The Greenlanders Part 14

LOVE.

ONE DAY IN THE LATE WINTER, THORKEL G GELLISON AND TWO of his servants came on skis to Hvalsey Fjord, and toward dark they banged on the doors of Lavrans Stead, but they had no answer. Thorkel and one of the servants looked through the sheep byre and saw that the sheep were in a poor state. Not only were they thin and weak, and a few dead, back in the corner, but they were also wandering at large around the byre and the steading, and could have, in a panic or in one of the strange notions that sheep take, wandered down to the fjord and drowned, or been lost in the rough hills above Hvalsey Fjord. It seemed to Thorkel that Gunnar and Birgitta must have abandoned the steading, and he was about to turn away and go off to some of their neighbors for news, when one of the servingmen put his shoulder to the door and it swung open. The inside of the steading was deeply cold, and Thorkel shrank from stepping through the doorway, but then he heard a low groan, and went in. of his servants came on skis to Hvalsey Fjord, and toward dark they banged on the doors of Lavrans Stead, but they had no answer. Thorkel and one of the servants looked through the sheep byre and saw that the sheep were in a poor state. Not only were they thin and weak, and a few dead, back in the corner, but they were also wandering at large around the byre and the steading, and could have, in a panic or in one of the strange notions that sheep take, wandered down to the fjord and drowned, or been lost in the rough hills above Hvalsey Fjord. It seemed to Thorkel that Gunnar and Birgitta must have abandoned the steading, and he was about to turn away and go off to some of their neighbors for news, when one of the servingmen put his shoulder to the door and it swung open. The inside of the steading was deeply cold, and Thorkel shrank from stepping through the doorway, but then he heard a low groan, and went in.

He found all of the Lavrans Stead folk except Finn lying in their bedclosets. Helga, Kollgrim, and two of the servingmaids lay in the bedcloset closest to the door, and it was Helga who had groaned. All of the four of these were able to open their eyes and speak. Kollgrim said, "Finn has returned," in a low voice. In the rear of the room, Gunnar lay face down under his bearskin, and he was asleep, or insensible. Beneath him, deep in the straw, was Birgitta. Thorkel thought that she was surely dead. In another bedcloset lay the shepherd and his boy, and when Thorkel approached them, the boy sat up and asked for food. In the farthest bedcloset from the door, Olaf Finnbogason lay dead of hunger. Thorkel saw that he had died a slender man. Thorkel said nothing of Olaf for the moment, and went back to the shepherd boy, who was peering around the door of his bedcloset. "Indeed," Thorkel told him, "I have cheese and dried meat, and Johannes here will cut some bits for you," and at these words, the shepherd, too, was able to raise himself. The other servingman from Hestur Stead set himself to starting a fire and lighting some lamps.

When the fire was started on the hearth, the servingman found a vat and made some broth out of the dried meat, for broth is the best food that folk can eat when they are close to death from hunger, as it is not overly rich for their bellies. The smell of the food aroused everyone but Gunnar and Birgitta, and, of course, Olaf. The story that Kollgrim and the shepherd told was just like every story in Greenland-the food had run out, Finn had gone off to snare partridges or find something else and had not yet returned. He had left four days before, perhaps five or six, but he had not been strong himself, and was likely dead. Two days ago they had taken to their beds, for keeping the fire was beyond their strength, and if Thorkel had not come, Lavrans Stead would have quickly become their tomb. Thorkel let everyone eat and talk in peace for a while before again approaching Gunnar's bedcloset, for he had some dread of this, and it seemed to him as he neared the moment of uncovering Gunnar's death that his cousin had been a great friend and ally to him for many years, and Asgeir before him, from the time when Thorkel himself was a young man. And it also seemed to him that each friend buried in a hunger time or a sickness time comes to a man as a fresh and painful injury.

But it happened that Gunnar was able to rouse, though with difficulty, and Thorkel was able to get some broth between his lips. More than this, the corpus of Birgitta was no corpus, but warm and living, barely living. Her eyes flickered and her lips moved when Thorkel brought her up out of the straw, and she, too, was able to swallow some broth. And so it was that most of the Lavrans Stead folk were saved toward the end of the great hunger by the good luck of Thorkel Gellison, although Finn Thormodsson never returned and was never found, and he, like Olaf, was a great loss to the household. Olaf was buried in the little churchyard at St. Birgitta's church.

By the third day, Gunnar was able to sit up and hear the news of Vatna Hverfi, and Thorkel told him of the two great events, the murder at Gunnars Stead and the death of Sira Audun between Petursvik and Herjolfsnes. Thorkel was extremely bitter about Ofeig, and wondered aloud how such a devil had come into his family, and said that he and his wife Jona had had many words about the parentage of the boy, so that things were sour between them. He had gone to Jon Andres Erlendsson himself and given the young man self-judgment, and Jon Andres had not demanded Hestur Stead, as in law he could have, but had only exacted the promise of a pair of good horses of his own choosing, not, he said, because he held Vigdis' death to be a small matter, but because he wished to exact his payment from Ofeig himself, for he did not concur that Ofeig had been stolen away by his infernal master, and was certain that the fellow would be found soon enough.

In addition to this, Jon Andres had declared his resolution to relinquish Gunnars Stead and have the steading found abandoned in law, for it was a steading full of ill luck. He told Thorkel that he doubted anyone would live there now, or even farm the fields, for fear of Vigdis' spirit. Talk was, however, that Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker had no aversions to possible spirits, and that he and Hoskuld his sponsor had already prepared to take the steading over. To this news Gunnar made no response.

Concerning Sira Audun there was this to say, that he had lived on air for four weeks, and just before leaving Petursvik on his skis, he had turned down some broth that one of the women there made for him, saying that he had his own food. But no food was found with the corpus, and his muscles had been so wasted that his knees and elbows were the biggest things about him. Even so, he had died smiling, with his eyes open so that they could not be closed.

