They Came On Viking Ships (8 page)

The days had begun to grow shorter. It was quiet up on the hill with the cows, except for the stream bubbling down in the gully, all cold and icy, and the bleating of the sheep. Even the late summer air smelt sharp in Greenland, as though the ice was never far away.

Hekja let the peace seep through her body. At times like this she could almost imagine she was home. Soon Ma would come with a barley cake hot from the stone, or Bran might stride across the hill…

Somehow Hekja found that she was singing again. The tune was old, but the words seemed to come from some unknown part within herself.

‘The birds fly together,
The deer run with friends,
But here I am lonely,
There my past ends.

‘My words end in silence,
No one understands,
My life or my language,
The heart of my land.

‘I once walked with friendship,
I once sang with joy,
But here I’m a slave,
In a stranger’s employ.’

The words echoed across the empty hills. Suddenly Snarf lifted up his nose and sang as well.

‘Howwwwl!’

Hekja stopped singing. Snarf hadn’t tried to sing with her since the days in the far-off hut by the shore, with Ma and all the precious familiar things around them.

‘Oh, Snarf!’ she cried. And suddenly she was weeping, her arms linked around his neck, snuffling into his long fur.

Snarf twisted round and tried to lick the tears from her face, which made her laugh, as well as cry. Finally she sat up, her arm about him, and looked out at the cows, the farm below, and the milky fiord with its icebergs bumbling through the waves.

‘Sometimes…sometimes,’ she said, ‘I think I can’t stand it any more. There isn’t even anyone who knows my land, except for you and Hikki, and he is at Leif’s farm. Every time I see an eagle or a wild goose I think, if only I were like you, I could fly back home.’

‘Arf,’ said Snarf comfortingly. ‘Arf arf.’

Hekja wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Sometimes I think I hate them all. They are the people who killed Ma, killed my village! But other times…’

‘Woof!’ Snarf barked. But this was his warning call.

Someone was coming. It was Gudrun, puffing her way up the hill, a basket in her hand. Hekja wiped her eyes quickly, and ran back down. ‘You shouldn’t have come so far!’ she cried.

Gudrun’s face was red and white in blotches, but she smiled, even as she puffed. ‘It will do me good to get out,’ she said. ‘There was a time when I used to spend days up here, like you. I thought, I’ll just see the world from the hills once again, and bring the girl some food.’

Gudrun sat down, and opened the basket.

‘Strawberries!’ cried Hekja.

Gudrun grinned. ‘I saved some for you from the mistress’ dinner.’ She laid out more food on the wiry grass. There was smoked whale tongue too, and eggs baked with cream and honey, as well as a large bone for Snarf, still with good meat on it.

‘Woof,’ said Snarf, wagging his tail appreciatively. He grabbed the bone and took it aside to look after it.

Hekja ate while Gudrun talked. Gudrun liked to talk. Hekja sometimes wondered if she had saved up her talk till Hekja came, for surely Freydis wouldn’t have been interested in the life of a thrall.

Once Gudrun talked of the time that Master Erik caught a live polar bear and kept it in a metal cage. He had it shipped to Norway to astonish the folks there and then sold it for a large sum of silver.

Another time she talked of the Starving Year in Iceland, that her mother had told her of. It was when the great volcano belched out clouds of ash all across the land and the ground trembled as though to shake all humans off its shores, and winter lasted for an entire year, and all but the strongest died.

‘Was that why Master Erik came here?’ Hekja had asked. ‘Because of the volcano?’

Gudrun shook her head. ‘He killed men unlawfully, in Norway, and then in Iceland too. His lands were
confiscated, and he was exiled for three years. That is when he discovered Greenland. But this is a good place, in spite of the cold, with enough land for everyone. In my grandmother’s day in Iceland a man could claim all he could walk around in a day while carrying a flaming torch, and a woman could claim all she could walk in a day leading a two-year-old heifer. But now all the good land has been taken.’

This time, as they sat on the green hill and ate strawberries, Gudrun told of the Greenland winter when she lost her teeth. ‘The snow came early and stayed late,’ said Gudrun, happily remembering what had once been horror, ‘and when the men went out in boats there were no fish for their nets. Master Erik wanted to kill the stock, before they all died too, with no meat left on them for us to eat. But my mistress said no. If we ate the stock we would have no food for the next year. One by one my teeth fell out,’ said Gudrun. ‘Every morning there was another to spit onto my furs. I even sucked the furs, I was so hungry. We ate the reindeer moss, we ground the fish bones in the quern. Then just as I thought I’d see the floor through my hands the traders came, in their great boat, with a huge store of grain and malt and all good things that Master Erik could buy with his wealth of silver. Oh, we ate and ate, and then were sick, and then we ate again. But since that time…’

Hekja gasped.

