They Came On Viking Ships (3 page)

‘Arf? Arf!’ barked Snarf, then added, ‘Woof woof!’ as though to remind her he was there. Then he gave up, and went to get a drink from the spring.

Tomorrow, thought Hekja desperately, as she gulped the milk, I’ll take him to Bran tomorrow.

The girls milked the cows again as the sun dropped into the sea. There was more milk this time, as they had kept the calves from suckling. Again Hekja drank from the bucket, and tried not to look at Snarf’s accusing eyes.

Hekja put the bucket down and looked around.

‘Where’s Snarf?!’ she cried.

Reena shrugged. ‘Who cares? Go rinse the bucket out,’ she ordered. ‘It’s time for bed.’

Hekja stared around the meadow. Raina laughed. ‘At last! The dog stink has gone!’

Hekja said nothing. Where was Snarf? She didn’t dare call him, in case he had decided to try to hunt for himself. But what if he thought she didn’t love him any more?

What if he was headed down the mountain to Ma, and the food she’d always given him? Or worse—what if he went to the chief’s hut instead? The chief would welcome him, now he was a fine, big animal. He’d become the chief’s dog again, not hers.

Hekja rinsed the bucket. The sun had vanished, though the summer twilight would linger for a long time yet. She placed the bucket with the rest of the milking equipment, wrapped herself in her cowhide, and lay down on her bracken bed, feeling the familiar scratchiness beneath her.

Where was Snarf? Where?

Hekja tried to sleep. Over in the corner of the sheiling Reena gave a gentle snore, and Janna the faint hiccupping sound that she made when sleeping too. Outside the calves wandered over to suckle their mothers, then moved away again, when they realised they’d been milked dry, and began to chomp at the grass in the dying light.

Where was Snarf, thought Hekja desperately. Maybe he’d had an accident! Fallen down a cliff like Pa…or maybe a wolf had caught him…

Finally the night grew truly dark. Hekja watched the stars pop through the blackness one by one. The moon rose above the ridge like a small yellow cheese.

Hekja sat up. She had to find Snarf! She had to!

Hekja crept from the hut, then called softly into the darkness, ‘Snarf! Riki Snarfari!’

No answer. She walked a little further and called again, ‘Snarf! Snarf!’

Suddenly, something bounded out of the darkness. ‘Arf,’ said Snarf softly, bulling her with his furry head. Then he leapt into the darkness again, turning his head as though to say, ‘Are you coming?’

Hekja followed him. The moonlight cast shadows on the grass as Snarf began to run. Hekja tied her skirts about her waist and ran too. It was hard at first avoiding the clumps of heather. But as the moon rose higher it grew easier. If she looked at the ground, Hekja discovered, and not the moonlit sky, her eyes grew used to the dimness.

Deep into the night they ran. A lone deer saw them and ran off, with Snarf following. For a moment Hekja thought Snarf might bring it down. But the deer was too fast, and Snarf was too young, Hekja realised, to bring down a full-grown deer.

Hekja could feel hunger nibble at her tummy. And if she was hungry, what must Snarf feel like, she wondered. Then suddenly Snarf stopped, as still as the mountain crags about them. He sniffed, then crept forward, his nose to the ground.

Hekja froze. What had Snarf found? If she moved she might scare it away.

Then Snarf pounced. He thrust his nose into a hollow in the ground among the heather. When he lifted it again a bird fluttered helplessly in his jaws. It was a ptarmigan. Snarf held it high, as though to ask, ‘Would you like some too?’

Hekja smiled, and sat on the cold ground and watched while Snarf began his feast.

When he had finished, he trotted over to Hekja and flopped into her lap. ‘Arf,’ he said contentedly.

Hekja smelt his warm dog’s breath. But this smell was different from before. She hugged him hard and picked a feather from behind his ear.

‘Good dog,’ she said, and that was all.

‘Arf arf,’ said Snarf happily. They ran back to the sheiling together.

So the days continued. Spring’s flowers gave way to summer. The cows were growing fat.

Each morning Snarf left at dawn to hunt, returning with a fat belly and meat on his breath, and sometimes blood about his whiskers. He was a giant dog now, and only limped a little when he was tired.

But the girls still treated him as an interloper, and Hekja too. Hekja was different—different because of Snarf, because Bran liked her, because she was poor. A girl without a dowry had no right to look at the chief’s son. Maybe, thought Hekja, I’d be different anyway. Did any of the other girls ever gaze at the horizon, or dream of running with the wind?

It felt strange to be so lonely, with the other girls around her. She had never known it was possible to feel as alone as this.

At least during the day she was away from the sheiling. Every day the cows ranged further. It was Hekja’s job now to run after them and stop them straying over the cliffs, and to bring them in for milking at the end of each day, with Snarf nipping at their heels and barking when they didn’t obey.

