Read Online Meadowland by Tom Holt - Free Book Online Page B

the mud. I groped round to see what I’d tripped over, and it felt like a branch. Driftwood, I thought, that’ll do, and I tried to pick it up, but it was heavy; also, it felt odd. I bent my head down so I could see, and I realised it wasn’t just some old bit of tree, it was a proper worked post, all carved up and down with twisted snakes, Norwegian style. That got me going for a moment, and then I figured out what I’d got hold of. It was one of the canopy struts Bjarni had bought as a present for his dad.
    That gave me a really funny turn, you can imagine. Well, no, actually you can’t, because you don’t know what I’m on about. See, there’s an old tradition going right back to when Iceland was settled. The original settlers, when they first came in sight of land, used to get their canopy struts and chuck them over the side. Then, when they’d landed, they’d go up and down the beach till they found where the struts had been washed up, and that was where they built their houses. It sounds like a really stupid way of choosing a new home, till you think that even back then there was bugger-all wood in Iceland, apart from driftwood. It made a lot of sense to build at the point where the currents pitched driftwood ashore - and other useful stuff too: you’d be surprised what you can pick up off a beach.
    Anyhow, there they were, these canopy struts; and I stood there for a bit like an idiot, wondering how on earth they’d got there. I guess they must’ve been washed overboard at some point while we were bobbing about in the fog, and what with one thing and another we hadn’t noticed they’d gone. It struck me as pretty funny: Bjarni’d been so dead set against landing, but the sea had other ideas and pinched his struts to show him where to build a house; sort of like when the dog really wants to play chasing sticks, and it comes running up with the stick in its mouth so you can’t help but get the message. Of course, there was no way I’d be able to tell Bjarni what’d become of his dad’s present, since I wasn’t meant to be there. Seemed a shame to leave them, but what could I do?
    So I left them sticking up out of the sand on the edge of the turf line and went to look for firewood. I had to walk right up to the trees to find even a twig. I’d been counting on scooping up an armful of driftwood off the sand, but I hadn’t reckoned on the belt of grass. The trees were all familiar shapes, masur birch (made me feel a little better about not loading up with the stuff, grows quick, burns quick, rots quick, and the best you can say of it is, it’s better than nothing), and I grabbed a half-armful of fallen stuff and brash and scuttled back to the beach, hoping it was light enough by now to see the ship, rather than try and remember where it was. Of course, trying to swim one-handed with a load of sticks gripped under my arm was a waste of time. I had to dump the whole lot just to keep from going under. But I got back to the ship, and my fingers weren’t quite so frozen that I couldn’t climb the rope. Hauled myself over the side, dragged myself back to my place, slopped down all wringing wet and fell straight to sleep; woke up with Eyvind’s boot in my side, saw from the light it was no more than an hour or so later.
    ‘Get up, you idle bugger,’ Eyvind was saying. ‘The wind’s up, we’re on our way’ Then he stopped and looked at me. ‘You’re all wet,’ he said.
    Luckily, I had my answer ready ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Got up in the night for a pee, lost my balance and fell in the water. Had to climb back in up the anchor rope.
    Eyvind grunted, which told me that he believed me; and then Bjarni was shouting orders; and I jumped to it along with the rest of them. Nobody else said anything about me being all wet. Fairly soon the whole lot of us were drenched through, all of them as wet as me or wetter, so I guess I was no worse off for my adventure.
    It was three days before we saw land