Now Gunnar asked, how was it that Thorkel had had food to bring them, were conditions so much better in Vatna Hverfi, so that the Lavrans Stead folk could count on seeing Johanna Gunnarsdottir again? For they had given up that hope with all others. Thorkel said that conditions had not been at all favorable, until the storehouses at Gunnars Stead were opened, and it was seen that Vigdis had been h.o.a.rding food for ten summers or more-so long that certain things had turned to dust, but the rest was taken about to all the local farmsteads, and that, plus their own stores, would carry the district through Easter.

And on the next day, Birgitta awakened, and sat up, and the news was told to her, and she listened carefully, and then she said, "There is always a jest to be played upon the Greenlanders." And now the hunger ended, for two whales stranded, one at Kambstead Fjord and one at Siglufjord, and after that the snow melted and the gra.s.s greened and the ice broke up and was blown out of the fjords, and one day in the late spring, folk got up and went outside to find swarms of reindeer running across their farms, reindeer in such numbers as the Greenlanders had never seen before, and only heard of in tales of the western settlement. Sira Pall Hallvardsson prayed on his knees in the Cathedral of St. Nikolaus for three days without sleeping, in thanks for the bounty of the Lord.

Sira Pall Hallvardsson was much cast down at the death of Sira Audun, more cast down than he considered proper, for such grief as he felt attested to his regard for himself rather than for the soul of Sira Audun. Every day, a great longing came upon him to go into Sira Audun's chamber, such a longing as he had once felt for other sinful acts, as he had once felt for the presence of Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, in fact. It could not be said that the two priests had become knowingly intimate. They had never spoken with the frankness that Pall Hallvardsson and Jon spoke with, and Sira Audun had retained his habit of brusque impatience. It had been his way, for example, to open his chamber door just a crack when anyone knocked upon it, and peep out. Although there were times when he stepped back and invited Pall Hallvardsson in, there were as many times when he did not, and Pall Hallvardsson was left standing in the pa.s.sage. These were the times, he said, when he was working at his writing. This may have indeed been true, but of that activity Sira Pall Hallvardsson knew nothing. The verses and prayers that came of this work Sira Pall Hallvardsson did admire, as far as he was able. He detected in them the same brusque impatience, though it was concealed in "ironia" typical of the Greenlanders. What Sira Pall Hallvardsson knew and remembered of Sira Audun, even after many years of acquaintance, did not add up to the desolation he felt now at the other priest's pa.s.sing, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson feared the strength of his sorrow. It was common knowledge that such griefs could open one to madness.

It was Eindridi Andresson, Sira Audun's nephew, who wanted to have the dead priest's chamber for his own, and his arguments were not unpersuasive. We should not shrink, he said, from accepting the ways of the Lord, and Pall Hallvardsson knew that when Eindridi looked at him, he saw that he, Pall Hallvardsson, did shrink. And thought less of him for it. But Pall Hallvardsson, on his side, considered Eindridi to be one of those hard-bitten, practical men from the south, whose difficult lives have driven out all softness. On adopting their new life at Gardar, for instance, Eindridi and Andres, his son, had become as distant as any newly acquainted students might have been, and had maintained this distance for the year since their advent. Eindridi said that it was better for the boy to put off his earthly father, so that he could the more readily take his Heavenly Father into his heart, and go to Him with greater eagerness when the time should come. In Greenland, said Eindridi, the time must come soon, or even sooner. In the early days, when the boy came to his father with complaints or griefs, Eindridi was cold and firm about sending him off to pray, and laid no comforting hand upon him, nor said a kind word. Now the boy, who was some nine winters old, was as cool as his father, and as ready to bid others to pray.

At their learning, they were apt and diligent, as might befit kin of Sira Audun, and Andres was especially quick, but both of them preferred never to ask a question, and to be found mistaken was a great shame to them. It fell to Pall Hallvardsson to teach them as best he could, but he found this a peculiarly unpleasant duty, and shrank from that, too, and saw that Eindridi noticed his shrinking. In short, there was no satisfaction to be gained from these two, and, as a sort of evil jest, Eindridi looked rather like Sira Audun in certain moments, usually those moments when he was being most unpleasant.

The case was that most things about Gardar were not so congenial as they had once been, for the hunger had struck there with the same force as it had all over Greenland, and Olaf was dead, and Petur the Steward, and all of those with whom Sira Pall Hallvardsson had felt affinity. In addition to this, folk said that he did not know how to order things so that folk were trained to take up these places, and he had to admit that this was true. Concerning this difficulty, he had but one recourse, and that was prayer, but as yet the Lord had not favored him with new knowledge, and the cook's attempts remained bad, so that the servants made bitter remarks to his face about ill rewards for great labor.

Sira Pall Hallvardsson could not tell if the other priest was still mad. It seemed to him at times that Sira Jon had traded a set of uncongenial habits for a set of congenial ones. Certainly now and for the last eight years he had done just as he pleased. He had stayed by himself in the smallest chamber he could find, sometimes crying out for a smaller one. The door to his chamber was unbarred and occasionally fell open, unnoticed by the man within. He had ceased having any intercourse at all with Greenlanders, and was relieved thereby of resentment, or even, perhaps, knowledge of them. He spent his days in dialogues with the Lord, or with himself, or, from time to time, with Sira Pall Hallvardsson. Sira Pall Hallvardsson had heard of hermits who went into the deserts to do the same thing, and anch.o.r.esses who were walled into tiny cells hard by convents that were not unlike Sira Jon's cell. Such practices were not exactly the fas.h.i.+on they once had been. Certain thinkers Sira Pall Hallvardsson knew of spoke against them now that working in the world was considered the better way, but every bridle does not suit every horse, that was what the Greenlanders would say.

