Katherine Langrish - Troll Blood

Ralf and Arnë came to unload the pony. Ralf seized Hilde. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. And before Peer could hear her reply, somebody grabbed him, too, and swung him round.

It was Bjørn, a tight frown on his face. “What on earth are you doing?” he demanded. “How can you think of sailing with Harald?”

Peer’s gaze slid past Bjørn’s shoulder to where Hilde was standing with Ralf. “I’ll be all right, Pa,” she was saying in an earnest voice. “I really, truly want to go.”

“Ah,” said Bjørn. “So this is Hilde’s idea, is it? I might have known.”

“Not entirely,” said Peer, blushing.

Bjørn shook him. “I thought we were going to work together. I thought you wanted to build boats, like your father.”

“I do.” Peer touched the silver ring he always wore, his most treasured possession. It had been his father’s, and it never left his finger. He added earnestly, “And I do want to work with you, Bjørn. When I come back—”

“ When you come back!” Bjørn exploded. “ If you come back! Peer, this is no fishing trip. Whatever they say, Gunnar and his men are Vikings, and that ship is—is like a spark from a bonfire that goes floating off, setting trouble alight wherever it lands.” He added wryly, “Well, I’m not usually so poetical. But you see what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Peer. “But your brother’s going, isn’t he? This is a trading voyage, not a Viking raid. Gunnar has his wife with him. He’s not going to fight anyone in Vinland, he’s just going to cut down trees for a cargo of timber. Besides—”

He broke off. Who am I trying to convince? And yet he still felt the unexpected longing that had squeezed his heart yesterday evening as he looked westwards from the stern of Water Snake. “Bjørn,” he said awkwardly, “the very last ship my father worked on, the Long Serpent, she’s in Vinland now. Think of it, she sailed all that way! He’d have been so proud of that. I’d like to follow after her, just once. I’d like to find Thorolf and say, ‘Remember me? I’m the son of the man who built your ship.’”

Bjørn began to speak, then shook his head.They stood looking at each other for a moment, while the gulls screamed and circled, and the men shouted on the jetty.

“One thing you should know,” Bjørn said at last. “Gunnar’s own men have been gossiping that he and Harald killed a man in Westfold and had to run for it. No wonder they’re on their way back to Vinland.”

“But that’s no secret,” said Peer. “He told us about it. That’s when he lost his hand. It was self-defence. The other man started it.”

“You mean, the same way you ‘started’ that fight with Harald yesterday?”

“You might be right,” said Peer after a pause. “But I won’t back out now.”

Bjørn sighed. “Arnë won’t change his mind, either. He’s always been crazy, but I thought you had sense.Well, stick together.” He caught Peer’s expression. “You can trust Arnë. You know him. But keep out of Harald’s beautiful hair.” He clapped Peer on the back. “Maybe you’ll come back rich! And now we’d better go and lend a hand—before Gunnar decides you’re nothing but a useless passenger.”

“Don’t touch the sail,” Astrid said to Hilde. “That red colour comes off all over your clothes.”

“Where shall I go?” Hilde looked around, wondering where she could sit. The ship was full of scrambling seamen.

“Just try and keep out of their way.” Astrid perched on a barrel, forward of the mast, and began to tie her hair up in a headscarf. “It’ll be better when we’re sailing.”

“Mind out, Miss.” One of the men pushed past Hilde. “Here, you, son”—this was to Peer—“give me a hand with these oars.”

Hilde craned her neck to see if Ma and Pa were still watching. Of course they were. She gave them a desperate little wave. This is awful. If only we could just get going.

A rope flipped past her ears. Arnë jumped down into the ship and pushed off aft. Bjørn tossed another rope down to him. Harald took the tiller. A gap of water opened between the ship and the jetty. Hilde stared at it. It was only a stride wide. She could step over that easily if she wanted.

With a heavy wooden clatter, the oars went out through the oar holes—only three on each side, but Water Snake was moving steadily away. For a moment longer the gap was still narrow enough to jump—then, finally and for ever, too wide.

Pa’s arm lifted. Sigurd and Sigrid waved, and she heard them yelling, “Goodbye, goodbye!” Even Eirik opened and closed his fingers, and Sigrid was flapping Elli’s arm up and down. But Ma didn’t move. Hilde raised her own arm and flailed it madly.

Too late to say the things she should have said. I love you. I’ll miss you all so much. Too late to change her mind. Ma, please wave…

And at last Gudrun’s hand came slowly up. She waved, and as long as Hilde watched she continued to wave across the broadening water, till the jetty and all the people on it dwindled with distance to the size of little dark ants.

Hilde blinked, carefully, so as not to spill tears down her cheeks. Her throat ached from not crying. She turned a stiff neck to look round at the ship: her new world, her new home.

And there was Peer, wrenching away at one of the oars. He looked up and caught her eye, and gave her an odd lopsided smile, and she knew that he knew just how she was feeling.

It’s going to be all right, she thought, comforted.

“Oars in,” Gunnar bellowed. “Up with the sail!”

Thankfully Peer dragged his long oar back through the oar hole. Water Snake began to see-saw, pitching and rolling over steep, choppy waves. He laid the wet oar on top of the others in a rattling pile, and went scrambling down to the stern to help haul up the sail.

“Hey—up! Hey—up!” Each heave lifted the heavy yard a foot or two higher. When it was halfway up the mast, Arnë yanked the lacing to unfurl the sail, and swag upon swag of hard-woven, greasy fabric dropped across the ship. “Haul!” Up went the sail again, higher and higher, opening out like a vast red hand to blot out the sky and half the horizon: a towering square of living, struggling, flapping cloth. The men on the braces hauled the yard round, fighting for control. The sail tautened and filled, and the ship sped forwards so suddenly that Peer had to catch at the shrouds to keep his balance.

“Good work!” shouted Gunnar. He seemed glad to be at sea again: his face had a healthier colour; he straddled forwards, his good hand on Harald’s shoulder to help his balance, bad arm tucked under his cloak.

“Right, lads, listen up! Some of us are old friends already. Magnus, Floki, Halfdan…” His eye roamed across the men, who grinned or nodded as he named them. “Anything you others want to know about me, ask them—but don’t believe more than half of it. The way I like to run things is this: you jump when I say jump, and we’ll get along fine. We’re going a long way together, and if you don’t like the idea, you’d better start swimming.” He bared his teeth ferociously, and the men laughed. “I lost my hand a few weeks ago. But if anyone thinks that makes me less of a man, just speak up now.” The men glanced at each other. No one spoke. “We’re going to Vinland, boys, and we’ll come back rich! That’s all, except—we’re the crew of the Water Snake, we are, and there isn’t a better ship on the sea!”

The men cheered. Even Peer felt a stirring in his blood. The crew of the Water Snake—sailing to Vinland, across the world!

Waves smacked into the prow. Spray sprinkled his face. The dragonhead nodded and plunged. They were out of the fjord already, and the wind was strengthening.