Leif Frond and Quickfingers by Joan Lennon Page B

streaky-blue-coloured Thorhalla was even more unpleasant than an ordinary one, still my granny was right.
    It
was
worth it.

CHAPTER TWO
    Queue and the Book of the Artificer
    I f only someone would come – if only someone would come.
That’s what I was saying to myself, over and over, about a week later.
    I was remembering the time two years ago, when we had a travelling bard – Stori was his name – wintering with us at Frondfell. Now
that
was great. Partly because of the sagas and stories of battle and heroes and adventure that he told us round the fire in the long dark evenings. Partly because of the hilariously rude riddle games we all played. But mostly because my father gave me the job of looking after our guest. Every time one of my sisters or brothers would try to rope me into some job, all I had to say was, “So sorry – Stori needs me.” The fact that Stori actually needed very little made it even better.
    What a great winter that had been.
    I knew it was too much to hope that Stori might find his way back to Frondfell again so soon, but any stranger would do, preferably one with simple requirements who would ask specifically for me to look after him. I was walking along the side of the stables, thinking about it, when a horribly familiar voice froze my spine and stopped me in my tracks.
    â€œLeif!
Where is that boy? Just wait till I get my hands on him.”
    Thorhalla!
    I raced away at top speed, heading for my favourite hideout, the workshop of Queue the Artificer. If I could just get there before she spotted me…
    Queue is without doubt the best Artificer in the whole world. He can build
anything
. And it doesn’t matter what it’s made out of either – metal, wood, amber, stone, bone – if he can think of it, he can make it. And he thinks of the most amazing things.
    Best of all, sometimes he needs a willing volunteer to test his inventions. For some reason I’ve never understood, nobody else around here is all that keen, which means I’m Queue’s first (and only) choice. Official Frondfell Tester, that’s what he calls me.
    Even when there’s nothing to test I love being in his workshop. There are always strange hot smells, and weird clanging and thumping noises, and flashes of coloured light, and you never know what might come flying out of the shadows at you as you step through the door. And it was also the place that held The Book.
    Mostly, Vikings don’t have books. Bards like Stori have all the words of all the stories and sagas and songs in their heads. They don’t write any of it down. There probably isn’t another settlement within twenty leagues of us that can say it owns a book – but Frondfell can. And it’s not just any book. It’s old and wonderful and full of drawings, measurements and beautiful curly Arabic writing. The paper pages are sewn with silk and bound with leather-covered board. It is The Book of the Artificer.
    The story of how The Book came to be in Queue’s hands would, I think, be one a bard would love to tell, but Queue doesn’t talk much about his life before he came to Frondfell. The only bits of the tale I’d been able to tease out of him go like this: The Book came from faraway Constantinople, where Queue had been apprentice to a famous Arabic Artificer. In it were written all of the great man’s inventions and theories and, after a time, Queue’s own discoveries and devices were considered good enough to be included. When his master died, The Book passed to Queue, and he brought it all the way from Constantinople to Frondfell. That’s all I know. Tantalizing, but I’ve never managed to get more out of him. Maybe someday.
    Today
, however, in far less time than it’s taken me to explain all that, I raced to Queue’s workshop and, without pausing to knock, shoved open the door and flung myself inside.
    â€œDon’t touch anything,” Queue