Sira Jon had survived the hunger very well, if it could be said that he had noticed it at all. The poor life that he led told on him greatly, though, and he was much bent with the joint ill. When he closed his hands, the fingers did not meet well enough to grasp a spoon, and from pain he could not lift anything heavier than a bit of cheese. Sira Pall Hallvardsson himself fed the other priest, and saw that he was offered his share of whatever there was to be eaten, though he might not eat it. The cook was from Brattahlid district. She had never seen or spoken to Sira Jon, and knew him only as "the mad one." Even so, Sira Jon was the only one of the steading who did not complain of her cooking. When Sira Pall Hallvardsson carried his trencher to him, as he was doing now, he knew that it would be welcomed with the same indifference as it had always been welcomed.

Sira Jon was huddled beside the wall. At the sound of the tray being set upon the floor, he held out his finger to be kissed, but did not turn around or look at Sira Pall Hallvardsson. Sira Pall Hallvardsson knelt with difficulty and kissed the finger, then sat upon his knees and waited for the other to speak. Sira Jon was so bent and thin and had such little color in his skin or hair that if the Greenlanders should see him they would surely suspect that he was another man from the one that they remembered. They would recognize the pa.s.sage of haughty looks over his countenance, however, and that this was the bishop's nephew would finally be as unmistakable to them as it was to Sira Pall Hallvardsson, orphan boy and descendant of Flemish merchants.

After a while, Sira Jon said, "What lies they tell."

Sira Pall waited. He knew that no reply was expected of him as yet.

Sira Jon cast a furtive glance at the food tray, then said, "It was all for the sake of that oaf. Perhaps he is dead now, perhaps they all are. They take the beasts into their houses and regard them with the fondness that other folk reserve for their children, but this is because they are themselves half beasts."

Still Sira Pall Hallvardsson did not speak. Partly, he was not sure of what Sira Jon was referring to, if it was actually any knowledge common to them both, and partly he desired to wait out the usual references to beasts and animals that the old priest chattered about when he first looked at his food. He had been trained to eat a little, calmly, by years of force feeding, as he had been trained to cover his nakedness by years of enforced bathing and dressing, so that now in these things he was docile if contemptuous.

"Indeed, this everlasting flesh that we must chew upon and choke down, without bread or wine, it seems to bring the nature of beasts into a man through his mouth. And what was it you brought to me a while ago, that tasted of rot and salt at the same time? What was it?"

"Sira Jon, you know that this was whalemeat, and men were glad of it."

"Fish they call it, for the sake of the fast, but it tastes like no fish that ever swam, and it is red flesh, as red as the flesh of an old bull. Do you not long for a cabbage? It seems to me that if I could have a bit of cabbage, I would be right again. A bit of cabbage and a loaf of bread to break my thirty-year fast. Is it thirty years?"

"Thirty-one, by my reckoning. You seem pensive today. We do not often speak of such things."

"Perhaps I am about to die. It often seems to me that when I get into an easy state of mind, that this is a sign that I am about to die. But each time I am disappointed. It is a sin to serve watered milk and seaweed for the sacrament."

"The Lord sees what we are reduced to."

"It is true that you have always been confident about what the Lord sees. Did you know that I spent the happiest day of my life in Greenland? I thought you would be surprised to hear it, but I often meditate upon it. Not upon what they told me, for that was a ruse and a trick that they concocted to further their own schemes, but upon how it came into me, the knowledge of what they were saying."

"Will you tell me the tale of this day?"

"I need not tell you the tale, as you yourself were there and colluded with them."

"Then tell me what I do not know of these things."

"Perhaps I will." He glanced at the tray again, and pulled it toward him. It contained a small bowl of sourmilk and a small bowl of broth that was especially foul from being burnt by the cook. He motioned Pall Hallvardsson to give him a taste of the broth and then of the sourmilk, and the broth was not so foul that he did not eat it up. As careful as Sira Pall Hallvardsson tried to be, some of the broth spilled into the other priest's beard, but the sourmilk clung to the spoon better. When he had eaten the small amount served to him he turned away and did not ask for more. He said, "You know that the bishop was a great traveler in his youth, always upon the roads, thinking nothing of a night under the sky, so a.s.sured was he of the Lord's care. It so happened that when I came to him from my mother's house in Stavanger district, and I was some fourteen winters in age, after I had been with him for a month or two, he sent me over the mountains to the next fjord carrying a message. The way was through thick woods and I lost myself for a while, so that I did not arrive at the steading I was seeking until well past dusk, but I had no ill adventures. Even so, when it came time to return to my uncle the next morning, I was so seized by fear that I would not leave without an escort. My horse could have smelt the way home of himself, but it was not of getting lost that I was afraid. I was simply afraid, and the next time I was given a commission that involved being sent away, I fell down in a swoon. My uncle was much displeased with me, and with his sister for being so soft with me. He chastised me, and told me that I would be of little use to him if I couldn't even carry a message, and he had me beaten every time I swooned at a new commission, but he could not induce me to leave him, and I stayed beside him from that day forward, and soon enough he left off, for isn't it the case that the child must always endure, if he is stubborn enough?

"And so it happened that from that time on, until we came to Greenland and after, I had never been apart from my uncle, farther than the distance from one end of a farm field to another. When he delegated you and Petur to go about from church to church, it was partly because he knew that I simply could not do it. But then that low fellow, Olaf Finnbogason, was recalled from where they had been hiding him in Vatna Hverfi district, and he told his lying tale of being betrothed to that wh.o.r.e, and without blinking an eye, my uncle sent us off to find out the rights of it. He saw, indeed, with his penetrating sight, that I was terrified, and while you went off to order the boat, he came up to me and ordered me to subdue my terror, under threat of being banished to Herjolfsnes, and his cruelty was the hardness and wisdom of the Lord who sees what is needful. I remember that we set out, and I sat behind you in the bow of the boat. We set a pace rowing the boat so that it seemed to fly through the water of its own and we talked of this and that. Although it was autumn, we were warm from the exercise, and much stimulated. Nothing frightened me at all-not the icebergs in the fjord-remember how we pushed them off with our oars-nor a gusting wind that raised whitecaps in the water; not even being apart from my uncle frightened me. When we got there, we leapt out of the boat and dragged it up on the strand without a pause in our discussion, and then that old woman, who was Sira Nikolaus' concubine, met us and asked what we might like for our evening meat, and we told her, and then we nearly ran over the hills to Gunnars Stead, talking all the way. I had never expected such a feeling of liberty and animal pleasure. No thread drew me back toward Gardar. Perhaps I thought of my uncle twice.