The other girls all stayed at the sheiling to make the butter and cheese. Even Banna avoided Hekja these days.

It was so lonely. And without Snarf it would have been more than she could bear.

The dried bracken bed crunched under her as Hekja rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. It must still be a long way from dawn she decided, for Snarf still lay beside her, with his comforting, furry warmth.

Just a few more days and Ma would be here, with the other women, she thought longingly, to take the cheese and butter back, and to bring them more rennet
⁸
and barley cake and cooked fish.

And for a while there’d be someone to talk to, to tell how Snarf had nearly caught an eagle, napping on a ledge, and how he’d learnt to catch a dried cow pat in his teeth. Hekja missed being able to talk about Snarf’s adventures most of all.

‘Arf,’ said Snarf softly. His cold nose touched her cheek.

Hekja stroked him without opening her eyes. ‘Sshh. Go back to sleep,’ she whispered.

‘Woof!’ said Snarf more urgently. And then he whined.

Hekja opened her eyes.

It was a world of white. The whiteness even swirled inside the doorway, cold and damp, the noises muffled as though the white had smothered them as well.

Hekja sat up, so the bracken bed crackled, and hugged Snarf close. ‘Fog,’ she said.

Snarf whined again. It was the first fog he had ever seen, Hekja realised. Even she had never seen a fog like this.

The other girls were stretching now, yawning and rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Reena peered out the door. ‘Ugh, I hate fog. The cows won’t go far in this,’ she muttered.

‘They’ll still need milking though,’ said Janna, looking nervously out into the fog.

Reena nodded at Hekja. ‘No need for us all to get cold and damp. You and the dog can bring the cows over here for the milking.’

For a moment Hekja thought about refusing. But what was the point? And anyway, Snarf would need to go out, to have a drink. No matter how strange the white world was, she was sure Snarf could smell the way back to the sheiling.

‘Here, boy,’ she said. But Snarf had already disappeared outside.

The whiteness closed about her as she followed him. Behind her she heard Raina laughing. ‘With a bit of luck that stupid dog will fall over a cliff.’

‘Do all dogs stink?’ asked Janna.

‘Not proper dogs’, declared Raina scornfully. ‘Our dogs never smell.’

Of course they smell, thought Hekja. Dogs always smell of dog. She wondered what humans smelt like to
dogs. We girls probably smell of cheese, she decided, and cow, and bracken from our beds.

She stopped suddenly. Where was she? Even the sheiling had disappeared. Where was Snarf? And the cows?

‘Arf,’ said Snarf happily, prancing up beside her, his tail pounding against her legs.

‘Bring in the cows!’ ordered Hekja. ‘Can you do that, boy? The cows!’

‘Arf arf,’ said Snarf, as though to say, ‘Of course I can!’ Snarf bounded off into the fog. Hekja grinned as she listened to him yipping at the cattle’s heels, and the heavy beat of the cow’s feet as they headed to the sheiling.

No one thanked her, or Snarf either, for bringing the cows in. Hekja sat with the others on their low wood stools, stroked a cow’s teats and listened to the milk as it squirt, squirt, squirted into the buckets. Every sound seemed muffled today, as though the fog was a cowhide blanket, covering everything. Even the birds were silent. How far did the fog stretch, wondered Hekja. All the way up to the sky? Was the whole world surrounded by fog, or just their mountain?

Snarf snoozed at her feet, his job done, droplets of moisture glistening on his fur.

Finally the milking was finished. The cows wandered off, though Hekja could hear them still close, munching the odd tuft of grass that they had missed before, lowing at their calves to stay nearby.

‘It’ll lift soon,’ said Reena confidently, as the girls carried the milk buckets back into the sheiling, and Hekja began to paddle yesterday’s cream that had risen on the buckets overnight.

But the fog didn’t lift. Hekja patted the last of the whey from the butter, while the other girls lay back on their beds and gossiped about who was the handsomest boy in the village, and who the strongest, and who had the best hand at the fishing nets.

Janna was sure that Bran was the handsomest. ‘And the strongest too,’ she added, with a glance at Hekja. But Hekja ignored her.

Raina carefully avoided looking Hekja’s way. ‘Ma says my brother’s to marry the chief’s daughter from Eagle Bay. She’s got a grand dowry, Ma says.’

Janna looked disappointed. ‘Maybe Bran won’t want a stranger from Eagle Bay,’ she said hopefully.

Hekja gave the butter a harder pat than usual and they all looked at her.

‘Who do you fancy, Hekja?’ asked Banna.

‘No one,’ lied Hekja.

Reena laughed. ‘You must have your eye on someone! Of course as a widow’s daughter you can’t hope for much. There’s Jan Fisherman’s son. You’d soon get used to his bandy legs.’