‘What is it, child?’ cried Gudrun.

Hekja was looking out to sea. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No!’

Gudrun peered out to sea with her faded eyes. ‘What can you see?’

‘Ships!’ cried Hekja. ‘Ships!’

‘They’ll be hunting whales then,’ said Gudrun, puzzled at Hekja’s distress. ‘The master took his harpoon and the sealskin floats from the storeroom this morning.’

‘No! These ships are different! They’ve come to attack us, just like before!’ cried Hekja. ‘I have to tell Freydis!’

Suddenly she was running, almost as fast as a bird could fly, down the hill. Snarf bounded after her.

‘Hekja, come back!’ called Gudrun.

But Hekja kept on running. Down the hill, over the grass, which was scattered with cow droppings and sheep dung, then past the barley field, then the sheep yard. The men stared at her as she ran past, and some cried out. But Hekja didn’t stop.

Into the courtyard she ran, past the flapping lines of drying fish. The hens scattered, squawking and dropping feathers.

‘Freydis! Freydis!’ yelled Hekja.

That was not how a thrall addressed her mistress, but Hekja didn’t care.

‘Freydis!’

‘What in thunder is all the yelling about?’ Freydis pushed open the dairy door and stood staring.

‘Arf!’ Snarf leapt over a startled hen. ‘Arf!’

‘Freydis!’ panted Hekja. ‘I’m sorry, I mean, mistress…’

‘What is it?’ Then Freydis added, ‘Shut that dog up!’

‘Ships! Five of them, out on the horizon!’

‘Five?’ Freydis looked interested, not alarmed.

‘Are they invaders?’ cried Hekja.

Freydis laughed. ‘Oh, I see, you have sounded the alarm. Well, thank you, I suppose, but there was no need. Who would dare come a-Viking here, to Erik’s
den? No, they’ll be traders, from Iceland perhaps, or even Norway. I must go and change. You,’ she added, to a staring thrall, ‘go and watch the cows. And you, Hekja, wash the cow dirt off your face. I think,’ Freydis gave a smile, ‘you will be needed.’

Freydis soon came out, wearing a clean apron and a red and green silk scarf about her head, and a gold chain hanging around her neck and her best brooches too. She hurried across the fields, down to the pier. Others from Leif and Erik’s were heading that way too, as well as from the smaller farms that Erik owned and others worked.

Gudrun arrived back with the basket, panting and exclaiming that Hekja was not to worry. By now Hekja was embarrassed to think she had panicked at the sight of ships on the sea.

No one had told Hekja she was allowed to go down to the pier as well. So she and Gudrun collected the eggs, and changed the weights and wrappings on the cheeses. Each time she peered out to the courtyard Hekja could see the ships coming further and further up the fiord. They were like the one that Hekja and Snarf had travelled in, with store boats bobbing behind them, laden with lengths of timber and barrels.

‘What are in the barrels?’ asked Hekja, as she dipped the cheesecloth in salty water, a Greenlander trick that prevented mould.

Old Gudrun shrugged. ‘Grain, perhaps, or cooking pots.’

‘But we grow barley here! And oats as well.’ Oats made a softer porridge and bread than barley, and Hekja had grown fond of it.

‘Not enough to see us through the winter, not if you want to keep your belly full! That is why the masters trade, hey? The traders bring wood too, big lengths, not like the trees out there.’ Gudrun gestured at the stunted trees up on the hill. ‘Trees don’t grow big enough for roof beams or barrels in this cold land.’

Hekja wrinkled her forehead. ‘But why do the traders bring things here? As a gift?’

‘To get other goods in return, of course! Did you never have traders in your village? They get good furs and walrus ivory and walrus rope, yes, and stockfish and whale oil. Ah, but you should have seen the furs Master Leif brought back from Vinland, and the wood too. Master Leif is richer even than his father now.’

Gudrun glanced out the door. ‘They have landed already! We will have some excitement soon, hey? There’ll be feasting and who knows what else.’ She shot Hekja a look. ‘You be careful, girl.’