"And then they greeted us with that tale, the tale of the Virgin and Child walking upon the gra.s.s. I see now that it was a concocted story, meant to distract us from our purpose, but it seemed so simple and marvelous then, that the Child should be robust and playful, and clothed only in a white s.h.i.+rt, and that the Mother should take such delight in Him, and that They should laugh together among the flowers. It seemed to me that all my doubts, about going off from my uncle, about the Greenlanders, whatever my doubts might have been at the time, the foolish doubts of a young man about the nature of worldly things, let us say, all of these were answered, and what this girl said she had seen, it entered my own mind as an indelible vision of joy, as if I had seen it myself. And then, when I was sufficiently transported, our business was conducted to their satisfaction, and we departed, once again nearly running, hungry as we could be, so that we ate up the food at Undir Hofdi church with relish, and then dragged the boat down to the water and threw ourselves into it, and came, in the dark, back to Gardar, where the bishop was already asleep, and when I slept myself, which was almost instantly, I dreamt over and over of the Two, strolling on the gra.s.s, and when the bell rang for vespers, I went to my prayers as to the greatest joy, without a jot of fatigue or pride or dutifulness. I was as if subdued to a jelly, and the love of G.o.d rose off me like an odor." He smiled. "These are the things I think on of late, although as always, these thoughts will leave me, and others will come in that are not so pleasant. My mind is like a room where the door swings free in the breeze, and many visitors come and go and stay and vanish as they will."

It seemed to Sira Pall Hallvardsson as he went away to other duties that Sira Jon must die now, in such a state of peace, but he had no faith of this outcome. He himself had never felt such pleasure as the other priest described, but he did not envy it. He saw that he was a man made for this world. It was true that he had never solaced himself with images of Heaven, nor frightened himself with images of h.e.l.l. Even as a boy in his monastery, his attention had wandered during the course of such catalogs, and he had never convincingly made a sermon about any world beside the one he was right just then standing in. Such thoughts cast him down, for it is the duty of priests to cause men to think upon their eternal deserts. He came into the great Gardar hall and found Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker and most of his household loitering about. He saw that among them was the old woman Margret Asgeirsdottir.

The folk who lived at Solar Fell had gotten into the habit of wearing amulets around their necks that looked like small faces and were carved of bone. These white bits had "O.G.N.S." incised into their obverse sides, which meant "Olaf the Greenlander preserves us." Bjorn Bollason's wife, Signy, and his daughter, Sigrid, wore amulets that were very large, strung about their necks on intricately woven ribbons. Sira Pall Hallvardsson considered that they were ostentatious as well as against church teaching, but he had never said anything about it, and he did not say anything now. Bjorn Bollason came up to him as soon as he saw him, and inquired after his health in a friendly way, then brought Signy and Sigrid forward, and they knelt and kissed his finger, and then the boys bowed and spoke to him respectfully. The lawspeaker and some servants had skied over to Gardar once before since the stranding of the whales, and so Sira Pall Hallvardsson knew the news from there, about how stores had just begun to run out when the whales were discovered, and so everyone, even old Hoskuld, even the least regarded of the servants, had survived the hunger. But no one was fat, Pall Hallvardsson could see that. Everyone looked just as he or she should. Pall Hallvardsson buried his suspicions and walked toward the high seat. He disliked sitting in the high seat unless he was entertaining Bjorn Bollason in some way.

Bjorn Bollason followed him, saying, "You see we have with us your old friend Margret Asgeirsdottir. We think very highly of her. Sigrid is especially fond of her. She is a very courteous person, and it is hard to believe she has lived in such places as she has lived for so many years. You will certainly want to speak with her later on."

"I was hoping for an occasion."

"Now that we have her to stay with us, for that is what we think of her, that she is our guest, though she came seeking work as a servant, and she won't let a day go by without turning her hand to some sort of cooking or weaving, I greatly regret the death of Sira Isleif, for they, too, were friends, and could have had some pleasant talks beside our fire."

"Yes, I'm sure-"

"Which is not to say that she chatters on and on. She is much too courteous for that, but only speaks when she must, and Sigrid takes her for a model in all of these things."

"But this can't be the business which has brought you with all your train to Gardar?"

"No, indeed, but it is partly a pleasure trip, partly a pilgrimage to the relics you have here, and partly for doing business, and of that I will say at once, that if you are planning a feast of thanksgiving here, it seems to Hoskuld, Signy, and myself a happy thought that the feast should take place at Solar Fell rather than at Gardar, in the field above our shrine to St. Olaf the Greenlander there. For it is to him that we attribute the salvation of the Greenlanders."

Now Sira Pall Hallvardsson sent up a little prayer for the courage to contradict Bjorn Bollason, and speak the truth about "St. Olaf the Greenlander," that he could not be called a saint until his case had been argued in Rome, and many uncontested miracles had been observed as his doing. In addition to this, it was a great sin for someone to ride the "sainthood" of this unfortunate child as a horse that would carry him where he wished to go in the world. But even as his temper rose, a countervailing pity for Bjorn Bollason's tiny battle against the limits of the world he lived in filled Pall Hallvardsson's breast, and he looked across the room at the well-dressed and haughty pride of Signy and her daughter, such a small flickering lamp sending out a single ray into the darkness of the western ocean. Their careful robes and their headdresses, which many women had given up now, made him feel as far from Europe as he had ever felt in his life, farther, perhaps, than it was possible to be from Europe, measured in mere travel. And so, once again, he did not speak. He had not thought to have a celebration, anyway. Bjorn Bollason's plans seemed as good as any. He shrugged and nodded, and Bjorn Bollason smiled with pleasure. Pall Hallvardsson said, "Surely you have had a difficult trip, at least difficult enough to warrant a little refreshment?" and he called in Andres Eindridason, and told him to order some refreshments from the cook, something like sourmilk, that did not have to go over the fire. Then he confided to Bjorn Bollason that the cooking had fallen to such a low state that the servants were loud in their complaints.

