Meadowland (16 page)

‘Humour me.

He straightened his back and let his right hand with the drawknife in it hang by his side. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I first heard about this place from old Herjolf, Bjari’s dad; he was boasting about his son the explorer, trying to make out that Bjarni was smarter and luckier than Dad because he’d found this wonderful country nobody knew about, while Dad had someone else’s journey to guide him, and Greenland’s nothing special anyhow. That got me going, and I thought, sooner or later someone’s. going to go looking for the places Bjarni discovered, so why not me?’

I frowned. ‘That’s not what I asked,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you didn’t drag out all this way just to score points off Bjarni Herjolfson - or off your father. Why did we come here? Just to fill the ship with stuff they’ll want back home, or are we stopping here for good?’

He laughed. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a very good question.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘So what’s the answer?’

Leif was quiet for rather a long time. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘You lot don’t know because I don’t know’ He sighed, and put the drawknife down. ‘It was different when we were back in the Greenland colony,’ he said. ‘I knew then. But somehow-‘ He was staring past me, like he was talking to someone standing behind me. ‘This sounds crazy, but I’ve forgotten. I know I wanted to come here, that it seemed really important to come here; and it was like someone had told me and I’d believed him, but he hadn’t explained the reason, so I had to figure it out for myself. So I thought about what your mate Kari said, about feeling lush grass under his feet; and I thought about what Bjari and everybody else said, all that timber there for the taking. Seemed to make sense, there was a good reason to come. But what didn’t seem to sink in was that there were two good reasons, and they were pulling in different directions. One said, go there and come back, the other said, go there and stay But the voice in the back of my mind was just saying, go.’

He shrugged his bony shoulders and still didn’t look at me. ‘I never said any of this to Dad, he’d have reckoned the trolls had addled my brains. God only knows why I’m telling you. You’ll assume I’m crazy, tell the others, and everything’ll get very tense.’

‘It’s that way already’ I told him. ‘Better to get it out in the open.’

‘Balls.’ Leif grinned. ‘Last thing people need is to be in a strange place miles from home and then find out their leader’s brain’s sprung a leak.. But-‘ He closed his eyes, then opened them again. ‘I’m not as crazy as I’m making myself sound,’ he said. ‘I’ve been negotiating with that little voice in my head ever since it started nagging at me. It kept saying, go; I kept asking why So I reached a decision. If the little voice wouldn’t tell me why I had to come here, I’d come here and find out for myself. Maybe it’s just for a shipload of building timber, or maybe I’m going to build a settlement here and wind up as King Leif of Meadowland, the richest and most powerful man in the world. Stands to reason, actually How could I possibly know what this place has to offer until I’ve seen it for myself?’

‘That’s not crazy,’ I said. ‘In fact, it’s downright sensible.’

He smiled. ‘It is, isn’t it? Only thing is, that’s me talking, not the little voice. The voice just keeps saying, this is where you need to go, this is where you need to be. I’m just trying to explain it away, like a woman with a drunken husband. But you don’t need to tell the others that, do you?’

‘I guess not,’ I replied. ‘So, what’s the verdict? We’re here, you’ve had a look, what do you plan to do?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Leif shook his head. ‘Just imagine that, will you? My father’s son, unsure about something. The old bugger’d have a stroke if he knew’ He leaned forward, picked the drawknife up and tested its edge with his thumb. ‘We’re a load of funny buggers, you know? Right down deep in the heartwood, right down as far as our names. When we say who we are, I mean. Half of my name says, I’m Leif, but the other half tells you I’m Eirik’s son, like that’s just as important as who I am. I can’t even say my name without dragging him into it. Do you see what I’m getting at? Half of me wants to look at this place and make a sensible decision: the grass is good, there’s fish and game, it’s warm, we’ve got a river and woods, there’s even iron ore. But it’s a hell of a long way from home - there’s no way we can make it work here unless we can get at least a hundred people, a hundred and fifty’s more like it, and who’s going to want to come all this way just because I say it’s a good idea? So I’m turning that over in my mind, and immediately I’m thinking, well, Dad managed it; he managed to kid all those people into settling Greenland, and Greenland’s a dump compared to this. If I’m as good a man as he is-You remember,’ he went on, ‘how, just before we were about to set off, the old bastard suddenly announced he was coming along too? I tell you, I was so close to sticking my axe between his eyebrows, I don’t know how I stopped myself. It took me all my strength not to; and I only managed it because I managed to keep my mind clear and realised that killing Dad would cause so much trouble I’d never be clear of it. So instead, he went on, ‘I lent him a horse.’

