They Came On Viking Ships (15 page)

‘What is it, boy?’ whispered Hekja, sitting up in her sleeping bag. Hikki was still asleep.

Snarf whined, and pointed into the forest with his nose.

‘Hikki, I think you should…’ began Hekja, in her normal voice.

Snarf whined again more urgently, to tell her to be quiet. This time she understood.

‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered. And then she smelt it too.

Smoke.

She and Hikki hadn’t bothered with a fire the night before, so the smoke could not be theirs. She pushed her way out of her sleeping bag in alarm and looked around.

Snarf pointed again, the way Thorvard had shown him. Hekja nodded, and crawled over to Hikki. ‘Wake up!’ she whispered. ‘Shh! Wake up!’

Hikki knows how to be silent, thought Hekja—years as a thrall will teach you that. He woke up blinking, but didn’t speak, till Hekja whispered, ‘Smoke!’

‘Where?’ hissed Hikki.

Snarf growled, deep and low, and walked forward a few steps and looked around, as though to say, ‘Follow me.’

Hikki beckoned to Hekja. ‘Place your feet down on their outsides like this,’ he whispered, as he demonstrated what he meant. ‘It’s quieter that way. Move your body as little as you can, especially your head—it’s movement that attracts attention.’

Hekja nodded. They grabbed their packs and followed Snarf through the trees and then around a hill.

And then they saw them. It was a hunting party of seven men, and dogs too. Now Hekja knew why Snarf had led them upwind—so the dogs wouldn’t smell them as he had smelt the fire and cooking meat.

The men’s fire was nearly out, but they had been feasting well. A deer’s carcass, mostly charred bones, lay next to its pelt, rolled up to carry away, and there was another carcass hanging from a tree.

The hunters looked different from any men that Hekja had ever seen. Their hair was long and black instead of red or blond like the Greenlanders, or brown like Hekja’s and Hikki’s. They were shorter than Norsemen too, and had darker skin, and their eyes were brown, not blue or green. They were dressed in softly fringed skins, tied above their chests or around their waists, and their hair was shaved to make a long crest on top, with feathers poked behind their ears and they wore strange markings on their wrists, legs and chests.

Hekja froze, hardly breathing. She knew how Snarf felt now, for the hair on the back of her neck rose at the scent of danger, just like his.

The men called lazily to each other as they picked up their bows and stone-tipped arrows, birch-bark containers, the deer carcass and the rolled-up skins. They moved off, down the hill. Hekja stayed perfectly still until she heard their calls slowly die away.

‘Who were they?’ she breathed.

‘Skraelings,’ muttered Hikki. The word just meant ‘natives’ or ones who lived in this place. ‘Leif’s men didn’t mention Skraelings.’

‘We have to follow them,’ whispered Hekja. ‘We need to know more.’

Hikki hesitated. ‘If we get too close they’ll hear us, or the dogs will smell us if the wind changes suddenly. These men are hunters.’ He looked at Snarf, staring through the trees, and came to a decision. ‘We’d best wait, till they get a distance away, and trust Snarf to track them. Can he do that?’

Hekja nodded.

The sun rose, the mist dissolved into the hot clear air. ‘Follow, boy!’ whispered Hekja. Snarf put his nose to the ground on command.

It was easier than Hekja had thought it would be. Snarf moved quietly and confidently through the forest, as though the hunter’s trail was as clear to him as a path through the trees. Finally they reached a track, leading past a marsh. Hekja bit her lip. Perhaps the trails she’d seen a few days earlier hadn’t all been made by animals after all.

The sun rose high as they crept along the trail, twisting through the trees and over grasslands, taller than Hekja’s head, then through the trees again. Now the track led up a hill. Snarf stopped suddenly, and whined, just as Hekja pointed.

The Skraeling village was below them.

‘It’s enormous!’ whispered Hikki.

Hekja nodded. This village was even bigger than Brattahlid. The houses were quite different from any she had seen—long huts, not made of stone or logs, but of tree branches with rounded roofs made of branches as well.

All around the houses there were fields, with tall yellow flowers
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, and grain
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higher than a Norseman’s head, and green-leaved plants
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. Smoke from cooking fires rose into the air.

And people. More people than she had ever seen!

The men were dressed like the hunters, but there were women too, with bare feet and breasts, leather skirts and strings of beads, their heads shaved across the top and with markings on their skin just like the men’s. The children were mostly naked, running around the village, yelling and playing games.