After this food, the folk from Solar Fell went into the cathedral and prayed there. Though they did not have a regular ma.s.s, Eindridi Andresson was pleased to lead them in a Te Deum and other responsive thanksgiving prayers. Eindridi admired Bjorn Bollason and Bjorn Bollason was much pleased with Eindridi. These prayers went on for a long time, for Signy was a great one for praying, and so it was not until dusk and time for departure that Pall Hallvardsson was able to speak to Margret Asgeirsdottir. He asked if he could walk with her over the hill to the Eriks Fjord jetty, and speak with her on the way, and this is what they did, so as not to delay Bjorn Bollason and risk having him and his whole party spend the night at Gardar.

"So you have found a good place," he said, when the group had stretched out and left them alone.

"It seemed to me at the time that I had found the only place in all of the north where there was an extra bit of food for an extra mouth. Such trials as folk endured in Dyrnes I hope never to witness again. When I went to my previous place, I agreed never to take food from the mouths of the children, but as Lent went on, I began to dream that I could feed them with my own flesh. Such a happy course of action was not available to me, though, and I had to leave them. Even so, the two little ones died and their mother, who is Freya, the wife of Gudleif Finnleifsson, is much cast down, almost to madness, it is said. And others have died, as well, Finna Eyvindsdottir, and many more. None at Solar Fell, though the broth was thin enough at the end. It must be said that Bjorn Bollason and Signy did all that was within their duty, and maybe all that was within their power. They welcomed me with smiles, though I brought nothing for my service besides a piece of cloth."

"It is true that they are generous folk, and the rewards that they hope to receive are only such as men should give to anyone who benefits them."

"Another thing seems to me to be true about Signy, although of Bjorn Bollason I know little, and that is that whatever rewards she gets, she is happy enough with them, and she is not jealous of those she does not get. Still-"

"Still what?"

"They make much of me, and it is uncomfortable to be with them. They would like to be made much of, themselves, and so they think that this is everyone's desire." She walked along for a while, and Pall Hallvardsson was hard put to stay with her, for she still walked with a free, swinging stride and a straight back. The joint ill, he could see, had not touched her. She said, "I hope that I will be forgiven for such unreasonable complaints. Truly, when I came scratching at the steading for a place, Signy herself welcomed me in and begged me to sit on the bench and offered me dry socks and asked me no questions until I had slept."

"I wish you had come to Gardar."

"I heard of Olaf and Petur, as well. You are hard put without Olaf, I suspect."

"It seems to me that I am as a man who is walking down the road and hears the footsteps of robbers behind him. He fears to look or to stop, and only thanks the Lord that they aren't upon him yet."

She glanced at him briefly, and then away, her face white in the deepening twilight. He said, "The folk at Lavrans Stead are well, although it was a close thing with Birgitta, or so Thorkel Gellison says. Olaf has died." Margret nodded. Now they came to the top of the hill that overlooks Eriks Fjord, and Pall Hallvardsson stopped and gave Margret his hand. At the bottom of the hill, the younger folk were pus.h.i.+ng the boat off the strand, and behind them, Signy was calling out names and admonishments to make haste. Margret said, "I think often of Olaf these days. It was a great sin that we always used Olaf as a tool, and overlooked him when it suited our pleasure to do so. I wish he were here to replace Petur, and to care for the Gardar cows." She turned away and began down the slope, then turned back and called, "There is a lovely valley behind Solar Fell that they say is abundant with both northern and southern sorts of herbs. I will bring some in the summer for the Gardar stores!" She waved, then walked and trotted down the slope. Bjorn Bollason himself helped her into the boat, with that smile of his. Pall Hallvardsson saw that he wouldn't get to the escarpment above Gardar before dark.

It seemed to Margret that Solar Fell was to be her final home, and that her final trial was to be watched and imitated without cease by Sigrid and even Signy herself, who had a habit of glancing at Margret as she worked, and then c.o.c.king her head or fixing her hand so that it imitated a gesture that Margret might be making. She was always admonis.h.i.+ng Sigrid, by pokes and nods in Margret's direction, to stand up proudly. This attention discomfited her for more reasons than one. It seemed to Margret that no Greenlander could be without knowledge of her adultery with Skuli the Norwegian, but indeed, Signy had been but a child of fourteen in those times, and Bjorn Bollason himself only nine. Hoskuld would have been at the Thing where Gunnar tricked Kollbein Sigurdsson out of his judgment, but even Hoskuld seemed not to remember or to recognize her. Perhaps it was only that he was an old man and had his own ancient quarrels to ruminate upon. Or perhaps folk didn't care about such things as they once had. Bjorn Bollason and Signy, for example, had a number of friends in both Brattahlid and Dyrnes who had left their families during one year of the hunger or another and gone to live with mates before the wedding. And most folk, it was said, were too poor for weddings now, anyway. Too poor to send for the priest, too poor to give a feast, too poor to carry gifts to the bridal couple, too poor to leave off the farm work for such pleasures. And even if there were no weddings, there had to be children, didn't there? Of all folk, children had suffered and dwindled the most during the hunger. Perhaps, Margret thought as they rowed the short trip across the fjord to Solar Fell, folk hadn't cared much then. Perhaps only she and Gunnar had cared so much.

Always, when they came up the slope toward the steading, the Solar Fell folk stopped at the shrine of St. Olaf and said a prayer to him, or looked for evidence of a miracle, and it was Margret's habit to linger behind so that her failure to do this wouldn't be noticed. This time, however, even in the dark, Sigrid did notice, and came up to her and took her hand, saying, "Do you not love St. Olaf for his innocence?"

