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 One Last
Time
When
Kari Fine Hair, son of Gor, looked at his rich winter crop he wondered,
not for the first time, why he yearned to leave. His last voyage
had ended disastrously only one month before. Six of the slaves
died on the passage home and the other three hardly fetched a price at
market to cover the vitals they had consumed on the journey. He
looked around his land, then out towards the Great Sea. He was
Earl of these shores; his father was king of all within his vision and
beyond the great forest. Kari would inherit the kingdom when his
father died, but he was already wealthy in his own right; the last few
trips had helped on that score.
The village dwellers respected
him. When at home he entertained fellow countrymen to extravagant
banquets in his great hall. Kari’s wife, Goi, still loved him
despite his wanderings, although she constantly harangued him to cease
his spring and autumn trips.
‘Why can’t you stay at home as your father has done?’ She would
rant.
Kari could hear the faint sound of the migrating geese and
waited for the familiar V to come into view. The geese were
leaving. He had only the winter to wait through.
Butterflies fluttered in his stomach and his loins began to stir at the
thought of the next trip. He would sleep in Goi’s room tonight he
was sure. The carpenters had already begun working the wood
felled in the forest last summer and dried out over the autumn.
Soon the sail maker would arrive. At that thought Kari groaned
inwardly. He remembered the last time the sail maker was here.
‘Why don’t you stay at home old man’ she shrieked at him, echoing his
wife. Although only five and twenty years old, the sail maker’s
countenance was not pleasing. Her weathered skin and hairy warts
conjured up images of the mountain trolls from the stories his mother
told him as a child. She would never find a mate to bed her but
she was an excellent sail maker.
Last year when she worked in
the village, Kari had assured her that year's trip was his last, she
would earn no more from his coffers. How she would laugh at him
now. But what business was it of hers what he did? She
should be glad of the work while it was on offer.
Kari stood
facing the dark sea, watching the breaking clouds shift across the
sky. He held his face up to catch the salt air in his
nostrils. Soon he would have to tell Goi he had decided to make
one last trip, although she had probably already guessed.
His
cousin, Logi the walker, had told him Uí Néill, the Island of Saints,
was the place to go. Rich pickings and the natives were
stupid. Logi, who was now well known on part of the island,
laughed as he told Kari of the surprise attack the last time he crossed
the sea to that Land. Kari’s raiding grounds were the Anglo Saxon
Kingdoms of the north, but the plunder had been thin last autumn.
Kari turned towards his castle, a tall dark grey bastion that dominated
the village. He would tell her tonight before the sail maker
came, he would make this his last.
Sammy sits looking
at the phone on his desk. The room is growing darker. The
Christmas lights from the house across the street cast multi coloured
plumes across his office wall. He swallows a couple of times then
draws a gulp of air before he picks up the hand set and presses the
shortcut key.
‘I hear there's a wee problem in Kazakhstan.’ He waits for the
agreement that doesn’t come.
‘I could be out there by Wednesday to sort it out.’ He offers.
‘Sammy,Sammy, you haven’t been well, we didn’t want to bother
you.’ the reply fails to pull off the sentiment in the
statement. 'I thought you wanted to stop all this traveling?’
‘Listen Ed, I put the damned system in; I want to leave it in good
hands and in perfect working order.' Sammy feels his hands sweaty
against the phone, they are trying to cut him out of this deal, but
it's his system, damn it!
‘OK Sammy, phone me when you arrive and have made your assessment, but
make sure you’re back home for Christmas no matter what or Jean will
kill me.’
Sammy eases his bulk out of the office chair.
Jean will go mad! On his way to the kitchen he collects his suits
from the bedroom and pull out the old trolley bag he had thought would
stay in the wardrobe for at least a few more months.
‘I’m
needed in Kazakhstan.’ He announces. Better to get it over
with. ‘I’ll just take my suits to the express cleaners, be back
in a mo.’
‘Wow mister, now wait a minute.’ Jean spins round from the sink.
‘Jean, I have no choice.’ He wheezes. ‘They need me one
last time.’
‘You’re not going!’
Why is he doing this to you? All your life together haven’t you always
followed him and his dreams. He promised! That would be it,
no more trips. You look at the steaming pot of newly drained
vegetables. A dark circle of purple grit rings the pot halfway up
the inside and you wonder if it will scrub out. The last of the
late winter crop waits for you to begin, wrinkled skins begging to be
pulled off. You balance one in your hand and squeeze it harder
than necessary, the skin slithers off leaving a hot shiny wet globe
bleeding over your hand. As you wipe the sweat from your eye two
rivulets of bright red juice vein your arm to the crook of the elbow
where it rests. Out of the corner of your eye you see him
standing by the entrance, head bowed like a naughty boy patiently
waiting for his punishment. When will it stop? Your eyes
are drawn to the fields outside and the late afternoon shadow that
begins to creep across the landscape. Soon it will snow.
