The Greenlanders Part 18

"Even so, the folk at Solar Fell are used to good fortune, and none more so than the only daughter. I am not sanguine." Now Gunnar looked closely at Kollgrim, and said, "But nevertheless, my Kollgrim, I will not stand in the way of this betrothal, for your fate is your own, as is the case with all men, despite the views of their fathers. Perhaps if I support you in this, you will see that I am your friend."

"My mother will be pleased with the news."

"Pleased enough. More pleased if you should come to Lavrans Stead and tell it to her yourself."

"Now you must find Thorkel and Arni Magnusson and go with me to the lawspeaker's booth. It seems to me that we won't be disappointed in our reception." And they went off. After the betrothal was agreed upon, the Thing broke up, and folk went back to their own districts with much to talk about. Gunnar saw that Bjorn Bollason was indeed an easygoing fellow, for he made not the smallest objection to Sigrid's plans. And he saw that he himself was as easygoing as Bjorn Bollason, although perhaps not as sanguine.

After the Thing it was decided that the wedding between Jon Andres Erlendsson and Helga Gunnarsdottir would take place just before the autumn seal hunt, that is, on the feast of St. Bartholomew, or as close to that as those with calendars might agree upon. And now Birgitta came out of her bedcloset, and went alone with many of her belongings to Gunnars Stead, so that she could oversee the preparations. The wedding itself was to take place at Ketils Stead, for it is not considered seemly for a bride to be married out of her own steading, unless she be widowed. And so it was the case that Birgitta was often thrown into the company of Jon Andres Erlendsson, and at first these meetings disquieted her very much, for she was reminded of the summer of her pregnancy with Gunnhild, when it seemed to her that Vigdis was casting the evil eye upon her. Although folk said that it was remarkable (or worse) how little Jon Andres looked and acted like his parents, nevertheless, Birgitta saw his mother's eyes staring out at her from under the dark eyebrows, and was hard put to keep up the talk. But he was devilishly thoughtful of her, and always sent one of his fine horses for her to ride upon, with a handsome servingman to lead it, or else he came himself to Gunnars Stead, and they spoke at length of cheeses and dried meat and stews and roast ptarmigan, as well as tapestries that could be repaired, and benches and tables and the names of guests.

It seemed to her that the outbuildings of Gunnars Stead rested as peacefully in the wide sunny fields as icebergs floating in the blue fjord in midsummer. She said to Helga, "I have forgotten the pleasant aspect of this steading. The wind never blows here, more than to ruffle the outer hairs of the sheep. Ketils Stead has not such a favorable look about it."

"It seems favorable enough to me. This will be good for Sigrid Bjornsdottir. She is accustomed to agreeable surroundings."

"The servants there are well meaning, but ill-trained."

"If they are well meaning, then they may be well trained."

"Helga, have you no fears, then? Every bride goes to her husband as to a great enigma, hoping that not too much that is ill will be revealed, but in this case, it seems to me the enigma is insoluble, and that, every day, Jon Andres Erlendsson will be a great source of surprise to you."

"I have no fears." And Birgitta saw that this was the case. But it seemed to her anyway that Helga was doomed, and this came to her as a great certainty, but she drew from her certainty a special calm and saw that it is fruitless to argue with maidens about the husbands they choose.

Now the time of the wedding drew near, and Gunnar and Johanna and many of the servingfolk from Lavrans Stead put aside their work at that steading, and came to Vatna Hverfi, although Gunnar stayed far from Gunnars Stead. The weather continued warm and calm. Sira Pall Hallvardsson came to Undir Hofdi church, and opened up the priest's house and lived there for three weeks, and each week he held the services and called the banns. The priest's house was in great disarray, but Ofeig had apparently gone off to the south to some other district, for he was nowhere in Vatna Hverfi district all during the summer. Sira Pall Hallvardsson was so old now that he walked with a crutch, but folk still liked him better than Sira Eindridi Andresson, or the boy priest, Sira Andres Eindridason, who seemed to know little, and yet think quite well of himself. Of Sira Jon, who was still alive, no one spoke. No one even recalled him, except to say among themselves that once there had been a mad priest at Gardar, whose arms had swiveled in their sockets at the onset of his madness.