"He was surely a good little boy, and much loved by his family, but I do not know the truth about his holy nature."

"But my father says that he has saved us from the hunger, and that it was our great good fortune to live so close to the shrine."

"I would not contradict him, if Sira Pall Hallvardsson does not."

Now Sigrid fell silent but continued to hold Margret's hand as they entered the steading. She was a handsome child, with surprising dark hair and bright blue eyes, for indeed, it was said that some Irishmen had come with a boat of Icelanders to Greenland in the time of King Sverri and left their mark on the lineage of a few Dyrnes families. At any rate, both Bjorn Bollason and Signy thought a great deal of the girl, more perhaps, than they thought of any one of their four sons, although Bjorn Bollason always brought the boys forward as a group and bade them to plant their feet just so and straighten their shoulders and look folk in the eye, and on and on. The regard of the parents had not spoiled Sigrid's temperament, though, and she had the open manner of one who thought well of herself but knew that pride was a sin.

Margret's princ.i.p.al task at Solar Fell was to weave fine wadmal for Sigrid's dowry, as the girl was now some sixteen winters old and expected to be married within the next four or five winters. This weaving was a pleasure to Margret, for the Solar Fell steading was one of the finest sheep-raising places in Greenland, with wide, moist, south-sloping pastures for growing hay, rising to tarn-filled highlands for the summer grazing. The wool of the sheep was long and soft, with much distinction between the silky outer coat and the woolly undercoat. If she spun her thread from only the outer wool, the cloth she wove was thin and liquid, and nicely showed off her patterns. If she spun the two together, the wadmal was thick but light and springy to the touch. Signy was full of praise for her work, and greedy for it, so that she left off drawing her away from it. Throwing the shuttle and devising the weaves reminded her of Kristin and Marta and Ingrid and the others who had taught her to weave and were all now dead, of old age or sickness, and they in turn reminded her of Asta and Hauk Gunnarsson and Asgeir and Skuli and Jonas and Olaf and Gunnar as a child, and she sat at her loom, deep in thought, day after day. This lengthy reflection was another thing that made her feel that Solar Fell was to be her last home, and that this year, or the next year, or the year after that was to be her last.

Now it happened that the dreaded turn of the century came around and pa.s.sed, and another three years as well, and although Finnleif Thorolfsson's prophecy about the fewness of those that would be there to greet the new age was borne out, folk considered that there were not so few as to be a sign of anything. Hunger and disease had come and gone before, and now that the great hunger was over, men saw that such things happen in the natural round of events, for the world is by nature fallen from Paradise, and the Lord has made no promises about repairing it for the pleasure of men, but asks men to use the world as a tool for repairing their own souls.

There were many abandoned steadings, and the greatest of these was Gunnars Stead, but there were other good steadings, as well, in Brattahlid and the southern part of Vatna Hverfi district. Any man in Isafjord could have himself a new steading, but there were no men left in Isafjord, and the place was abandoned to the skraelings.

Now it seemed to folk that they had learned something new. It seemed to some that they had learned of the importance of the appearances of things, that, for instance, a few articles of clothing nicely made and painstakingly decorated gave more pleasure than many plain robes, or a small quant.i.ty of food eaten slowly, using the spoon even for the bits a man might have picked up with his fingers before, lasted as long and filled one up almost as well as a large quant.i.ty. It seemed to others that they had learned how appearances were unimportant, for death came to all men, whatever they were wearing and wherever they slept, whether in the steading or in the byre, and a strong st.u.r.dy boy infant was a marvel whether the priest had had anything to do with his parents or not. Still others reflected on how quickly the food could be s.n.a.t.c.hed from a man's table, or the child from a woman's breast, or the wife from a man's bedcloset, that no strength of grasp could hold these goods in place. And others remarked to themselves how sweet these goods were, in spite of that, and saw that the pleasure lost in every moment is pleasure lost forever. Some folk learned the nature of G.o.d, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the gra.s.s and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and G.o.d is completion. Some declared that they had learned that a man's luck and his might are his only G.o.d, as folk once thought in the ancient days. Was Erik the Red so unfortunate a fellow, or the men with him who never accepted the teachings of the church about the White Christ? Old tales did not say that they had done so poorly as the Greenlanders were doing now, although churches and shrines stood in their land, and folk paid for them and prayed in them. Some said, as did Birgitta of Lavrans Stead, that there was always a joke to be played upon the Greenlanders.

Gunnars Stead stood empty for these three years, and every year, Thorkel Gellison came to Gunnar and attempted to persuade him to return to the steading, but every year Gunnar shrugged and declared that he had not thought about it. In fact, however, he knew that Birgitta was much opposed to such a move, and though he longed for it himself, he hesitated to force it upon her. The case was that her strength and her spirits did not seem to recover from the hunger as those of the others did. She could barely tolerate the light and the play of breezes outside the steading, and so she stayed within her bedcloset most of the time, and her limbs never regained the plumpness they had had, nor the strength. Nevertheless, she made room in her bedcloset for Gunnar now, and greeted him pleasantly each night, with caresses and questions about his activities. As she had once held and gazed upon the hands of her babies, or their toes or their knees, now she was pleased by Gunnar's strength and firmness of flesh, and especially at the warmth he radiated, which was the warmth that had kept Death off her when he came seeking her at the end of the hunger. It seemed to her that she had seen him himself, and he had not been a large man with a white face, dressed in black, as the tapestries in the cathedral showed him to be, but instead Death was a white, s.h.a.ggy, bearlike fellow with huge hands like paws and nails like curved claws that raked away one's garments, one's skin, one's life. In fact, it seemed to Birgitta that, like others, she too had learned something, and that was that the Greenland wastes was where Death had his home, and he was the more ready to come among the Greenlanders because of proximity. The image of his claws reaching around Gunnar, groping after her, was one that she could not escape, and it did not seem to her that such a beast would be gathering her into the pleasant home of her eternal life, as priests said. Besides, the new priest, Eindridi Andresson, who came to St. Birgitta's at the prescribed times and was rumored to be a nephew of Sira Audun, said that h.e.l.l was seven times bigger than Heaven, because for every soul that G.o.d took to himself, the Devil took seven. He also said of himself that it was his intention to harry the Greenlanders into the knowledge of G.o.d, not to cajole them into it. G.o.d was not as a mother, who holds out a bit of chewed meat so that the baby will toddle away from the open fire, but as a father, who chastens the child with blows so that it will know that the fire is painful. Eindridi Andresson was not a comforting priest, but most folk said that they had been comforted too long, lulled into sin, perhaps, which was why they had been punished. Others did not agree with this view.