You plunge your hand back into the pot and seize the next fruit; the
skin comes away easily in your hand.
‘You’re not going!’
Goi had cried last night. Why did she always make leaving so
difficult? Kari left her warm sleeping body before daybreak
to return to the shipyard where his five, newly overhauled, long
boats waited for him. As he climbed aboard the first, he breathed
in the familiar sweet smell of resin that oozed out of the new
planks. The crossing should be smooth if the settled weather
continued as promised in the sky.
Last night while he watched the dancing lights in the sky he marveled
at the beauty of his homeland. He would be gone for three months
and in that time his sons will have grown a little taller.
‘It’s the last time.’ He had promised Goi as her tears dropped
onto his bare chest.
As Sammy drives to the dry
cleaners in a freezing downpour, he begins to think about the week
ahead. It will be even colder out there. Many of the major
oil companies had recently begun developing the god-forsaken area and
needed his computer skills to make the operation run smoothly.
Those idiots he had trained to manage the system wouldn’t be able to
cope with this crisis even if they said they could.
His high
blood pressure was now under control, his doctors had reported last
week; he would just need to lose a few pounds. His new healthy
life would begin in the New Year, starting with a wind down, maybe work
only four days a week. The plan is to retire in five years time
and take up photography as a hobby. The kids would both have
graduated by then.
Sammy tries to remember the last time he and
Jean had holidayed together. One project finished and another
came along immediately afterwards. At least he had enough air
miles to keep them in free flights for a few years after he retired.
As
the boats approached the headland of Uí Néill, Kari could make out the
shadow of the mountains further inland. The sky was too clear and
the moon shone like a beacon signaling their arrival on the foreign
shore. The information from Logi had been correct so far. A
monastery lay five miles inland, if Kari and his men landed in the bay
round the head of the peninsula they could cross the open moorland
guided only by the stars and the lights from the monastery. They
would surprise the monks while they slept in their cells.
Clouds
were beginning to gather where the sun had set, the time was right;
they did not want to be anchored in the bay longer than
necessary. Once this raid was done Kari decided they would move
further down the coast. If this was to be his last trip, he
wanted to make the most of his adventure while it lasted.
Sammy
nurses his huge stomach like a pregnant woman while he waits in the
baggage hall of Budapest Airport for his connecting flight. The
passage from Aberdeen had been turbulent and the greasy breakfast rests
like a brick in his gut. He feels queasy and wonders if he will
make it past the carousel to the toilets without being sick on some
poor sod who has lost their luggage. He decides to wait a couple
of minutes until the feeling passes.
Sammy thoughts
drift to his home. Jean had bought a real Christmas tree this
year. She had dressed it last night before they sat down to
dinner together. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were a
little flushed from the wine. Sammy had promised her this year he
would help her prepare for the children coming home for the holidays,
but he was needed elsewhere. She no longer complained.
The
onward shuttle is delayed for two hours due to the late incoming flight
bringing the workers home for Christmas. There would only be a
skeleton staff on now for the next three weeks. Jean will be
preparing all the trimmings for Christmas dinner, his brother Joe and
his wife Anne will pop round for drinks on Thursday evening, he hasn't
seen them for ages. The kids will be home tomorrow. He
should have let those idiots sort out their own mistakes. They
will need to when he is no longer around to bail them out. They
may as well start now.
The baggage hall is emptying, Sammy
thinks about moving through into the lounge, a cup of tea might make
him feel better. His hand are clammy as he holds onto the plastic
seat handles. Two more minutes and then he'll go to the toilet
and throw some cold water on his face to cool him down.
His
indigestion is not easing; he struggles to loosen his tie and opened
the top button of his shirt. Breathing is difficult. His
Italian suit is warm, maybe it is just too warm for airports, but he
knows he will feel the benefit when he arrives at his final destination.
Suddenly there it was, the monastery rising up to their left,
momentarily silhouetted against the moon, before the clouds closed
their curtains on the scene. An eerie silence settled amongst the
men. Kari’s month was dry, he was regretting that last swig of
beer before the landing. He stooped down to scoop some water from
a stream when Olaf fell to his right with an arrow through his
neck. Above him on the roof of the monastery blazing torches
appeared to reveal armoured soldiers with slings and bows.
Suddenly Kari and this men began to fall, tumbling into a pit fifteen
feet deep. Branches and straw fell around them. They had
been betrayed. As Kari Fine Hair, son of Gor, sank to the damp,
peat earth to await his fate he thought of Goi and the boys and felt a
great sadness sweep over him as he realised he would never take a trip
with his sons to these distant shores.
The Munich flight
arrives 40 minutes late due to a bad snowstorm moving in from the
north. As the hooters sound in the baggage hall to announce the
start of the carousel, the passengers notice a fat man sliding from his
seat in the corner onto the floor.
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