‘But they’re traders, not invaders. Freydis—I mean the mistress—said not to worry,’ said Hekja, puzzled.

‘That may be,’ said Gudrun, ‘but when men have been at sea, and the ale is flowing—you be careful, child. Stay out of the way, if you can, so no one notices you. You understand?’

Hekja bit her lip, remembering some of the things she had seen when her village had been invaded. She nodded.

The crowd were heading up the hill now, towards Erik’s farm. Thorvard broke from them, and strode across the fields. ‘You, girl!’ he yelled to Hekja. His hands were red with dried whale blood—he had been cutting blubber down on the beach, and had obviously had no time to wash when the traders arrived.

‘Yes, master?’ said Hekja obediently.

‘The mistress wants you, over at her father’s. Now!’ he added, as Hekja failed to move at once.

Hekja handed Gudrun the last of the cheese wrappings.

‘Remember!’ hissed Gudrun. ‘Take care.’

Hekja nodded. She ran across the fields, her bare feet slapping against the ground. The Greenlanders wore leather boots, strapped around their ankles, and so did the thralls, but no one had given Hekja any to wear, or even warmer clothes, except for the cowskin cloak Freydis had given her on board the ship, though the days here were colder even than up on the great mountain at home. Snarf bounded at Hekja’s side, his ears pricked at the noise and excitement.

Freydis stood with Erik and Leif, examining great lengths of wood. ‘There you are! Father, if this girl can’t outrun Leif’s runner I will give him my best cow.’

The old man looked Hekja up and down. ‘You’ve seen her run? She has the legs for it, at any rate. But can she last the distance and find her way?’

‘She will,’ said Freydis confidently.

Hekja looked from one to the other, but didn’t speak. She already had learnt that speaking out of turn would earn her a slap across the ear.

‘Hikki!’ roared Erik suddenly.

The runner stepped out from one of the store sheds. ‘Yes, master?’

‘I want you to take a message. It’s two days’ sail north, but you will run it. Understand?’

‘Yes, master,’ said Hikki confidently. He shot a glance at Hekja. ‘I can run faster than any ship can sail.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Erik.

‘What is the message and where am I taking it?’ asked Hikki.

‘The farm is due north of here, the first one that you come to up the coast, as far up a fiord as this one. The message is for my youngest son, Thorstein Eriksson. Tell him: “The traders have come. Bring your furs and join the feast.” Understood?’

‘Yes, master.’ Hikki glanced at the sun. ‘I will need dried fish, so I may eat as I run. Then I will be gone.’

‘One moment,’ ordered Erik. He nodded at Hikki. ‘This girl is a runner too.’

‘Her?’ Hikki looked at Hekja in astonishment. ‘Girls can’t be runners!’ he protested.

One of the traders had overheard. He was young, only a few years older than Hekja, with hair the same shade as the butter she had churned that morning. He stared at Hekja, which made her remember that she had forgotten to wash the cow dirt off her face, as Freydis had told her to, then bent down and rubbed Snarf’s ears. ‘A girl runner?’ he asked curiously. ‘Do the women in your country run too?’

Hekja shook her head. Suddenly she wished she had proper shoes, and a woollen dress, and a hairbrush like Freydis’ so she too could pull her hair back into plaits.

‘I’ve never heard of a girl runner,’ said the young man, pulling out some dried meat from his pouch and feeding it to the delighted Snarf. ‘Surely they don’t have the strength.’

‘Perhaps there are things you haven’t heard of, Snorri the Skald,’
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said Freydis calmly. ‘Maybe girls are more capable than you think, Hekja, I want you to take the message too. And if my brother’s runner gets there first, you will be beaten.’

Hekja met her eyes. ‘I’ll run as fast as I can,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a beating to make me run.’

Snorri gave a shout of laughter. ‘There is no way a girl can beat a man! Uncle Nils!’ he called to one of the other traders. ‘This girl is a runner!’

It’s like I’m a strange beetle in the grass, to be exclaimed over, thought Hekja.

‘Girls cannot run,’ said Hikki flatly. ‘Their skirts get in the way.’

Hekja glanced at Freydis. Freydis smiled. ‘Run!’ she said softly.

Hekja hesitated. Surely she should take dried fish too, and maybe water. But, then she caught Freydis’ eye. This way she would have a head start over Hikki!

Hekja ran, sprinting across the fields, with the men’s laughter echoing behind, and Snarf leaping at her heels.