Now it happened that on the day before the wedding was to take place, a great s.h.i.+p sailed up Einars Fjord, and it was full of Icelanders, thirty-two of them, both men and women, and the case was that this s.h.i.+p was traveling to Iceland from Norway, and was blown off course, and the people on the s.h.i.+p were suffering greatly from hunger and exposure, for it was late in the season to be coming to Greenland, and the ice had already begun to float up from Cap Farvel and gather at the mouths of the fjords. When they heard this news, folk remarked that Larus the Prophet had indeed been right in his prophesying. And so it was that these thirty-two Icelanders, or at least those who had the strength for it, were invited to come to the wedding at Ketils Stead, and they brought a great deal of news and some good gifts, namely four chased silver goblets, a neatly carved ivory crucifix, and twelve of the new coins of Queen Margarethe, which were s.h.i.+ny silver crowns, beautiful but not so heavy as the old coins from the time of King Sverri.

One item of news was that the antipope still held court for the French in Avignon. Another bit was that Queen Margarethe had brought about the union of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark under one house, not only through fighting, but also through marrying and making treaties, and there were Germans and Danes overrunning everything in the north-no northern men did anything but sit at their farms, plotting against the queen, but indeed, the farms were so emptied out from the Great Death, that all these men could do was plot, for there were no armies to be made-all the peasants were in the fields, tilling, sowing, and reaping as hard as they could-and asking high wages to do it. What about the pope of Jerusalem, said the Greenlanders. The Icelanders greeted this with perplexity-were not two popes sufficient? But indeed, there had been a great conqueror in the east, by the name of Timur the Ferocious. After putting great cities to the sword, cities such as Damascus, where St. Paul received the Lord, and Baghdad, this demon would hitch a hundred beautiful maidens to his golden chariot and whip the clothing off them so that they pulled him until they dropped dead. And this was the least of the horrors he perpetrated. But there was no pope in Jerusalem. And folk said that this Timur had himself died not so long ago. It seemed a great thing to Jon Andres Erlendsson to have these Icelanders at his wedding, a good sign of what was to come. He set their gifts right beside those he had given Helga and those she had given to him.

Now the time came for the procession to the church, and Helga was brought out of one of the smaller rooms of the steading, and she wore only this, a simple robe of rich weaving, of a green color, decorated with white tablet weaving, and also a silver circlet around her head that was the bridal crown in the Ketils Stead lineage, and Gunnar held her by the arm, and when they came near to Jon Andres Erlendsson, he felt her jerk away from him, but not meaning to, only called out of herself by the presence of the husband she was about to take, and this movement of hers filled Gunnar with pleasure. Now the bride and groom went up beside one another, and began to walk through the valley to the church, and all the folk who had been invited to the feast walked behind them. The air was still and the sun shone brightly on the late summer green of the fields, and as Gunnar watched the backs of these two heads, his daughter and his former enemy, it seemed to him that he had shed the capacity of enmity itself, that he was preserved forevermore from acts of revenge. The groom turned his curly head and smiled upon the bride, who turned and smiled back at him, and Gunnar whispered to Birgitta, "This cub cannot be of the Ketils Stead lineage, but must be of the angels, for he has cast away the Greenlander's greatest pleasure, which is doing injury to those who have injured you."

Birgitta leaned toward him and cupped her ear, and he only said, "All signs seem favorable to me." And soon the bridal couple were at the church door, where they knelt and received Sira Pall Hallvardsson's blessing, then went inside for the ma.s.s and the wedding service. Jon Andres' servants had decorated the church with branches of birch and willow scrub, and many seal oil lamps burnt brightly about the walls. Afterward they returned for the feast, and folk marveled at the variety of viands, more at one time than most folk might see in a year, and this was the doing of Birgitta Lavransdottir, old and bent as she was. The feast went on for two days after the bedding of the bride, and then the time for the autumn seal hunt drew on, and the feast formed the substance of much of the talk on the seal hunt, the feast and the coming of the Icelanders, whom everyone wanted to catch sight of and hear about.

The leader of this s.h.i.+p was a man named Snorri Torfason, and he was a slight man compared to the Greenlanders, wiry and nearly bald, although folk said that he was but a young man, only thirty-five winters in age. He was quiet-spoken, almost sullen, folk said, but his s.h.i.+p was large and well fitted out. Those he had with him paid attention when he spoke, and looked to him in all things. There were six women on the s.h.i.+p, two of them sisters, and these were quite imposing women. Their names were Thorunn and Steinunn, and they were the daughters of a man prominent back in Iceland, whose name was Hrafn. They were married to a pair of cousins. Thorunn was married to Onund Sigmundsson, who was Snorri's special companion, and of the two women, Thorunn was the more outspoken and richly dressed. Steinunn was married to Thorgrim Solvason, who was a young man of looks and promise. All the Greenlanders were impressed by him. This Steinunn was more reserved than her sister, and always stood a little behind the other Icelanders. She was broad-shouldered and full-breasted, and altogether a fine-looking woman. There were, however, no unmarried women or nuns on the s.h.i.+p, as Larus had prophesied, and it did not seem to the Greenlanders that these six women would be leading them into the ways of holiness any time soon.

