Meadowland Tom Holt Read online

  Something was going on, though; because when the ship was finished and we were all getting ready to go, we got word that there'd been a change of plan. Talk about surprises; we all met up at the boat shed, thirty-four of us plus Leif himself, and right out of the blue he told us he was coming along but he wouldn't be leading the expedition. Red Eirik had suddenly decided he was taking charge.

  Well, we were in two minds about that. Sure, nobody knew more about building settlements than Red Eirik, because he'd done it already and made a pretty decent job of it, say what you like about the man. On the other hand, Eirik had something of a reputation for not caring how he went about getting his own way Leif was an unknown quantity on that score, but everybody knew what sort of man Red Eirik was. Also there was the small matter of why, at his age, he felt the need to up sticks and go exploring. again, when by rights he'd already got everything he could possibly want: the Greenland settlements, with him as the undisputed leader - oh, he didn't call himself King Eirik or Earl Eirik or any shit like that, but in Greenland, if Red Eirik told you to bugger yourself to death with a pointed stake, about the only thing you'd dare ask was whether you could borrow a billhook to sharpen it with.

  Nobody wanted to raise the issue, though, so we all stood there murmuring 'Good' and 'Splendid news' and 'How wonderful', and then Leif said to be ready to set sail at first light next morning.

  It gets better. We all showed up as ordered, huddled there in our fur cloaks in the cold glow of sunrise. Leif comes riding up on a big black horse, but no sign of the old man.

  'Accident,' Leif tells us. 'Sorry to have to tell you this, but when we were riding over here just now, Dad's horse stumbled and threw him, and he hurt his leg. So he's not coming.'

  So that was that. I'm not saying anything about what was or wasn't going on, but it strikes me as funny the way it happened. Particularly the falling-off-his-horse part. See, where I come from it's a real sign of bad luck, falling off your horse on the way to do something. Well, obviously it's bad if you fall off and land the wrong way, you can break your neck like that, let alone your leg. What I mean is, it's like an omen, telling you to stay home. Point is, instead of acting all glum and put out, Leif seemed a lot more cheerful after that, like he never wanted Dad along anyway

  Be that as it may: we set sail from Brattahlid, and the first few days we puddled along the Greenland coast, heading north. Nobody had any idea why we were doing this, except presumably Leif and he wasn't inclined to share. One of the men told me that he'd spent hours talking with Bjarni about stars and winds and currents, but I'd been there when Leif was over at our place, and I didn't remember seeing anything of the sort. I didn't say anything, of course.

  Three days out and the bloody fog came down. Did I mention I don't like fog? It made a bit of a nonsense of hugging the coast, since we couldn't see the width of the ship, let alone the land. I was sat aft, and I could just about see into the hold, as far as a big stack of barrels. That set me thinking. I'd done my bit helping to get the stores on board. There were three big water butts, as you'd expect. There were loads of barrels of flour and beer, which was good; also blankets and furs, charcoal for cooking, also good; dried fish and honey and cheese and a tub of apples wrapped in straw Fine; we had no idea how long we were going to be at sea, or whether we'd find anything to eat once we got to the island. There were spades and mattocks and half a dozen scythes; three big cauldrons, a spit and other bits and pieces of cooking gear. Also we'd loaded three dozen long axes, a good collection of froes and wedges, plenty of rope, all the stuff you'd need if you were planning a logging trip. So far, fine by me. Then we'd had to build a little pen, separated off from the rest of the hold with withy hurdles, for the livestock - two cows (but no bull), four goats, six sheep and a big wooden cage full of chickens - and the rest of the hold space was taken up with hay and barley and onions and the like, for feeding the stock. Oh, and tucked away in a corner there was an anvil, a set of hammers, stakes and swedges, and two tanned hides for making bellows - but no iron. And that, aside from what we'd each of us brought along to keep by us, was that.

