Meadowland by Tom Holt Read Free Book Online Page B

grin widened. “Course I do,’ he said. ‘Oh, we’ve got a nice big barracks-hall, bigger than any building in the whole of Iceland; stone walls, would you believe it, and a tiled roof, instead of timber and turf. But we all choose to doss down in the drill hall, piled up like fish landed in a net, because it reminds us of home. Anyway-‘

    Anyway (Kari went on) we sailed three days, out of sight of land, hoping we were going the right way Then things started to go wrong. The westerly wind dropped, it started blowing hard northerly, and then the fog set in and we knew we were screwed.
    High winds scare you, because you’re worried the mast or the yards’ll snap. Storms frighten the shit out of you, because all it takes is the one vicious bastard of a wave to swamp you, smash you or tip you over. But fog: I’m not saying it’s the worst thing that can happen to you, but it’s the nastiest, if you see what I’m getting at. You can’t see the sun or the stars, so you don’t know where you are. If it’s a real bugger of a fog, you can hardly tell day from night, so you lose track of time. When the fog closes in, nobody feels like talking; I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a rabbit when you’re almost on top of it, bloody thing knows it daren’t run so it crouches flat to the ground, ears back, eyes wide open, hoping you won’t notice it but knowing you probably have already: that’s how I feel in a thick fog, I just want to crouch low, keep still and hardly even breathe. I give up, in fog. That’s all there is to it.
    You’re looking at me strangely, like I’ve just confessed that I’m scared of the dark. Well, of course, a Greek like you doesn’t know about fog, any more than you know about cold. You get low cloud on the mountains, a bit of mist sometimes, but it’s no big deal. Where I come from, you get fog where you can’t see the man sat next to you, even though you can feel his shoulder pressed up against you. It’s lonely in fog, enough to break your heart, and you know there’s nothing you can do, absolutely nothing. Not if you were King Hrolf Kraki, or Sigurd the Dragon-Killer; being big and strong and good with a sword won’t help you, or being clever, or brave. I remember seeing an uncle of mine, huge man the size of a bear, but he was really ill, dying. He lay on his bed with his eyes wide open, sweating like dew on summer grass - I think he was trying to say something but his lips just moved a bit and no sound came out. I thought, this is stupid, a big strong man with shoulders like rocks, nobody on the farm could wrestle him or beat him in a weightlifting match, but here’s something I can’t see or hear or smell or touch and it’s killing him, bit by bit while I’m watching. Helplessness, that’s what I’m trying to make you understand. In a fog you’re helpless. I feel like I’m a tree standing in the forest and I’m gradually rotting away from inside. When I’m fogbound on a ship, I can’t put it out of my mind. It’s like the worries that settle on you in the small hours, just before first light: the more you try and flush them out of your head, the worse they get, you more you dwell on them. If I really want to make myself feel bad, I imagine that death is a fog, and it’s never going to clear, ever.
    How long were we there? Were we moving or stood still? Truth is, I can’t tell you. Later, Bjarni said he reckoned we were being carried along on a stiff northerly wind. Could be right, but I’d like to hear how he knew My impression was, we just sat there and cowered, but maybe my memory isn’t what it was. I remember someone, not next to me but close, muttering prayers, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I thought about joining in, but I’ve never been what you might call a religious person. I thought, if Thor’s still God, and Odin and all that lot, then from what I know of them they couldn’t care less, and even if they could, what could they do to