could’ve cried. Here was my chance to get away from that pain in the bum after thirty years, but it’d mean I’d probably be going to my death. Would it be worth it, I asked myself? Just how much did I hate Kari: enough to risk dying for?
Well, yes.
But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Where’d be the point of going on this trip in order to get Kari out of my life, if my life only lasted a week or so? I might just as well go back out, there and then, and cut my own throat, save myself getting wet through on a poxy ship. There were all sorts of things to think about. Sure, Leif was the son of the man who’d discovered Greenland; but did that necessarily mean he knew anything about sailing or finding his way at sea? He’d been bloody vague about what his actual plans were if he did manage to find Bjarni’s islands. Was he planning on starting a settlement, like his dad, or was he simply after a cargo of lumber? I hadn’t wanted to start a new life in Greenland, but I hadn’t had much choice in the matter. The Greenland settlement had at least been up and running when we got there. Buggered if I wanted to pioneer a place from scratch: camping out nights in the rain, no way of knowing where your next meal was coming from, and what about the islands themselves? We hadn’t gone ashore, so we didn’t know if there was anybody living there already who might not want us to take their land away from them. Or there could be huge ferocious wild animals, dragons, God knows what. Suppose we decided to stay and something happened to the ship; Leif hadn’t said anything about taking any women along, so we’d be stuck there for the rest of our lives, no kids to look after us when we got too old to work. I could picture it in my mind’s eye, the bunch of us all grey and hobbling and feeble, trying to hunt deer and drag logs lest we starve and freeze to death. Problem was, I could also picture this farm. It was set in the crook of a fat green-edged fjord, with a forest on the skyline and a sparkly silver river tumbling down the mountain into the plain; there were sheep on the upper slopes and cows on the flat, a hay meadow as far as the eye could see, and barns and outhouses and beehives and a boat shed, and a smiling old man standing in the porch watching his grandchildren playing happily, and the name of that farm was Eyvindsfjord.
Most of that night I lay in the dark staring up, and when I wasn’t watching a ship getting smashed into kindling by storm-waves I was either staggering home empty-handed through the blizzard with my tottery old knees buckling under me, or else counting my six dozen newly shorn sheep as the shepherd brought. them down from the shieling in spring.
Probably it was counting the sheep that eventually put me to sleep. I woke up, and I saw light streaming in through the smoke-hole. That was when I realised I’d made up my mind: a pity, really, because I found I’d decided to go with Leif Eirikson, only he’d said he was leaving at sunup.
Don’t suppose I’ve ever moved so quick in my life. I was wearing my shirt; I stuck my feet in the nearest pair of boots, which turned out not to be mine, grabbed my coat and my short-handled axe, and ran.
Running isn’t my thing. I can walk all day, or I could back then, but more than twenty yards running and I feel like my heart’s about to burst. No sign of Leif in the yard, so I raced off in the direction in which we’d come back from Brattahlid. If he was walking, I might catch up with him, but the chances were he’d have borrowed a horse, or a wagon if he’d got any volunteers from our lot. Anyhow, I ran. Despite what I said about the strain of it, that wasn’t a total pain, because running warms you up, and I wasn’t wearing any trousers.
A few piles of horseshit, still warm and steaming, told me that I was on Leif’s trail, and I forced myself to run faster. Just when I thought I couldn’t bring myself to run another step, I saw a wagon in the
Well, yes.
But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Where’d be the point of going on this trip in order to get Kari out of my life, if my life only lasted a week or so? I might just as well go back out, there and then, and cut my own throat, save myself getting wet through on a poxy ship. There were all sorts of things to think about. Sure, Leif was the son of the man who’d discovered Greenland; but did that necessarily mean he knew anything about sailing or finding his way at sea? He’d been bloody vague about what his actual plans were if he did manage to find Bjarni’s islands. Was he planning on starting a settlement, like his dad, or was he simply after a cargo of lumber? I hadn’t wanted to start a new life in Greenland, but I hadn’t had much choice in the matter. The Greenland settlement had at least been up and running when we got there. Buggered if I wanted to pioneer a place from scratch: camping out nights in the rain, no way of knowing where your next meal was coming from, and what about the islands themselves? We hadn’t gone ashore, so we didn’t know if there was anybody living there already who might not want us to take their land away from them. Or there could be huge ferocious wild animals, dragons, God knows what. Suppose we decided to stay and something happened to the ship; Leif hadn’t said anything about taking any women along, so we’d be stuck there for the rest of our lives, no kids to look after us when we got too old to work. I could picture it in my mind’s eye, the bunch of us all grey and hobbling and feeble, trying to hunt deer and drag logs lest we starve and freeze to death. Problem was, I could also picture this farm. It was set in the crook of a fat green-edged fjord, with a forest on the skyline and a sparkly silver river tumbling down the mountain into the plain; there were sheep on the upper slopes and cows on the flat, a hay meadow as far as the eye could see, and barns and outhouses and beehives and a boat shed, and a smiling old man standing in the porch watching his grandchildren playing happily, and the name of that farm was Eyvindsfjord.
Most of that night I lay in the dark staring up, and when I wasn’t watching a ship getting smashed into kindling by storm-waves I was either staggering home empty-handed through the blizzard with my tottery old knees buckling under me, or else counting my six dozen newly shorn sheep as the shepherd brought. them down from the shieling in spring.
Probably it was counting the sheep that eventually put me to sleep. I woke up, and I saw light streaming in through the smoke-hole. That was when I realised I’d made up my mind: a pity, really, because I found I’d decided to go with Leif Eirikson, only he’d said he was leaving at sunup.
Don’t suppose I’ve ever moved so quick in my life. I was wearing my shirt; I stuck my feet in the nearest pair of boots, which turned out not to be mine, grabbed my coat and my short-handled axe, and ran.
Running isn’t my thing. I can walk all day, or I could back then, but more than twenty yards running and I feel like my heart’s about to burst. No sign of Leif in the yard, so I raced off in the direction in which we’d come back from Brattahlid. If he was walking, I might catch up with him, but the chances were he’d have borrowed a horse, or a wagon if he’d got any volunteers from our lot. Anyhow, I ran. Despite what I said about the strain of it, that wasn’t a total pain, because running warms you up, and I wasn’t wearing any trousers.
A few piles of horseshit, still warm and steaming, told me that I was on Leif’s trail, and I forced myself to run faster. Just when I thought I couldn’t bring myself to run another step, I saw a wagon in the
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