Bjorn Bollason was much impressed with these Icelanders, and brought Snorri and some of the others to live with him at Solar Fell, where he showed them the shrine of St. Olaf the Greenlander, and told them the story of Ragnvald and the martyrdom of St. Olaf. Other Icelanders lived about the eastern settlement, some at Gardar, a few at Brattahlid, one with Thorkel Gellison. A few of the sailors took over two adjoining abandoned steadings in Vatna Hverfi district, and the Greenlanders gave them some sheep and some reindeer meat. Now the time of the seal hunt and the reindeer hunt pa.s.sed, and autumn came on, and farmers began slaughtering their sheep for the winter. One day after the ground and the fjords had frozen, but before the deep snows, Gunnar went on foot and on skates up to Gardar, where he sought out conversation with Sira Pall Hallvardsson, and instead found Bjorn Bollason, and his family, and the Icelanders visiting and praying.

Now Gunnar came into the bishop's house, and there he saw Sigrid Bjornsdottir and spoke kindly to her and embraced her, for the wedding between her and Kollgrim had been set for Yule, and preparations were beginning, and it seemed to Gunnar that it might be a favorable thing after all, for indeed, the girl was pretty and neat, and everything she turned her hand to was well done. In addition to this, she spoke such merry and witty sayings, one after another, that Gunnar was quite taken with her. He said, "How seems my Kollgrim, then?"

"He seems as always, quiet and reserved, and much turned in upon himself, but it seems to me that he is pleased with things as they stand."

"I am not your father, Sigrid, but soon I will have such a fondness for you as a father has. With this in mind, I pray that you will be generous to my boy, for he knows not what he does, although his heart is warm, and his intentions are n.o.ble ones. It seems to me that he loves you as a man should love his wife, but you must teach him how to know it and let you know it."

"That does not daunt me." And Gunnar smiled at the fearlessness of women. Now he went to seek Snorri Torfason, and found him eating from a bowl of sourmilk. Bjorn and the others had gone into the cathedral. Snorri put down his spoon, and greeted Gunnar in a friendly fas.h.i.+on, and Gunnar told him to go on eating. "For I disturb you only on the chance that you may have news of folk that are dear to us, that is Bjorn Einarsson Jorsalfari, or his foster son Einar, who is married to my daughter Gunnhild."

"These are Borgarfjord folk, and not well known to me, for we are from the south of Iceland, near Hlidarendi, but indeed, who has not spoken in his time with envy of Bjorn Einarsson Jorsalfari, who is a man of great luck."

"Is Bjorn still living then? For he has not been heard from in these seventeen winters, since my daughter went away a child, and unmarried at that, for she was but fifteen winters old."

"It seems to me that Bjorn is not still living, but indeed, I have not been in Iceland for four winters myself, but have been living in Sunnfjord. Of Einar, I know nothing, but it may be that others of the s.h.i.+p's folk will know something, as a few of them are from the western districts near Borgarfjord."

"I hope to hear good news of Gunnhild, but every father must resolve to hear of the evils of childbirth, and so I am ready for that, too. But even with all of this, I am pleased that she finds herself in Iceland, as the affairs of the Greenlanders have gone so ill in late years."

Now Snorri sat up and grunted, and looked Gunnar up and down. "It seems to me," he said, "that the Greenlanders do quite well for themselves. The country is so rich in game that seals and reindeer hang drying about every steading, and the sheep are plentiful and free of plagues."

"We have few cows, anymore, though, and few horses enough. Our hillsides are overrun with goats. Not many folk cherish their goats."

"Even so, the Lord saves special punishments for the Icelanders, it seems to me. This girl, Steinunn, and her sister, Thorunn, whom we have with us-their steading was destroyed sixteen winters ago, and they were saved only because they were infants being fostered out at another steading."

"How destroyed?"