That didn’t make sense. ‘You lent him-?’

Big smile. ‘I lent him my chestnut mare, for the ride over from Brattahlid. Forgot to mention what a dirty, filthy temper the bloody thing’s got. See, Dad’s not what you’d call a gentle rider. He likes to impose his will. But my chestnut mare won’t stand for that.’

I stared at Leif, I didn’t know what to think.

Sorry, I keep forgetting how ignorant you are. We’re not too superstitious up North, but there’s some things we reckon are just plain unlucky. Like falling off your horse, for instance, when you’re just about to set off on a journey That’s not superstition, that’s a bloody great big heavy hint from Them Up There: stay home. Now I’d already figured out for myself that Leif was a strong-willed sort. But setting up your own father like that-Clever too, of course. I never said he wasn’t clever.

‘So I thought,’ Leif went on, ‘I’ll start off near the end of the sailing season, which means we’ll have no choice but to spend the winter here. Come spring, we ought to have a better idea of whether we’re here to cut timber or here to build a settlement. Till then-‘ He shrugged. ‘I can put off choosing till then. Fact is, I think this is a bloody marvellous place. But I also know-‘ He turned his head and stared at me, like he wanted to see the inside of my head. ‘I know that if I stay here, I won’t live long. But that’s the bitch of it, when you know the answer but you don’t know how you came by it. Now, does any of that make any sense?’

I looked at him. ‘Some of it,’ I said.

‘That’s good, then.’ He seemed to relax, or shrink, I wasn’t sure which. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘it’s all your mate Kari’s fault, finding this place and all. And since the two of you are closer than staves in a barrel, it’s your fault just as much as it’s his:

‘You know,’ I said quietly ‘I’m not really surprised to hear you say that.’

So (Eyvind went on) I passed the word along, or bits of it, anyway I told the others I’d asked Leif straight out what his plans were, and he’d told me we were here to spy out the country, make up our mind whether it was a good place for a settlement or only fit for logging. They all thought that was pretty reasonable, though they were still a bit snotty that Leif hadn’t told them earlier. In fact, the only person who wasn’t reassured and happy was me. There you go, though; you can fool other people, but you can’t fool yourself And believe me, I’ve tried.

Now we all knew where we stood, we didn’t mind putting our backs into the jobs that needed doing. Plenty of those to go round.

I hadn’t said anything when I’d talked to Leif, because there’s no point falling out with the boss over something that’s done and can’t be helped, but - well, you’re an intelligent man, or you’d never have risen to be chief assistant bean-counter to the King of the Greeks, so I don’t need to dwell on it. Simply, Leif had been bloody irresponsible, stranding us in a country that he knew bugger all about, with only the food we’d brought with us. What if it’d all been stone and shingle, like Slabland? True, he’d brought livestock: two cows (but no bull), four goats, six sheep and a dozen hens, to feed thirty-five men. No chance. Well, it’s obvious now, with hindsight, why he brought them, just to see if they’d survive here, how well they’d do, in case he decided to settle here after all. I’d have had no quarrel with that, if he’d fetched along something for us to eat as well.

But as luck would have it, food wasn’t a problem. Getting enough to eat didn’t even take up more than half our time, which is more than you can say of life in the old country. That said, you can get really tired of salmon and venison, and wild goose now and then as a treat. We stretched out the flour we’d brought with us as long as we could, likewise the malting barley We tried cutting it half and half with flour we ground from the wild corn, but that was a waste of both resources. When the flour ran out we made porridge from the wild stuff - boil a handful with an equal amount of water and any bits of meat or herbs you can find to mask the godawful cloying mushy taste, and when the water’s soaked into the grain, you gobble it down with a spoon. Then we had nuts and berries, which would’ve been fine if we’d been squirrels, and a thin sliver of cheese, just enough to remind us of how much we missed the stuff. There were seals when we arrived, but we ate the ones who were stupid enough to hang around, and the rest buggered off. We rowed out to the islands hoping to find gulls’ eggs, but that was a waste of time. Oh, we all got enough to eat, no question about it; and as winter dragged on we smoked and salted more than enough to see us through the journey home. No shortages; but it was either horrible or boring, and by midwinter we’d have traded a week’s rations for one meal of salt cod or smoked lamb.