Hikki and Hekja looked at each other, then edged back into the trees. Then they ran as swiftly as they could, back the way they came.

The sun was low on the horizon before they stopped.

‘Freydis has to know of this at once,’ said Hekja.

Hikki nodded. This land had a people—and they looked like warriors too.

They ran more slowly now, as night fell. Finally it grew too dark to run safely. They stopped on a small rise, and slid into their sleeping bags. It was impossible to risk a fire now. They ate and drank quickly from their packs, then Hikki pointed at the stars. ‘Look, see that star there…’ he began.

‘Can’t it wait?’ snapped Hekja. She could hardly stay awake.

Hikki shook his head. ‘If we are separated you need to know this,’ he said. ‘The stars can tell you how far you have run, and which way you have to go. Now, find the north star and…’

Neither slept well that night, despite their tiredness. They knew that there might be danger in the forest now—and more than Snarf could protect them from. As soon as daylight came they ate the last of their travelling food, and ran as swiftly as they could.

By mid-morning they came to the swamps again. These gave way to a small lake, edged again with reeds and grain. They trotted around the water’s edge till the first lake opened into an even bigger one.

‘This looks like the one near camp,’ said Hekja hopefully.

Hikki glanced up towards the sun, then nodded. ‘I think so too,’ he said. ‘Come on. We need a break.’

‘I can keep going longer,’ said Hekja.

‘Perhaps,’ said Hikki. ‘But we need reserves of speed too, in case we have to run for our lives. Come on, let’s sit up there.’ He pointed to the hill above the lake.

‘Did you ever have to run for your life?’ asked Hekja, as they jogged up the rise.

‘Once,’ said Hikki shortly. ‘I had to take a message from the king to a man he hoped wasn’t his enemy.’

‘Yes?’ encouraged Hekja.

‘By the time I reached him, he and his men were already marching towards the king. So I had to run again, even faster this time because they’d seen me, to tell the king. But I outran them all, even with their horses. A man can cross cliffs and take shorter ways where a big horse cannot go.’

‘Why didn’t you just keep running?’ asked Hekja curiously. ‘Run away so you could be free?’

‘I told you before. A thrall can’t outrun his master. I don’t look like a Norseman. Anywhere I went I would be hunted down, unless I had a master’s protection.’

It was good to sit and drink, even if there was nothing to eat. Hekja hardly felt hungry now—it was as though the running had driven it away, though she felt faintly light-headed from lack of food. Snarf drank from the lake and then sniffed about the trees before spreading himself out in the shade next to Hekja to doze.

Suddenly something dropped on his nose. Snarf snapped at it, half asleep, thinking it was a beetle, then sat up and spat it out onto Hekja’s lap.

‘Errk,’ she said. She peered up where it had come from.

‘Hikki! Look!’ she cried.

Hikki stood and reached up. He brought down a bunch of purple berries. ‘Do you think we can eat them?’ he asked.

‘Snarf spat his out,’ said Hekja dubiously.

‘Snarf is a dog,’ said Hikki dryly.

‘He’s smarter than most humans,’ flared Hekja at once.

Hikki laughed. ‘But still a dog!’ He put one of the berries in his mouth, then wrinkled his nose.

‘What are they like?’ asked Hekja curiously. He handed her a bunch and she picked one off. ‘Errk.’

Hikki grinned. ‘I think the green ones aren’t ripe yet. Try a purple one instead.’
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Hekja tasted another, and considered it. ‘It’s alright,’ she said at last. ‘Not wonderful. Do you think these are Leif’s grapes? The vines of Vinland?’

Hikki nodded.

‘Why did Leif make such a fuss about them? I’d rather have strawberries,’ said Hekja frankly. ‘These are too tough skinned.’

‘Yes,’ said Hikki slowly. ‘But I think they would make fine wine. I tasted wine once, back in the court of the king. It’s made of grape juice.’

‘What did it taste like?’

‘Rich,’ said Hikki. ‘Rich as you would expect a king’s drink to taste.’

Hekja laughed. ‘My father sang about an island of clouds, where jewels hung from trees. I didn’t know what jewels were then—I thought they were a sort of cheese! I think…I think Pa would have liked this land.’

Hikki nodded. ‘It’s a good land, Hekja. Worth fighting for.’

Hekja looked up at that. ‘Fighting!’ she whispered.