"Such explosions at Hekla the volcano as sounded even in the farthest districts of the westfjords, and these were accompanied by h.e.l.lfire shooting into the heavens, not only from the top of the mountain, but also from the surrounding forests, where the trees were seared as they stood, and this went on for two days and nights, and was followed by two days as black as midnight, and the air so thick with ash that folk considered that the earth had risen of itself and covered them. After this subsided, folk saw that a great avalanche had covered the entire steading of Langahlid, and scores of folk came out to look for Hrafn Bodulfsson but nothing of him was found, although the wife was uncovered and given burial. Some servingfolk were found dead in the byre, too. These girls, Steinunn and Thorunn, were with their mother's mother at another steading."

"This is special punishment indeed, but even so, the Icelanders have s.h.i.+ps, and go off to Norway and Germany for goods. The Greenlanders sit idly in their steadings and hope for life or death, whichever seems to them the most desirable at the time."

"Do the Norwegians have much for us Icelanders? Folk differ in their views on this. Most folk say that the Germans have stolen it all. They are an evil folk, but much preferred by the queen even so. At any rate, a dozen s.h.i.+ps in the harbor cannot replace all of the lost cattle, or the sheep, or the grazing lands, or the steadings. And when these s.h.i.+ps come, they bring goods, but, indeed, they also take away the queen's impositions of tax. Men are better left to themselves. That is my opinion."

"You have a bishop, the folk are blessed and married and buried, and prevented from falling away from the Lord through ignorance."

"You may say so."

"Indeed, we Greenlanders have had no bishop in nearly thirty winters, and of our old priests, the best educated one wastes away as a madman in a tiny chamber here at Gardar."

"We have had bishops, indeed, but they have been fighting men or fools. We are better without them. Folk do not want to hear the Lord speaking through such fellows. And here is another thing. I have heard this summer from s.h.i.+ps at Bergen that the Great Death has swept through the Icelanders, and many folk have been taken, although there has been no recent rising of this black miasma elsewhere, not in Norway or in Germany or even in England, where the venality of the folk makes them especially susceptible to this evil."

And to these speeches Gunnar had no reply except the usual remark that the priests say that the people can bear their burdens well enough, and to this Snorri grunted, and then he went back to his morning meat, and Gunnar went out of the bishop's house.

Now the winter came on, and folk were making their preparations, and it happened that some svid was stolen from a steading in Vatna Hverfi district, and after that some reindeer meat and some sealmeat, and from this, folk knew that Ofeig had returned to the district. Now men came together, and they agreed that any outlaw could be captured and killed, if his pursuers were sufficiently determined, and so Jon Andres Erlendsson, Arni Magnusson, and Hrolf, the brother-in-law of Thorkel Gellison, made it their purpose to find Ofeig and kill him. Sometimes Kollgrim Gunnarsson joined them, and he was especially valuable in his knowledge of signs and spoors, and folk say that this is a G.o.d-given boon that all men may not have, however attentive they are.

In this winter, there were three occasions when Ofeig was seen, and two when it seemed to Jon Andres that they might catch him. The first of these happened shortly after the first winter nights. Early one morning, long before sunrise, Jon Andres was lying with Helga in their bedcloset, when a boy came into the steading, and declared that there was a bear in the byre at Mosfell Stead, and that the farm folk had risen up upon realizing that Ofeig was in the byre and set boulders by the door, but indeed, there were some sheep and goats and other goods in the byre, and if Ofeig were to wake up, then surely he would kill these. Now Jon Andres leaped from his bed, and found his ax and his crossbow, and gathered his men, and they went on horseback over the frozen ground to this steading, which was not as nearby as Jon Andres might have wished it to be.

Mosfell Stead sat on a neck of land between two ponds that flowed out of Broad Lake, which was the second lake of Vatna Hverfi district. The steading sat on a hill looking down upon the lake, and the byre sat lower, so that from the steading, the turves over its roof seemed to blend into the hillside. The farmer on the steading was a woman who had three sons, but whose husband had died in the hunger, and it was this woman, whose name was Ulfhild, who had thought of rolling the stones against the byre door. When Jon Andres and his men rode up to the steading, Ulfhild and her sons and their children were standing in front of the steading and looking down at the byre, and the bleats of sheep and the cries of goats were coming from the byre, but m.u.f.fled by the turves. Ulfhild said to Jon Andres, "Now, my man, you must kill this devil, for a poor woman loves her sheep more than she loves her children, for the one puts food in her mouth, and the other takes it out, and I can tell the voices of my beauties as they cry out below."

But the eldest son was discontented with this, and fell to bickering, saying that the whereabouts of Ofeig Thorkelsson was no business of theirs, and that they were better to have let the fellow sleep out his fill and rise up and go off.