It was Helga who took up her mother's interests in the sheep, for she was not unlike Birgitta in her ways, although she was much more like Gunnar in her looks. In addition to this, Johanna returned from Hestur Stead, and most of the inside work fell to her. It had been Gunnar's hope that Johanna and Helga would be friends and companions to each other, but they diverged so in temperament and interests that it was almost as though they were unrelated to one another. They did not even know enough of each other to quarrel, but were entirely indifferent.

Indeed, Gunnar, who had gotten quite used to Helga's ways about the steading, which were like Birgitta's, hardly knew what to do with Johanna, who went about behind him, picking up his tools and arranging them, picking up his socks and folding them together, putting everything out of the way before it was even in the way. After his meals, she whisked away the trencher or the bowl before he had pushed it from him, and he often had the feeling that there might be something left in it, although if he asked for it back, there never was. These were Jona's ways, for Jona had a great reputation as a neat and tidy wife.

Johanna was still of an observing turn of mind, and Gunnar often found her gazing at him. Nor did she look away confused when he met her gaze, but only smiled and went about her business as if she'd done with looking at him. She was impartial about this steady, inquisitive gaze, bestowing it upon everyone, Kollgrim, Helga, Gunnar, the shepherds, the sheep, visitors, neighbors, the water of the fjord, the sky, the gra.s.s, the drying racks with their burden of reindeer meat and whale meat. She gazed at Gunnar's writing so fixedly that he thought she must have learned to read, although the folk at Hestur Stead were not the reading sort. He asked her if she understood what the writing said. She smiled and shook her head, and said only that the patterns of the strokes set her to thinking. Gunnar read aloud what he had written: "In these years, the farmers of Herjolfsnes were cut off more and more from the rest of the Greenlanders, but Snaebjorn Bjarnarson and the other princ.i.p.al landowners of the district refused to abandon their steadings and take up available steadings farther to the north."

"You are writing of the Greenlanders, then," said Johanna. "It seemed to me that you would be putting down tales such as those you relate to us in the evenings."

"I would not be sorry to do that, but indeed, the pen goes so slowly that as I make the words, first I lose the thread of the tale, and then I lose the pleasure of the telling. Those tales are meant for speaking, perhaps, while these duller things are meant for writing down."

"This must be like making cheese. What is made in a day is eaten in a moment."

Such observations Gunnar found congenial and even amusing, but only he knew how to listen for them. Most often, when Johanna said something of this sort, Helga and Kollgrim, when he was about, looked puzzled and said nothing. Kollgrim had taken Finn's place as the household's representative to the year's hunts, and in addition to this, he often went off by himself, after birds or hares or foxes, and his skills were good enough. Folk praised them and said that Kollgrim had recovered well from both his dunking and his peculiar nature as a child. Even so, Gunnar saw that confusion still sometimes overtook him, from his dunking, and an imp still looked out of his eyes once in a while, as if calculating the possibilities for mischief. Whatever Kollgrim had learned, though, and however they depended upon him for game and whalemeat, it was obvious to Gunnar that he was not yet the hunter that Hauk Gunnarsson had been, or Finn Thormodsson. No Greenlander was, anymore, just as no Greenlander had the wit to write down the tales folk knew, as they had once written down the tale of Atli, in verse, or the tale of Einar Sokkason and Bishop Arnald. When he suggested these things, Helga and Kollgrim smiled as if he were only an old man taking all virtue for the folk of his youth, but Birgitta knew that he was not mistaken, and said further that it was well for the Greenlanders that they knew not fully how things had declined for them since the days of their great-grandfathers, when men had had time enough and pleasure enough to build such a church as St. Birgitta's, for example, with its arched window and fine gla.s.s brought from Bergen.

It was difficult not to be fond of Helga and not to enjoy her company, for she was affectionate and merry, and stubborn on only one subject, and that was the subject of marriage. Each year Gunnar took her to the Thing, and each year it was as if she had become a different person. She kept her eyes cast down, and spoke soberly and obediently to him in every particular. He went out among the other booths and sought for likely husbands, and when he saw a man who was well enough looking and found out about him that he had a good farm and some cows left and a boat, he would bring the fellow and his kinsmen back to his booth. There he would find Helga going solemnly about her business, and he would introduce the fellow, and Helga would raise her eyes to his face, and look at him squarely for a long moment-and then she would lower her eyes and say for the tenth or the hundredth time that she would do as he wished. And then he would look at the fellow again, and the fellow himself would be as if transformed. Gunnar would notice that he was slope-shouldered, or had a squint in one eye, or that even if he was prepossessing enough, his nearest kinsmen looked low and cruel, or simpleminded. And so he would make excuses for her and she would go unmarried for another year. She was twenty-seven winters old, seven or eight winters older than most newly married women, older than Margret when she married Olaf. A dangerous age, Birgitta dared to say. These days Birgitta dared to say many things, and Gunnar cared little, for he was much pleased to have saved her, and it seemed to him that nothing could ever again rob him of that pleasure. They were old folk now, and ready to die, he told her. None too soon, was what she replied. But she did not mean what she said, and wanted with all her heart to hide from the furry claws of Death for as long as possible. At any rate, while all about them, folk of every age were rus.h.i.+ng to replace their lost mates or lost children, whether the priest was called in or not, Helga turned a cool eye on all such proceedings.