  Sitting there in the fog with nothing to occupy my mind, I tried to figure out what the cargo had to tell me about what Leif was planning to do. Mostly I thought about fetching along two cows but no bull. Eighteen months, that said to me; a cow'll give milk for eighteen months, but then it's got to be put in calf or it'll run dry. On the other hand, we'd brought a ram and a billy goat, so we'd not be without milk if we were planning on staying longer. The logging stuff made sense whether we were planning on staying or not; but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you'd bring along a forge but no iron. In the end, I decided that Leif was either too smart for me to second-guess, or very stupid.

  The northerly wind that'd carried us up the coast for three days changed when the fog came down. We were becalmed for maybe twelve hours. Then a stiff westerly came up. Leif hopped up from where he'd been sitting, staring out at the sea and the fog. We put on as much sail as we dared. Didn't take long for the fog to blow away, but when it had cleared there wasn't any sign of Greenland to be seen.

  That night was lovely and clear, and I could see the stars. The wind was down. Everybody else was asleep, dead to the world, except me. Strange feeling. A man with an imagination could make himself believe that he was completely alone out there. I remember thinking, well, this is what you wanted, isn't it, to get away from living right under the armpits of the same old people every day Maybe our Heavenly Father was listening, and He thought, if that's what old Kari wants, he can have it. And you know how one thought leads to another when you're awake in the middle of the night; I got to thinking, what if He'd been thinking about me the night I swam ashore to Bjarni's second island? What if He'd got up a sudden squall of wind and blown the ship far out to sea and left me there on shore all alone? I could almost imagine Him grinning to Himself, and saying, well, Kari, you wanted a big rap of land all your very own, yours as far as the eye can see; don't say I never give you anything.

  Now you ask any bishop, he'll tell you that's not the way our Heavenly Father does things. There's times, though, when I wonder.

  Next morning, not long after dawn, the wind got up again. It had changed a bit, so we had to tack a little to keep holding due west. Leif was worried about the mast. He was sure he could hear a nasty groaning noise, and he clambered out over the barrels and sat directly under it, looking up to see if he could spot a crack opening anywhere. Of course, that made the whole lot of us nervous as hell; if your mast goes, out in the middle of the sea, you're screwed. So we all sat dead quiet trying to hear this funny noise Leif was on about, and you know how it is. If you listen for something hard enough, sooner or later you'll hear it, whether it's there or not. Somebody piped up that he could hear it too, a sort of long, high creaking; somebody else said no, that was just the ropes straining; what he could hear was a sort of low rumbling growly noise; someone else said, 'Don't be stupid, that's just the boards flexing against each other, what the captain means is that sharp clicking sound.' Leif didn't join in, except every now and then he'd tell the lot of us to shut up. By the time it got dark we'd got ourselves in a right old state, even though deep down we all knew we were fussing over nothing and really there wasn't a funny noise at all.

  That was when the rudder snapped.

  God knows why True, it was old and we hadn't replaced it when we were giving the ship its refit. I suppose there must've been a big wave or a gust of wind twisting us in the water. Anyhow, there was a sudden loud crack, just like a man's arm breaking. We all jumped in the air, looked up at the mast and saw it was still there in one piece, then started staring all round trying to see what'd gone.

  Soon as we realised what'd happened, Leif snapped out of his mood and started giving orders. We dropped anchor, got the rudder up out of the water and had a good look at the damage. It could've been worse. The break was just above where the handle meets the blade and it wasn't all the way through. T
here was still a hinge of sound wood holding it together; so we took a coil of good tarred rope and pulled the plies apart till we had a strand about the thickness of your little finger, and served the break up good and tight - two men straining on the cord, three men slowly turning the rudder to wind the strand on. We melted up a block of pine pitch we'd fetched along just in case, and sealed the splice up to keep it tight. Proud of ourselves we were, when we'd finished. It was as -though we'd all known we were due a disaster of some sort, and now that it'd come and we'd coped with it and nobody was drowned or killed we could all relax. We hauled the anchor up and got in a good four hours before the wind dropped again.