Ulfhild tightened her lips. "And who is to say, my fool, that he would not have gone off up the hill to our steading and rummaged about there? It seems to me that you think of nothing, and had better close your mouth than open it." And Jon Andres and his men dismounted and tethered their horses to the birch scrub that stood about the steading.

Jon Andres went down the hill to the door of the byre and shouted, "Folk say that bears have returned to Greenland." There was no reply. Now Jon Andres went on, "Folk say that in former days, it took ten men to capture a bear, but only six to kill it. We have ten men here, and would hate to use only six of them, for all are ready for a fight." Still there was no sound of human words, only the crying of beasts. But suddenly there was a great crash against the door, and the door shook with it. There was another crash, and the door shook again, and Jon Andres stepped back, and gestured to two of his men to come up to him, and this was their plan, that they would quickly and silently roll back the stones, so that Ofeig would crash out of the door and fall forward at their feet, and then they and the others would use their weapons against him, and capture him or kill him. The other seven men gathered in a tight circle some paces below the door, and the first three began to roll back the stones, but it happened that as one of the men was pus.h.i.+ng on his stone, quite a large one, Ofeig crashed against the door, which slammed into this fellow and knocked him down, then broke, and fell somewhat open. Instead of tumbling at their feet, Ofeig leaped out of the byre and jumped over the fallen man, and began to run down the hillside, and when he came to the circle of men, he dived and rolled through them, then regained his feet and ran down the hillside. A horse was grazing at the bottom of the hillside, the widow's only horse, and Ofeig jumped on this and began to beat it, and by the time Jon Andres and his men had climbed the hill to their tethered horses and mounted them, he was far away across the lake, and though they pursued him, they did not catch sight of him again.

When they returned to the steading later in the day, they saw that the part.i.tions in the byre were knocked down and that some sheep had their necks broken. In addition to this, the horse was lost, and so Ulfhild said, "It seems to me that you men are of little use in this." Jon Andres promised her two sheep and another horse, and they returned to Ketils Stead, and sat there quietly for a while.

It was the case that Helga went every day from Ketils Stead around the hillside to Gunnars Stead, and she prepared a meal for Kollgrim and set it out for him. It was also the case that she talked every day with Elisabet Thorolfsdottir, who was growing rounder and rounder with Kollgrim's child, and this child was expected to be born before Yule. Helga wished Elisabet to return to Lavrans Stead, or at least to remove to Ketils Stead before the confinement and the arrival of Sigrid Bjornsdottir after the wedding. But Elisabet Thorolfsdottir would have nothing of this, and whenever Helga spoke to her of it, she would sit patting her great belly and weeping. She wept shamelessly and without cease, soaking the front of her robe with tears, but this weeping seemed not to relieve her at all, nor to give her any strength to get up and move about the steading, even to prepare food or make a fire. In fact, the weeping had no strength, but rolled out of the girl as water rolls out of the mouth of a stream into the fjord. Helga was by turns sorrowful, angry, and amused, but nothing that Helga said or did had any effect on this weeping at all. Kollgrim came and went. He was tender and friendly toward Helga, more so than he had been in a year, and he paid no heed at all to Elisabet Thorolfsdottir.

This grieving cast a pall over Helga's spirits, so that she especially dreaded to see Jon Andres go off on one of his expeditions after Ofeig, and the whole time that he was gone she dreaded his return, for it seemed certain to her that he would come back to the steading injured or killed, as Greenlanders often do. Toward Yule it happened that Ofeig was seen again, this time at Undir Hofdi church, in the priest's house, and all the men at both Ketils Stead and Gunnars Stead, plus some others from nearby, went off in the middle of the night to capture him. Helga had to get up with them, and bring bowls of sourmilk around to the men, to her brother and her husband. They stood talking in the moonlight, their weapons in the snow at their feet, one tall, straight, and blond, so turned in upon himself that he did not raise his eyes from his feet, even when he was giving orders about the arrangements of things. The other, as tall, was supple and dark, and his eyes ranged over the horizon, over the other men, over Kollgrim himself, always taking measure, comparing one thing to another. When Helga handed him his bowl of sourmilk, these eyes fell upon her, and regarded her with pleasure, and this look, at such a time, seared her to her boots, but she only smiled in return and cast her own eyes down, as priests always say that it is good for a woman to do. Now the men mounted their horses, and rode off.

