd could have slipped silently into the woods if their hooves crossed over that mound of rock.”
I strain my ears to listen for the sound of snapping branches at the edge of a dark band of spruce, but the woods are eerily silent at this time of day with only the trees creaking overhead. A moment later I spot a trail of scat.
“They are here,” I say confidently.
“By Óðinn’s beard, we are wasting our time,” a tall Norseman with uneven eyebrows huffs. His name is Jerrik, and I never liked him from the start. “I think we should keep going. I doubt a whole herd entered the forest here.”
“On the contrary,” I say irritably. “Look. The tree branches are all bent and twisted, which marks the spot where several enormous antlers passed into the woods.”
“Freydis is determined to target a bull today,” someone says in a teasing voice. The men chuckle at my expense and I feel my cheeks heating up. Gathering myself, I stand up tall.
“I want to eat this winter,” I retort as I reposition the quiver on my back.
“I’ll accompany you into the bush,” Harald announces suddenly. Behind him there is grumbling.
“I’ll come, too,” Ivor the Keen pipes up. He steps forwards with a group of eager hunting types. Very soon, half of us depart to go in search of meat while the other half decide to stay behind and take a nap.
I have barely entered the bush when I spot more hoof prints imbedded in the muddy ground. “They went this way,” I shout, throwing the words behind my back. My discovery prompts a gathering, and Harald suggests we all fan out.
As soon as I have crested the top of the next hill, I spot a group of mature stags with massive frames and long, smooth racks. They are grazing beside a bog surrounded by a thicket of stubby black spruce trees. Immediately I nock my arrow, placing my weight carefully and trying not to snap the twigs and brambles underfoot. Then I give the signal – a bird call that trills easily from my lips. The other huntsmen quickly position themselves around the herd. I see them waiting in the bush.
In front of me, the caribou move slowly, grazing as they go. One bull raises its head, its black eyes staring, its antlers so heavy it can barely hold them up. I target that one. As I lift my bow, the caribou’s ears perk up. The flies are swarming around its face. The animal blinks. Its eyes are round pools of light.
Slowly and steadily, I take aim and release the shot. Everything around me stops and I follow the arrow’s trajectory, listening to the whizz of the shaft as I hold my breath. There is a sudden burst of noise and the caribou goes down on a pile of dead brown leaves beside a copse of balsam firs. The rumble of the retreating caribou stampeding out of the clearing is so sudden that I have to shield my body from the cloud of drifting dust their hooves dredge up.
Just as a joyful cry escapes my lips, I hear an alarming sound. Startled, I turn and freeze as two Red Men with spears pop out from behind a tree. Their eyes are as black as iron ore and their thick, straight hair trails down their broad-shouldered backs. One of them flicks a sideways glance at my kill before turning back to study me. Terror grips my gut as his eyes come to linger on my breasts as though he is a predator deliberately studying his next prey. I slow my thoughts and swallow fear. Then I turn and aim my bow and arrow directly at his chest.
I think of Hawk’s Lure. I remember Spear Mamma. Today, these carrion feeders won’t unnerve me so easily. Today, I am a huntress. Today, I have found myself.
In the branches behind the skraelings’ heads, I spot a raven, its feathers starkly black against the white of the silver birch. When it releases a long, rattling croak as it swoops across the forest floor, I am unnerved by the haunting echo of its cry, but I stand my ground.
For a moment I am distracted, but when the other skraeling tries to bolt, I release my arrow and it narrowly misses hitting him in the back. The stockier one goes to run, but then he stops, transfixed. The forest is pinging with the sound of the retreating raven’s croaks, the echoes bouncing off the tree trunks and then slowly fading into the deep woods silence of the place.
I squint. The shadows shift.
The Red Man smirks. Staring him down, my mind strangely bends with the strain of everything – this place with its pine-tree scent, this unknown land, my unknown fate.
I shiver, falling into a trance almost.
The smell of rotting leaves wafts up from the forest floor and the crisp autumn air nips my cheeks. There is a sudden crunch of branches underfoot.
Standing in front of me, the Red Man tilts his head. For the first time, I notice that he is bare-chested, that his tanned skin is hairless, and that his muscled chest is perfectly contoured. Above his left nipple he sports a large tattoo. The outline of the bird has been shaded in with sleek black lines. The inside has been colored red.
I stare at it.
Red Raven smiles.