Hikki looked surprised. ‘Of course. That is what the Norsemen do. They fought for land in Ireland and England and the islands. They drove off the first Icelanders to take the land instead. So they will fight the Skraelings for this land too.’ He shrugged. ‘Did you notice? The Skraelings had no iron weapons. The Norsemen do.’

‘But there is plenty of land here! Enough for everyone!’

‘Norsemen fight,’ said Hikki, as though this explained it all.

‘But Freydis is in charge now,’ said Hekja slowly. ‘Maybe…maybe things will be different.’

Hikki shrugged.

Hekja looked out, through the trees to the hills beyond, with the glint of water and the glades of grass. ‘It is so beautiful,’ she said softly. ‘It seems impossible there should be hatred and violence here. Does every land have its own beauty? The crags of the mountain at home, the islands of rain and sun in the grey sea, the white of the ice against the sky in Greenland, the green and richness here. All different, all beautiful.’

Hikki said nothing. He pulled her down more grapes, purple ones this time, and handed them to Hekja. She sat sucking out their juice, and spitting out the skins, while Hikki pulled off more grapes from the vines that clambered into the other trees as well.

Hikki tied the bunches together, and put some in his empty pack to take back to Freydis, then shared the rest with Hekja.

Finally Hekja stood up. ‘Come on. We’ve rested enough.’ She grinned at him wickedly. ‘Or are you too tired to keep running?’

Hikki glared at her for a moment, his pride stung, then realised she was joking. ‘I’ll race you to the next hill,’ he offered.

Hekja grinned and shook her head. ‘No competition. You run faster than I do Hikki, I admit it.’

‘I’ll give you a head start. Come on, go!’

Hekja ran. Snarf bounded with her. She could hear Hikki running too, but could tell that he wasn’t running his fastest.

Hekja made the hill first. She turned to wait for Hikki, laughing. ‘You are getting old, Hikki!’ she taunted.

Hikki smiled. ‘No,’ he said simply, ‘my life is just beginning.’

They ran again properly after that, refreshed by the rest and the grapes, an easy lope that covered a lot of ground. Soon Hekja could smell more smoke and see it across the lake. It was the smoke of Finnbogi’s camp. She glanced at Hikki, and he nodded. They were nearly home.

They stayed up on the hills, for it was easier going there than in the thicker brush down by the lake shore or along the river banks. By mid-afternoon Freydis’ camp was below them. Hekja began to trot down the hill, but Hikki put his hand on her arm. It was the first time he had touched her since they had left the camp. ‘Stay a moment,’ he said.

Hekja turned. ‘Why?’

For the first time Hikki looked embarrassed. ‘Would you sing again?’ he whispered. ‘A song from our land, a song like my mother might have sung.’

Hekja smiled. She sat on a log, fallen in some past storm and covered with moss, and looked out over the camp and the river to the sea, just as she might have
looked out at the harbour from her ma’s doorway. This time she sang a song that her ma had taught her, about a fisherman who caught a seal with a gold ring in its mouth.

The fisherman knew this was no ordinary seal. He kept the ring and let the seal go, and as it swam through the water it turned into a beautiful woman. The woman swam back to his boat and held up her arms to him. The fisherman married her and from that day no fisherman of their family was ever drowned.

Hikki watched, as Hekja sang, then Snarf joined in.

‘Arooooh!’

Hekja began to giggle, and even Hikki laughed. Suddenly Snarf leapt to his feet. ‘Arf Arf!’

For a moment Hekja thought it might be Skraelings again. Then she realised this was a bark of welcome.

It was Snorri. He had been cutting timber, for he carried his axe and he smelt of wood sap as well as sweat. He had been standing behind them as she sang.

‘Arf, arf, arf,’ barked Snarf loudly, embarrassed that Snorri had snuck up without him noticing.

But Snorri stared at Hekja. ‘I thought you wouldn’t sing for anyone?’

‘Not for a Norseman,’ said Hekja softly. Then without asking Snorri’s leave—for he was a free man and, even though she was obeying Freydis’ orders, she was a thrall—she began to run down the hill.

‘Master,’ began Hikki, unsure of what to say.

‘Go,’ said Snorri shortly.

Hekja could feel his eyes on them as they ran down the hill to Freydis.

Freydis was checking the new sheep fields. The sheep
had been shorn recently, and were due to lamb, and the new fences had to be closely woven to stop the lambs from wriggling through them.

She leant against the fence and stared at them. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’ She smiled slightly as Hikki gaped. ‘You are back before I told you to return. It’s not much of a guess that you found out something I need to know at once.’