  Nothing happened the next day, except that we got a light wind that kept us pottering along, nothing like so fast as we'd been going, but we didn't mind too much taking it a bit steady because we were a bit concerned about the strain on the mended rudder. About mid-afternoon we saw a whale, but it was too far out to risk launching the boat, and besides, we were well set as far as food was concerned. What got me going wasn't the whale but a handful of gulls, the first we'd seen since the fog. I heard them first of all, nearly did my neck in trying to catch a glimpse of them. Anyhow, what with one thing and another we were all suddenly feeling bright and cheerful; we started talking to each other again rather than just huddling down against the spray

  People kept asking Eyvind and me what the islands were like. Of course, we'd told them over and over again everything we could remember, which wasn't much, but they were all in the mood to hear it one more time, and naturally we spiced it up a bit, like you do with the salt beef in midwinter. Something seemed to be telling us that we'd sight land the next day It was a sort of everything's-going-right feeling, and it made a pleasant change.

  The rain started around midnight. Now, when you've been wet through for days and your feet squelch every time you put your weight on them, and your hair's flat to your head and caked in salt, you may find yourself thinking that you can't really get any wetter, not if you were to jump off the ship into the sea. A really good rainstorm sets you right on that score. If you ask me, heavy rain with the wind behind it is wetter than being in the water. It's like the difference between wearing a mail shirt and carrying it: you don't really notice the weight when it's on, but it's a bloody lumpy thing to carry in a sack over your shoulder all day Same with water. When you're swimming it sort of shrugs off you. Rain stays with you, works its way down from your head and on down inside your clothes into your boots, where it's trapped.

  That rain was something else. When it hit you in the face it was like being slapped. I'm not sure which was worse, trying to move about in it and get some work done, or sitting all still and huddled and taking the pounding. Not that we got much of a chance to sit, because along with the rain there was one hell of a wind. Leif was still fretting about the mast, so we shortened the sails. The waves were up so high it was like being in a valley, so we were tossed around plenty. The stores broke loose. Barrels and bales and sacks and kegs got bounced right up in the air, came down and split - we lost one of our three water vats, and we weren't at all happy about that. Two big sacks of flour went straight over the side and the water got into another three where they tore against the sharp edges of smashed barrels. Then the sheep got loose and jumped up on the forward quarterdeck, and we had real fun and games catching them and hobbling them so they'd stay put. Soon as we'd done that, the apple barrel landed on the chicken crate and stove it in. Chickens everywhere under our feet when we were trying to haul on the lines, and every now and then when you stopped to catch your breath a bloody great wave'd sweep in out of nowhere and smack you in the face. It seemed to go on for ever, and as soon as we'd coped with one disaster another one started off. The rudder held, thank God, and so did the mast, but a couple of boards sprang and we shipped an awful lot of water in the hold before we could stop up the leak with the dry clothes we'd been carefully saving for when we finally made land. It was a bloody miracle nobody went over the side. I was sure we were going to capsize at least twice, when big waves got under the keel and lifted us right out of the water, like a salmon jumping a waterfall. It was bloody cold and we were all soaked, but a lot of the time I was sweating.

  Rain stopped about midday; wind fell, and we all dropped right where we happened to be standing, completely shattered. On the farm you work hard all day every day and you get to thinking what a soft life it must be to sit in a boat letting the wind carry you along. But real work is when you're on board ship in a filthy bloody storm like that one. It may not happen all that often, but when it does you find out what it means to be weary right down to your bones. Half a dozen of the men just fell asleep where they'd slumped. I guess the rest of us were too tired to sleep. We sat or sprawled and breathed - it was all we could manage to do. And then someone called out, 'Land.'

  Fuck me. We'd been sitting there becalmed, don't know how long but quite some time, and nobody had thought to look where we'd ended up. It was a man called Thorgrim Sigurdson, Thorgrim Feet to us, who just chanced to look over his shoulder and suddenly there it was, like it'd snuck up on us while our backs were turned. I was looking the other way and thinking about a whole load of other stuff when he started to holler. I remember thinking, Land? as though I didn't know what the word meant. Then it dawned on me. Land. Land, for fuck's sake, we made it, we're here.