Chapter Nineteen
Forever haunted
“Halt!” I shriek as I nock another arrow. Red Raven darts behind a tree. I cut him o
ff, searching for his friend, a solidly built, beardless, stern-looking brave with a stag-skin loincloth and red-ochred cape that has been thrown over his goose-pimpled shoulders and tied at the waist with a belt. He is struggling to remove his foot from a tangle of tree roots, and he looks distressed. In a throaty tongue, the two exchange a torrent of words before Red Raven turns and points to me. With shaking fingers, I continue to draw my bowstring back.
“The kill is mine!” I shriek, gesturing wildly at the fallen caribou with my head. The mosquitoes hum around my head. I glance around, looking for Ivor the Keen and his men but the woods are still. Through the jumble of leafless trees I think I see movement, but when I look again, nothing stirs. In the silence, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that there is an unnatural spirit presence lurking in this place of creaking trees screeching out their haunting twig tunes. When Red Raven conducts another predatory evaluation of my bones, my stomach sours.
“Get back,” I shout as my knees begin to buckle. I can feel sweat dripping down my back. Red Raven looks past me at the fallen bull and mumbles reverently, his mutterings rumbling up from somewhere deep inside his chest. An instant later he slowly begins to move towards me with a cautious hand outstretched. His toes rustle the fallen leaves. The crunch of them reminds me of brittle bones.
Something moves in the mound of leaves. When a little bird scratches through the dead brown pile, Red Raven stops and stares. For a moment, all goes still. Then his eyes slowly wander up and come to rest on my red hair. Without a word, he dares to take another step forwards on his hunter’s feet, taking care not to do anything too sudden to startle me.
The arrow in my hand feels too heavy and I am suddenly aware that I am very cold. With effort, I focus in on Red Raven’s bird tattoo, but my thoughts are as slow as dripping sap, and my leg muscles feel like tangled kelp. When Red Raven suddenly stops and draws forth a strange-looking object, my eyes go wide. It looks like a catapult.
Instantaneously, I turn and bolt. Sheer panic makes me dodge the low-lying shrubs that scratch my shins and cut through my skin. A pulse is throbbing in my throat, a drum is pounding in my head. Wheezing, I push myself to run without looking back as the goosebumps pop and I swallow bugs.
By the time I reach the clearing where I had left the Icelanders lounging in the autumn sun, the stitch in my side is so intense that I double over and suck in air. When I see my legs – the scrapes dripping blood surrounded by patches of spruce gum that I can’t rub off – I fall into a vicious rage.
“On your feet, you lazy louts!”
Ivor’s men barely stir. I limp towards the group of them and kick Jerrik with my foot. “Get up, you lily-livered huntsman! There are red-faced skraelings in the woods.”
My warning spreads like wildfire and the men jump up, scrambling to shoulder their weapons and gather up their gear. Just then Ivor the Keen emerges from the woods in the company of the other men. His skin is flushed and he looks rattled, as if he has seen a ghost. I glance at him sharply.
“Why did you run away from such worthless Red Men, strong warriors that you are?”
Ivor the Keen stares at me. “How did you make it here ahead of us?” he gasps.
“It seems likely that the skraelings will steal my caribou racks and all that meat. We need to go back for it.”
“Calm yourself, Freydis,” Ivor the Keen whispers as he brings his index finger to his lips. “The skraelings have weapons, and we are not prepared to fight them off. May the gods decide the time for battle. Today we are only here to hunt.”
“Then hunt we shall,” I spit. “I have shot and killed a bull today. The antlers alone would give our people many tools. That luscious hide would be a treasured gift. Think on it, I beg of you! Send your men back into the bush to retrieve the caribou that I have downed.”
“Neinn, it is too dangerous. The skraelings are unpredictable. They could bring us trouble.”
“Then let me have a sword,” I blurt. “I think I could fight them better than any of you.”
“Neinn, be still, woman,” Ivor the Keen snarls in a fierce whisper as he steps forwards and takes me firmly by the arm. “The men are packed and ready to return to Leifsbidur. You will not reprimand them for exercising good judgment and deciding to leave without a fight. Besides, Finnbogi asked me to watch over you, and I’ll do just that. Now listen up, you will leave this place or I’ll be forced to tie you up and drag you home behind me.”
For a moment, I simply stare at him. Then I quickly yank my arm away. I feel like biting him like a wolverine, but instead I emit an injured huff. “I’ll not go anywhere until I retrieve my kill.”
“It was a good shot, a fine shot,” one of the men pipes up. “You downed a caribou with the largest rack I’ve ever seen. You should be pleased with yourself, Freydis Eiriksdöttir. Your faðir would be very proud.”
“If you feel that way, then come back with me for the caribou,” I challenge him in a haughty voice. Fear nests around his eyes. He takes a careful step back from me.