‘Or maybe you won’t notice them in the dark,’ said Raina coarsely. They all laughed, except for Hekja.

Hekja refused to look up from the butter. ‘I’ll think of that in a few years’ time,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘And not before.’

Janna shrugged. ‘Well, there’ll be no more boys in the village to choose from then than there are now.’

‘Unless the Vikings call!’ giggled Raina.

The Vikings were the Norse raiders, who killed and stole and enslaved wherever they landed. But the Norsemen had never landed anywhere near the village.
Vikings were after better booty than stone huts and cattle skins—they wanted gold from monasteries, walrus ivory or swords and armour from a king.

Janna giggled, and poked Reena in the arm. ‘Just what you want for a husband! A Viking raider! At least he’d be big and strong!’

‘Maybe a handsome stranger will be shipwrecked near our cove,’ said Banna dreamily. ‘We’ll rescue him and he’ll fall in love with one of us…’

‘With you, you mean…’ said Raina.

‘He’ll be a king’s son with a palace and a golden throne, just like in the songs…’

Reena laughed. ‘Who’d marry a stranger, even if he has a golden throne? Imagine living with people you don’t know! Besides, you’ve never even met a stranger in your life.’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Banna. ‘The monk who came, years ago, remember?’

‘You were only knee-high to a herring,’ objected Reena. ‘You can’t remember back that far.’

‘Yes, I can,’ said Banna. ‘He had a squint. And he said that…’

Something bawled outside. It was a bellow of terror, then of pain. Snarf barked, then whined, and edged closer to Hekja.

‘What is it?’ cried Hekja.

Reena and Raina shrank back against the wall. ‘Wolf!’ hissed Reena. ‘There’s a wolf after the calves!’

‘Everyone get back here!’ ordered Raina. ‘A wolf won’t come in here if we’re altogether!’

Hekja stared. ‘We can’t let a wolf get the calves.’ She ran to the door, but Banna grabbed her arm.

‘You can’t go out there!’ she cried. ‘Not with a wolf!’

‘She’s right!’ Reena shook her head. ‘The wolf will only take a calf. If you go out there it will kill you too.’

Hekja wrenched her arm free. ‘What if it’s our calf! You have lots of calves but Ma and I have only one! Snarf! Here, boy!’ But Snarf had crept back further into the sheiling on his stomach. He whined again.

Hekja bit her lip and ran out into the fog.

One step…two steps…Hekja stopped. The world had disappeared. There was nothing but whiteness all around.

She tried to orient herself. The hut was…there. And the screaming came from…Hekja ran towards the noise.

The cows had scattered in terror, all but one. It was trying to butt the wolf with its long horns. And there in the whiteness was the long black shape of the wolf, circling round to snap at the calf again, but keeping well clear of the mother’s horns.

Then suddenly the wolf stopped circling, and sniffed towards Hekja instead. Hekja froze. She could almost hear its thought: here is an easier meal than a calf with a stroppy mother. Cows have horns, but girls don’t.

What should she do? Suddenly helplessness washed over her. She had run out without thinking!

‘Go away!’ she yelled. Would sound alone frighten it? It was all she had. ‘Hoi hoi hoi!’ she yelled. But the fog absorbed the noise. Even to her ears her voice sounded thin and scared.

Suddenly the wolf vanished in the fog. But she knew it hadn’t run away. The wolf was circling, trying to get behind her in the mist.

Suddenly something leapt behind her. Hekja screamed, and swirled around, expecting the sharp jaws to close upon her. But it wasn’t the wolf.

It was Snarf. ‘Go back, boy!’ shouted Hekja. Now the wolf would get him too!

Snarf growled uncertainly deep within his throat. Something else growled behind them—the wolf.

Hekja tried to grab Snarf by the scruff of the neck. Maybe if they both ran…

But it was too late. Snarf leapt! In the next instant he had the wolf by the throat. He was smaller than the wolf, and less experienced, but Snarf had taken the wolf by surprise.

Hekja darted forward, then halted once again, as the black shapes rolled and twisted in the fog.

The wolf twisted free. It sprang back, snarling, then leapt again, catching Snarf by the ear. Snarf screamed, and tried to run, but the wolf had him fast.

Hekja held her breath. She had to help! But how? Behind her the cow bellowed, putting its body between the wolf and the calf.

The wolf swung back. His teeth struck Snarf a glancing blow on his shoulder. Snarf tried to bite again. But the wolf was too fast. He grabbed Snarf’s leg…

The girls were screaming in the hut, but Hekja hardly heard them. And suddenly it was over. The wolf went limp, its teeth still grasping Snarf’s leg. Then the great jaws fell open, as the wolf rolled back.

Snarf’s first blow had ripped its windpipe. The wolf was dead.