Now it happened one day that Kollgrim intended to snare ptarmigan in the hills above Vatna Hverfi, and he came to Helga and asked if she wished to go along with him, for he had something to show her. Occasionally she did go with him, for she had delicate fingers and was good at tying snares, and the two of them, not so far apart in age, were good friends. She agreed to go, and they set out early the next morning, hiking through the valley that opened upon Einars Fjord across from Hestur Stead, then getting into the boat that Kollgrim kept moored there, and rowing to the sand flats around Undir Hofdi church. Here they got out and pulled the boat onto the strand. Helga could not remember anything of Vatna Hverfi district, and she was much delighted by its pleasant aspect, for the land there is greener than elsewhere in Greenland, and the meadows and fields wider and more fertile. They went into the mountains above the church and snared many birds, and after a while the dusk came on, and Kollgrim led Helga down past the church and around the hillside to Gunnars Stead.

The steading was still in good repair, for Vigdis had reset the turves in the summer before her death. Kollgrim pushed open the door, and they entered the large and comfortable main room of the steading. Helga asked where they were. "It is an abandoned farm. I will tell you about it in the morning, when I am not so fatigued." At this, he climbed into one of the bedclosets, and Helga climbed in after him, and they lay all night. Helga went quickly to sleep, and woke up only once during the night, but she did notice when she awakened that Kollgrim, for all that he complained of fatigue, was restless and lay with his eyes open. Then she went back to sleep. In the morning, she roasted two of the ptarmigan over a fire he made in the hearth, and commented upon how comfortable the steading was, and how little the hearth smoked. Now Kollgrim said, "This steading is our steading, and only the obstinacy of our father prevents us from laying claim to it. He may indeed wish to keep Birgitta at Lavrans Stead where she is happy recalling her mother and father, but we could live here as brother and sister, as our father and our father's sister did many years ago."

"Have you spoken to him of this?"

"I wished to see if we could sleep here comfortably first."

"It seemed to me that I slept here more comfortably than you did last night."

"You heard nothing then? Felt nothing?"

"Nay. I slept very well."

"Then it may be that Vigdis is elsewhere, or that her ghost has not laid claim to the steading, for it was here that she was murdered by Ofeig."

"You have done me an ill turn to bring my soul into such danger," said Helga.

"But it has not turned out to be dangerous. In addition to that, I have slept here seven times now, and have never heard a sound nor felt a thing. Anyway, they say that her son had priests in the place shortly afterward, and that they have purged the spirits." And so they looked about the steading, at the buildings and the furniture and the stalls of the byre, and they saw that all of these things were much finer and more conveniently made than they were at Lavrans Stead, and Kollgrim saw that the greed for such a life as one might live on such a fine steading was rising in Helga as it had risen in him. Helga found herself reluctant to leave, although the day was drawing on. They were standing in the byre remarking at the numbers of cows that had once been wintered there, when a figure appeared in the doorway, and startled them.

Kollgrim glanced up, and then glanced away, and stood as still as a post. Helga put her hand upon his shoulder, and felt that it was trembling, but then he shook her off and seemed to come to himself. He called out, "We are but looking over the abandoned steading. We have stolen nothing and mean no harm." The figure stepped out of the doorway and disappeared, and Helga said, "I do fear to go out and gaze upon this spirit. They say that such things are so horrible that they enter one's dreams forever afterward."

"Nay, it is no spirit, but it is an enemy nonetheless. It is Jon Andres Erlendsson. We must not skulk about, but must go forth boldly if we intend to be his neighbors."

"Perhaps such enmity is good reason for not being neighbors. If he strikes such confusion and fear into you-"

Kollgrim flared up. "Speak not of that again! Jon Andres Erlendsson is but a man, and neither as tall nor as broad as I am. Without Ofeig and his other accomplices he is nothing."

"Then what is stopping us from going out?"

"Nothing." But still he waited a moment before taking her hand and pulling her toward the entrance.

Jon Andres was sitting on the slope in front of the byre with his back to them, watching his horse crop the gra.s.s in the homefield a little ways off. He turned and looked upon them, and Helga, like everyone who had ever seen him, noticed his handsome looks and graceful manner. He said, "I was pa.s.sing and I saw your belongings in front of the house. The steading is indeed abandoned, and therefore no more a concern of mine, but I do not wish its furnis.h.i.+ngs to be destroyed or stolen. You may look about as you wish."

Helga replied, "I am Helga Gunnarsdottir, and although I was born here, it is entirely new to me, and of great interest."

"I know who you are. I saw you from afar when I was carrying game and sheep to your father's steading some years ago."

Kollgrim flushed angrily and gripped Helga's hand so that it hurt, but said nothing. Helga said, "We had intended to make our way back to Lavrans Stead this evening, and as it is a long journey, we had better be off."

"Will you take meat with me at Ketils Stead? It is not far."

Now Kollgrim was gripping her hand so tightly that it was only with difficulty that she didn't cry out. "Nay," she said, "we must not take the time, but you are kind to invite us." Jon Andres nodded his head, and called his horse to him and mounted the beast. Only when he had ridden off did Kollgrim relax his grip. Helga turned upon him. "Now you have nearly broken my hand!" she exclaimed angrily. "And met his courtesy with rude silence! If you are so tall and so broad and so unafraid, then why have you let a woman speak for you?"

But Kollgrim, too, was angry. "I see that your eyes leapt to his quick enough, and your cheeks flushed when you talked to him! He is my bitter enemy, and he paid a compensation that was insultingly low for the injury he did to me!"

"It is you who has brought me here! If he is your bitter enemy, then it were best that you did not live cheek by jowl with him. But I can see in your eyes that such proximity is part of the attraction of this steading for you! Always it has been the case that you cannot bear not to look upon the trouble that you could avoid if you would. You would rather tease it toward you. I will not help you persuade father to claim this steading."

"Will you talk against me?"