“You gutless worm,” I say disgustedly.
“Come now, Freydis. You are a headstrong woman who doesn’t see the dangers of facing Red Men in the bush when we are not prepared.” Harald the Bald is trying to be gentle as he relieves Ivor of the care of me, but my blood is boiling. I can feel my temples throbbing and the heat rising in my cheeks.
“We will leave you here if you refuse to return to Leifsbidur,” Ivor the Keen says stiffly as he motions to a runner to go and scout ahead. I am so frustrated that I am vibrating like a leaf in an autumn wind. Miserably, I know my only option is to follow the men out or be captured by the Red Men with their troll-like fingers that strum bows like gods strum lyres.
The trek back to Leifsbidur is long and hard as we circle around the muddy bogs and cross through shallow marshes surrounded by dense clusters of tuckamore. I am surly around Ivor the Keen who maintains his silence as he walks beside me looking grim. The other men are watchful with swiveling heads like the great grey owl as we travel into a lee of thick birch and poplar trees. When we wind our way around the marshes harboring migrating ducks and honking geese, we encounter no one, and I stay silent, but my resentment breaks into shards of bitterness that I flick at Ivor the Keen and his men.
By the time we arrive back in Leifsbidur, my mood is completely foul. I give Ivor the Keen the cold shoulder and refuse to take my supper in the hall with the men. Instead I find a stoop where I can be alone and sulk. For a long while I sit listening to the waves pummeling the shore and watching the swells crashing violently against the rocks, churning up a white frothy foam. In the distance, the sound of the laughing Norsemen who are eating their fill spills out from the great room, and I can’t help but think about how much I hate them all. My stomach sours.
It is Logatha who comes outside to find me. Without saying anything, I know she has heard about my trophy kill. We sit together until the shadows of a harvest moon start to lengthen and the evening chill begins to creep underneath our furs.
“Soon we will be living in darkness for most of the day,” Logatha sighs. Her breath rises in plumes of mist. I say nothing but think to myself that she is wrong, based on what Leif has told me about Vinland winters.
“It is cold out here, Freydis. We should go inside,” Logatha says as she huddles close to me for extra warmth.
“I’ll not join that sorry lot. They are lazy hunters, all of them.”
Logatha shivers as she clings to me. “I am happy that Ivor the Keen brought you safely home,” she sighs. Her words are whisked away by the rising wind. “I don’t trust those red-faced skraelings with their animal hides that barely cover their private parts. If you had stayed to pelt out that caribou, the skraelings would have fought you for the racks. The huntsmen tell me that they were very large.”
I shrug my shoulders and lift my chin. “My hunting efforts were all for naught.”
“There will be other opportunities, Freydis,” Logatha murmurs. She rests her head aga
inst my arm and we sit together in silence until the stars come out, winking as if to mock me.
“Ivor the Keen is spineless,” I grump.
“He is level-headed and Finnbogi trusts him. Now let it be or you will be haunted by it, and that will never do.”
She is right. I am haunted by it. I can’t let it go. The racks were worth their weight in gold.
A few days later, I wake to a woollen grey sky that smells of rain. When the stormclouds finally break, the rain does not let up, and it storms for days. Even walking between the longhouse and the byre is miserable in the icy rain. Then the fierce winds come swirling into the settlement, churning up the raging seas. Everyone wants to stay inside, and just like that the chance to score another kill is lost.
“We need to move the animals into the longhouse for the winter,” Finnbogi mutters as he squats down low to warm himself in front of the roaring fire. A puff of steam rises up from his sodden mantle. “I’ll set up a partition behind the loom.”
“The animals will keep us warm at night,” Logatha smiles with an impish look.
“You and I, we don’t need their heat,” Finnbogi teases as he eyes his wife. His dimple pops in the firelight.
I stare at them. “We are low on meat,” I say with a heavy sigh. “I’d like to try my hand at killing deer to get us through the winter.”
“Fie,” Logatha says as she glances at Finnbogi with a hidden message I cannot decipher. She rises to turn the capelins that have been set to roast on the scroll iron.
“You worry too much,” Finnbogi says in a serious tone.
“It’s good to worry,” I say defensively. “I think we should send more hunters out before it snows.”
“It would be miserable in the wind and rain,” Finnbogi says impatiently as he tugs on his tasselled beard. “Besides, we can always set down winter traps.”
I feel tingles in my arms and legs. “Perhaps it would be wise to dry more meat just in case.” I look down so he does not see my annoyance. “Before the first snowfall comes, I’ll go out hunting once again.”
The Voyage of Freydis Page 20