  We were too whacked to dance around and yell or anything of that sort. We didn't even cheer, it was more a general sigh of relief, like the feeling after you've just mown five acres and you cut the last clump of grass. Even Leif seemed like he didn't really care. He turned his head and stared at it, then went back to looking down at his feet; he'd lost a boot scrambling about in the hold, and he didn't have the energy to go and fetch it. All this way I thought to myself, and now we're here he spares it a passing glance, like your dad used to do when you were a kid, riding in the hay cart with him and you suddenly pointed and yelled out, 'Look, Dad, a cow'

  Well, I thought, if he can't be arsed to look happy, neither can I; so I lay down on my back and looked up at the sky for a long time.

  It was Leif's voice that woke me up. 'Right,' he said. 'Swimmer and Bare-arse' - that meant me and Eyvind - 'on your feet and tell me where the hell we are.

  I wanted to tell him to go away and do something or other, but I hauled myself up on the nearest rope and dragged myself over to the rail. Eyvind joined me; he's got better eyesight than me, and I hear better. He says that's because I talk so much I haven't worn my ears out with listening.

  'Well?' Leif said, and I didn't answer. My eyes were all red and bleary with salt, for one thing. But Eyvind was peering about, and after a bit he said, 'That's the third island Bjarni found. The one with the flat stone beach and the glaciers.' He paused a moment, then added, 'The useless one.'

  I have a feeling that Eyvind promised his mum when he was young that he wouldn't tell lies, and somehow he stuck like it. Yes, Bjarni had said it was useless, but that really wasn't the time to mention it. Straight off the blokes started to mutter, like it was Eyvind's fault, and probably mine too for being his best mate. Leif sagged just a little bit, round the shoulders; then he seemed to snap out of it, and barked out orders like a small -dog yapping. We raised sails and crept in as close to the shore as we dared. Then Leif had them launch the rowboat, and told Eyvind and me to get in it. Wasn't thrilled about that. I figure the smaller the boat, the more there is to be scared of. Wouldn't want to be in that thing if the rain and the big wind came back. I sort of wished I hadn't been so cocky when I was on Bjarni's crew; if I hadn't swum ashore when Bjarni'd told me not to, Leif wouldn't have been so determined to have me with him, and I'd have been back in Greenland mucking out cows instead of clambering into a little boat on the very edge of the world.

  Still, it had to be done. I muttered a prayer to our Heavenly Father and asked him please not to blow up a big wind and take the ship away while I was on the island; and then we were rowing like hell towards the shore. M
e, Eyvind, a German called Tyrkir and Leif Eirikson.

  It was a miserable rotten place, right enough. The closer we got, the less I liked the look of it. Imagine a flat plain, black and grey shingle with hardly a smudge of green, pitted with big, sharp rocks. Far away where the ground met the sky, a line of triangular white mountains like the teeth of a saw

  'Wonderful,' Leif said - it was the first thing anybody'd said since we left the ship. 'Just one great big useless slab of nothing.'

  'That's what Bjarni said,' I reminded him. 'This is where we came last of all. It's good, it means we know where we are. All we got to do is follow the coastline down and we'll reach the good bit.'

  Leif made a short grunting noise, like a pig.

  Don't know why we bothered, but we beached the boat, got out and walked about a bit. Just so we could say we'd done it, I suppose. Nobody said anything (and that was unusual, because generally the trick was getting Tyrkir the German to shut up: he couldn't speak Norse worth slit, but not for want of practice) and after a bit Leif picked up a couple of small rocks and walked back to the boat. I was glad to leave that place. It gave me the creeps. There's places every bit as bad, in Greenland and Iceland too, that seem to go on for ever and ever. But at least you know that if you keep going far enough you'll eventually see some green grass and a roof or two in the distance. There it was so flat you could see for miles, and it was all the same.

  'Right,' Leif said, as the German pushed the boat off and scrambled in, and we picked up our oars. 'Next time, I suppose we'd better build a cairn or something as a seamark, so we'll know where we are when we come this way'

  Eyvind and I made vague what-a-good-idea noises to keep him happy, and we headed back to the ship. I tell you, it was like coming home after a long and horrible journey Never thought Bjarni's old knoerr could feel so cosy and safe. Getting back on board was like sunrise.