They Came On Viking Ships (11 page)

They left her then.

‘Eat what you want from the storeroom,’ were Freydis’ parting words. ‘It is yuletide, after all. You may keep a lamp alight, and the fire, but use no more wood or oil than you must. Feed the beasts and give them fresh hay but don’t bother to muck them out—the men can do that when we return. A week of dung will do no harm.’

The door closed behind them. Hekja could hear them chattering as they slid on the fresh snow and Thorvard’s laughter, as he picked his wife up in his arms to keep her feet dry.

At least they had left Snarf, Hekja thought. She felt guilty at that, for she knew Snarf would have enjoyed the excitement of the feast. But without Snarf she would be quite alone, except for the sheep. And sheep, thought Hekja, were even stupider companions than cows.

It was quiet, after they had left. No, not really quiet, she thought. The sheep bleated. The wind came up again and howled, though the sod roof kept it out. The fire flickered and a mouse rustled in the moss, chinking between the stones. Snarf snuffled after it, then put his nose on his paws and dozed by the fire, with one ear
pricked to make sure the sheep didn’t push past the hurdle that kept them in their part of the house.

Hekja sat by the fire and twirled her spindle. There was nothing else to do now the animals had been fed, except go to the storeroom of the main hall to fetch fish for supper. There were dried berries in a basket, and she took a handful of those too. After all, Freydis had told her to eat what she liked. It was little enough for a Yule feast, thought Hekja, as she chewed the hard, tough berries.

The day passed slowly. Hekja felt its gloom sweep through her. Winters were so long and dark in Greenland, far longer than at home. At least she’d had the feast to look forward to. Now there were just more dark dull days—the tomorrows seemed endless.

Finally she went to sleep with Snarf and the sheep for company. It seemed so much darker and colder, Hekja thought, without other people near.

There was no snowfall during the night, so the doorways were still clear in the dimness next morning. Hekja fed the cattle crammed up in their stalls, and the hens too, and carried in fresh hay for the sheep, while Snarf lifted his leg on the doorposts. But today, despite the cold, Hekja hesitated before going back indoors. The hill looked so inviting, white and pure despite the darkness of the day. She could run up there, just for a while, into the peace and freshness, just her and Snarf like they used to do…

‘Arf,’ said Snarf encouragingly. He leapt up and licked her face. ‘Arf arf!’

Hekja shook her head. It wasn’t worth the risk. She had seen how worthless thralls were. She had been told to guard the house and keep the fire alight. If she left
without permission Thorvard or Freydis could kill her and no one would even question what they’d done.

It would be easy to escape, now everyone was gone. But where to? Only into the snow and ice and dark where they would surely die.

Hekja went indoors again, and sat down by the fire. But this time she didn’t pick up her spindle. Why bother with the boring work when there was no one to order her around? At least she could spend this time as she liked.

She would sing. But not an old song, not one of Pa’s. They belonged to the past. No, she’d sing a new song, for herself and Snarf. She reached out for the words and then the tune came too.

‘Snow on the hillside,
Mountain and sky,
The whole world shivers,
As winter flows by.

‘Empty and longing,
Lonely as I,
The wind howls as it searches,
For…’

‘Hooooooowwwwwwl!’

It was impossible to tell if Snarf was joining in, or complaining about the noise. Hekja broke off singing. She laughed and hugged him. The mouse rustled again, and Snarf darted after it. Hekja began to sing again.

The door opened.

‘Who is that?’ demanded Snorri the Skald. ‘Who is singing?’ He was dressed in furs, a fur hood and fur-trimmed
boots and mittens, and there were flakes of snow on his face.

Hekja stood up respectfully. ‘No one, Master Skald,’ she said. ‘My dog was howling, that was all.’

‘Arf,’ welcomed Snarf, his mouth full of mouse. He swallowed it. ‘Arf arf.’

‘It didn’t sound like a dog,’ said Snorri. He stepped inside. The sheep moved restlessly as they watched the newcomer. The snow was melting on Snorri’s face and he wiped it off.

‘Maybe it was the wind,’ offered Hekja. She picked up the spindle and began to twirl it.

Snorri looked at her curiously. ‘Perhaps. Or maybe the ice giants were calling, up in the mountains.’

‘Are there really ice giants?’ asked Hekja cautiously. Gudrun had told her there were, but she had never quite believed it.

