Read an extract below. And watch this space for details of the launch!
There’s a shriek. I turn towards it and catch a twisting flash of white before I duck – a bird is diving straight for my face. Pulling up my hood, I turn and run. I dodge round tussocks, curse my heavy boots, and stumble. Now I have no more breath. I slow, then stop.
Right here, they threw Erik out of the country.
I sit down on a stone and breathe. Then I look up, and try, as I’ve tried so many times today, to imagine myself back a thousand years. The same hills, rising in the distance. The same colours – dull greens, mossy browns. The same sound of water lapping at the edge of the fjord.
I’m still nervous about that bird. It’s the story of this trip – each time I get close to Erik, something chases me off. I push down my hood and listen.
Just wind, and water, and a sheep, far off.
And now there are longboats in the fjord, ponies grazing, people gathering in judgement. Politicians. Poets. Farmers. Priests. An angry discussion. A judgement. The creation of an outlaw.
And a thousand years later, me – looking for that outlaw, looking, for reasons I still haven’t completely understood, for Erik.