Same with everything else. Our clothes had pretty well rotted off our backs after all that huddling in the wet on the way over. No wool, no linen; instead, we tanned the deer hides into buckskin, and that’s a job I wouldn’t wish on an enemy In case you don’t know, it means hours and hours of scraping with a dull knife or a flint, and then you scoop the deer’s brains out of its skull with a stick, beat them up in water to make a thickish goo, and squidge them into the hide with your fingers. Cures the hide a treat, and five hides make you a shirt and a pair of trousers - except they soak up the water when it rains, and turn as stiff as bark when they dry out. At least we weren’t cold, with all that timber, and Tyrkir the mad German was as happy as a lamb with all the charcoal we made for him, so he could smelt the ore out of the bog-iron to make nails for building. At least, he was happy till the malt ran out and there was no more beer. Then he got very sad, and you’d find him sat behind his anvil, all droopy and weeping and not getting any work done. Finally, when the warm spring weather started, he went a bit strange in the head and vanished for two whole weeks. We thought we’d seen the last of him, and we thought that was a pity but something we could learn to live with, given time; but no, he came back, wet and smelly and covered in mud and bits of leaf and stick, dragging a huge sack. He’d been a long way he said, walking south, always south, because he knew he’d find what he was looking for, he could smell it, a very faint scent but no mistaking it-When we asked what he was yammering on about, he yanked open the sack - three flour-sacks ripped up and sewn together again as one - and bugger me if it wasn’t full of grapes.

‘They grow wild,’ he said. ‘Many vines, hanging from the tree, just like in my home. Make the good wine, better than beer.’

Well, that cheered us up, no question. I’d had wine in Norway, as a special treat; can’t say I liked it much, too sour for my taste, but give me a choice between wine and no beer and I don’t have to lie awake all night before I make my mind up. Same with the rest of us; so we asked him, Tyrkir, are there more where these came from, do you think you could find the place again? And Tyrkir nodded madly; of course, he could find it blindfold, just following his nose, he’d lead us there and we’d fill all the empty sacks and barrels and fill the ship and the boat and make a fortune selling grapes in Greenland. So the very next day off we sent him off again with ten men and a whole lot of sacks; and two weeks later they brought the sacks back, and one very sad-looking German, but no grapes.

‘Never mind,’ Leif said, ‘they’ll still be there next year, when we come back, and we’ve got time to look properly and find them again.’ We all nodded, and Tyrkir went on being sad. Meanwhile, we decided against making wine with the grapes he’d brought back the first time, since we’d be leaving soon, once the sea warmed up and thawed the ice. Instead, we loaded them onto the ship. They went bad almost overnight, halfway into the journey, and we had to pitch them overboard because of the smell.

Not that that mattered too much; we had a decent enough cargo without them. I can’t remember offhand how much building-lumber was fetching in Greenland in those days, but it was some ridiculous price. Obviously you couldn’t get very much in the way of planked timber on board a sixty-foot knoerr, but it wouldn’t take all that much to turn a handsome profit, enough to mean that our winter in Meadowland had been well worth the effort and the misery. We slaughtered what was left of the livestock and had a bloody good feed, we left behind everything we didn’t absolutely need for the journey, and we filled the hold with planked wood, till the ship was riding dangerously low in the water. It was all right after all, we decided, in spite of Leif and his indecision and the little voices in his head. We were going home, and when we got there we were going to have a cargo to sell. Credit where it’s due, Leif had said when we set off that it’d be equal shares for all, and he never once tried to go back on that. I’m sure he meant it, too, except-Well, I’ll come to that directly.

Came the day, and we had a good wind to see us on our way By then we were so bright and breezy and full of it that most of us were saying yes, of course we’d be back next year; it hadn’t been so bad really, and next time we’d bring more flour and a lot more malting barley, and another ship just to carry the livestock; we’d do this and we’d do that, and now we knew a bit about the place there really wasn’t any good reason we couldn’t make a go of the business. We were going to build proper houses, and some of us’d stay there all year round, felling and logging and planking up, while the rest of us ferried to and fro to Greenland and Iceland (because the price back in the old country was higher still, and it wasn’t that far from Brattahlid to Snaefellsness, was it?) and pretty soon we’d all be farmers and earls and God knows what, and everything had turned out for the best, just as we’d always known it would. Things couldn’t have been better, in fact. Leif had made up his mind to do the return trip in one straight dash - he didn’t tell us that was what he had in mind, of course, because we’d have tied him to the anchor and thrown him in the sea - and as soon as we set sail, we picked up a brisk north-easterly wind that sent us skimming along like an arrow The sea was beautifully behaved, so it didn’t matter a damn that we were ridiculously over-laden. The ice had already broken up, there was almost no fog. We hardly got wet, even. Before we knew it, there on the skyline were the blue caps of the Greenland glaciers. We were home and safe.