Snorri smiled. ‘Not that anyone has ever met. Not anyone sober at any rate. Or maybe they have, and haven’t lived to tell the tale.’

He walked down the hall, then sat down in Thorvard’s chair, and looked around the house. ‘There is a legend that poetry was stolen from the dwarfs,’ he added. ‘Maybe the dwarfs sing in this land, in winter when the people are indoors.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Hekja. She looked down at her spindle as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world. ‘I have only been here since past mid-summer.’

‘Where are you from?’

Hekja shrugged. ‘I don’t know the name your people give to my island. No one bothered to tell me,’ she added bitterly. ‘They simply came and killed and left.’ She lifted
her chin. ‘Perhaps you would like to make a chant of that? A tale of heroes, fighting girls and women and men who have no swords.’

For a moment Snorri looked shocked. Then he looked angry. Suddenly Hekja realised what she had done. It was the song, she thought. I forgot I was a thrall when I was singing. Now she was here alone with a Norseman, one that she had angered and insulted.

Could she reach the door before he grabbed her? Then the anger left his face.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said gruffly.

Hekja nodded. ‘No. That is true.’ She spoke respectfully, and hoped he didn’t sense what lay underneath.

‘All men fight,’ said Snorri, ‘it is what men do. And the best men win. How can a man test his courage except in battle? And the brave deserve their reward.’

And what of those who lose, thought Hekja, or who never wanted to fight at all? But she kept twirling her spindle. Snarf sniffed Snorri’s feet, then lay down again at Hekja’s side.

‘Tell me truthfully,’ said Snorri, now in a gentler voice. ‘Was it you singing?’

‘Yes,’ said Hekja. There was no point denying it now.

Snorri shook his head. ‘What is your mistress thinking of?’ he cried. ‘She should have brought you to the feast! A voice like yours would drive the dark away!’ He stood up, and made his way back to the door. ‘And I’ll tell her so at once,’ he added. ‘Yule isn’t a time to spend alone.’

‘Please…’ Hekja ran to the door and called after him.

He turned. ‘What is it?’

‘Please…please don’t tell them I can sing.’

Snorri stared. ‘Why ever not?’

Would he understand? Or would she anger him again?

‘Because…because a slave has nothing. No belongings, no past that anybody cares to know, no future unless her mistress gives her one. My songs are all I have. If you tell them, they will own those too.’

Snorri stared at her as though he had never seen a thrall before. Then he turned and stamped through the watching sheep and out the door. Hejka watched him trudge across the snow through the endless twilight towards the feast.

Would he tell Freydis to punish her? She couldn’t tell.

Hekja went back to the fire and stirred it up so the sparks rose in the smoky air. The wind was rising; it muttered down the smoke hole, sending a gust of snowflakes through the house. Hekja threw on more wood—the updraught of a good fire kept even a blizzard out.

Suddenly the door opened again. It was one of Erik’s thralls, an old woman, with almost as good a beard as Erik, though his was soft and hers spiky like a seal’s whiskers. ‘Your mistress says you are to go to the feast,’ she said. ‘I will stay here in your stead.’

Hekja stared. ‘When did she say this?’

‘Just now.’ The old woman smiled. ‘Off you go, girl. It will do me good to have a rest, away from all the noise. I will mind the house and animals.’

‘Did the mistress say anything else?’ asked Hekja. ‘About singing, maybe?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Nothing else.’

Hekja pulled on her boots and fastened her cloak. Snarf bounded out after her and they set off across the snow.

Light gleamed through the doors of Erik’s farmhouse. There must be dozens of lamps burning, thought Hekja, driving away the winter dark. She could hear men’s voices singing; and the scent of bread and roasting meat filled the air that the heavy snow had left odourless.

Freydis was sitting just inside the door, a mug of mead in her hand. She nodded to Hekja. ‘The young poet there suggested someone else take your place.’ Freydis sounded amused. ‘I should have thought of it myself,’ she added. ‘Old Sigrun is more than happy to snooze Yule away by a fire.’

Gudrun smiled at Hekja from the seats by the fire pit, and Hikki moved over to give her space on his bench. Hekja glanced at Snorri, but he didn’t even glance her way—he was too enthralled by Leif’s tale of the farmhouse further up the fiord that had been crushed by a glacier that had grown unexpectedly, killing all inside. He even ignored Snarf when he sniffed hopefully at the pouch where he had once kept dried meat.

So Snarf went to sniff Bright Eyes instead, and for once she didn’t growl at him to go away.

It was a grand Yule feast. There were games with the other thralls, and music from the skald and Leif’s daughter, and stories from Erik in his great chair. Once Leif spoke of Vinland, it’s giant trees and lush grass, and Freydis’ gaze burnt as bright as the fire. And then the week was over, and no one had mentioned Hekja’s singing at all.

Erik the Red died towards the end of winter. Many people died at winter’s end, from poor food or not enough, and from the bitter cold. But Erik died from none of those. He was in his chair, playing chess, pondering his next move, just as he had pondered settling a new land twenty years before. And then he gave a cry, toppled from his chair and died.

Freydis was weaving, and Hekja and Gudrun were spinning when the thrall came running with the news. ‘Mistress,’ he panted, as Freydis looked up from her loom. ‘His Lordship…his Lordship’s dead!’

There was no doubt which Lordship he meant—The Lordship always referred to Erik. Freydis stood up, her face expressionless. Thorvard had been carving a new runner for the sleigh. He stood too and looked as though he might make a move to comfort her. But she shook her head at him.

‘Come,’ she said shortly. ‘We will help with the funeral.’ She reached for her cloak and gestured to the men to come as well.

It took both households three days’ work to prepare Erik’s grave. He was a Christian—his wife had built the
first church in Greenland—but it was fitting that he be buried as a Viking hero too.

Hekja and Hikki were sent to run to every household within a day’s journey, to let them know of Erik’s death. The seas were too frozen to send out ships.

This time both ran together—running in winter was dangerous, and both carried ropes in case the other fell into a fissure in the snow. If it had been summer the whole colony might have been invited to the funeral, but this was not possible in blizzard season.

It was strange running in the winter silence. Even the trees and rocks were white, and the ice mountains gleamed in the sunlight, and always behind the silence the rumble and grind of the glaciers as they carved their way out to the sea.

The husbondi of the last farmhouse they reached offered them a place in his sleigh, so Hekja was back at Brattahlid for the funeral.

The thralls had dug a pit, a giant one, and Erik’s ship was lowered into it. His grave goods were piled around, his sword and shield, the carved chair he had sat in since his house was built, his sleigh and snow shoes, even his sleeping furs.

Snorri carved a funeral poem in runes in the shape of a snake onto a stone. No one told Hekja what they said, but she imagined that they spoke of heroes.

There was some talk of killing a female thrall as well, to keep him company in the afterworld. Hekja’s face whitened when she overheard this, but nothing came of it—not because a thrall was valued, but because it was a pagan custom and too many disapproved.

Finally, as women wailed, Erik’s final ship was covered by a mound of dirt, outlined with big stones and a cross put at the head.

Freydis stood silent as the frozen dirt was shovelled back into the pit. Even when Thorvard tried to comfort her as they watched the grave being covered on the hill, she shook him off and went to stand alone on the hillside, staring down at her father’s grave.

What was she thinking, wondered Hekja. Of songs and games when she was young? Of how her father hadn’t lived long enough to see his daughter claim a country too, as he and her brother had done?

It was impossible to tell.

Finally the echoes of the last song had died away and the mourners left the graveside.

Erik the hero, discoverer of Greenland, founder of the colony, fighter and chief, was gone.

It was fully dark when Hekja heard the noise outside. The lamp had flickered down, and the hall was quiet. At first she thought the men were singing another lament for Erik. But this sound was different.

Hekja made her way across the hall and passed the restless sheep as quietly as she could, then looked outside. The night was lighter than indoors, for the full moon cast shadows on the snow.

The noise came again. ‘Hoooooowwwwwwwwwwl!’

Hekja peered across the fields to Erik’s grave. Bright Eyes and Snarf sat on the great mound. As Hekja watched they lifted up their heads again and howled for the dead master.

The sound floated past the farms, over the fiords, up to the mountains of ice and snow, across the glaciers, above this cold and foreign land that Erik had made his own. The dogs sang their own song, one that had no need for human words. A song to honour a hero, in the best way they knew how.

The rest of the household was still asleep when Snarf slipped indoors. When Hekja cuddled him his fur felt like ice, and so did his nose. She hoped that Bright Eyes had found someone to give her comfort too.