The first snowfalls of the season covered the ground with thick powder, and the horses kicked up great plumes of white in the moonlight as they trotted and galloped toward Undir Hofdi church. After no long time, both horses and men were silvery white from hood to hoof. The scheme was this, that they would arrive at the priest's house and surround it, but do nothing, and make no sound, only wait for Ofeig to arise and go outside to relieve himself in the snow, and then some men would close upon him with their axes. Should he escape these men, others would attack him with their crossbows as he was running off. No unarmed man would get near him, for such an unlucky fellow would surely gain his death, so strong was Ofeig known to be.

They came up to the dark bulk of the church in the moonlight, and they dismounted their horses and led them into the church, so that any noises the beasts might make would be m.u.f.fled by the turfing around those walls. The steading was dark and silent. Kollgrim estimated that it was still some time until dawn, for the days were nearly their shortest now. The men sat down in the snow with their cloaks and furs about them, and they watched for the door of the steading to open. Kollgrim had forbidden any talking at all.

Jon Andres sat cross-legged, warm inside his furs, and set himself to watch the door to the steading. Kollgrim was beside him to the left, and a servingman, Karl, who was especially good with a crossbow, beside him to the right. He looked over the heads of all the men, and back at the door to the steading, and he wondered if Ofeig was indeed inside, or if they were, with great effort, silently waiting out silence while Ofeig slipped away to another steading, to steal more food or kill more sheep. Folk in the district now habitually referred to Ofeig as "that devil," and more than a few looked to the Icelanders to do something about him, according to the predictions of the fellow Larus. It had been so long since Jon Andres himself had seen Ofeig, that when he heard of the deaths of the fellow Arnkel and his wife Alfdis, he, too, had seen something devilish in it. Now, however, it was not Ofeig's devilishness that made Jon Andres want to kill him, but the knowledge that Ofeig was a man like any other. If anything had brought this knowledge to Jon Andres, it was the sight of the fellow running and rolling down the long hillside at Mosfell, in clothes that were ill-fitting and too small, boots that were mismatched, a threadbare cloak. And he had Ofeig's face and hands and manner. He was Ofeig, whatever corruption seethed within.

Now it seemed to Jon Andres that much time had pa.s.sed since they had sat down, although the sky was no lighter, even to the east, and he was still warm in his furs. He looked over the other men. They sat as if cursed with spells, such spells as the skraelings know, that make a man motionless for days at a seal hole in the ice. Only Kollgrim had changed position, although soundlessly, without even a rustle of clothing. He was looking toward the church, and when Jon Andres followed his gaze, he, too, began to hear an intermittent noise, as if one of the horses had broken loose, and was moving among the others. Kollgrim turned and caught his eye, c.o.c.ked his head, and shrugged. Jon Andres was relieved. The noise was indeed a small one, and would be doubly m.u.f.fled to Ofeig's ears, inside the turves of the priest's house. Kollgrim turned back to the door of the steading, and watched intently. He had a predator's concentration, or a skraeling's. Jon Andres did not know what to make of his wife's brother, only that Kollgrim had not put aside the enmity between them, except for appearance. He would not, Jon Andres thought, ever put it aside, though he might save Jon Andres' life, or Jon Andres might save his. It seemed to him that unfriendliness formed the other man's backbone, unfriendliness and melancholia. And it was also the case that however much Jon Andres disapproved of this trait among the Greenlanders, he loved rather than hated Kollgrim for it. Helga had nothing to say to this. Her devotion to Kollgrim was a habit with her.

But still the darkness did not lighten, and no movement relieved the scene, and now Jon Andres himself felt the spell descend over him, yet he dared not move or change position, for he had not the talent of soundless movement. A strong memory came to him, of Ofeig as a child, when he sometimes came to Ketils Stead with Magnus Arnason, his foster father, the memory of Ofeig sitting over his trencher, and dipping his spoon into his broth, for he did it always in this wise, he would press the bowl of the spoon ever so slowly into the steaming liquid, as if protracting the pleasure of its filling, as if every mouthful was almost unbearably delicious, and Jon Andres, to whom meat was indifferent, watched every spoonful that went into Ofeig's mouth as closely as Ofeig did. Now, in the darkness, staring at the door of the steading, Jon Andres half expected it to open and disclose Ofeig the child, his spoon in his fist. And it seemed to him that the spell covered him more deeply, and only the alertness of Kollgrim offered hope for release from it. He grew afraid, although he was not by nature a fearful man.

Now Jon Andres lifted his eyes from the door of the steading, and even the movement of his eyes seemed to him to make a noise. He looked past the church to the fjord, icebound, beyond, and the black bulk of the mountains beyond that. It seemed to him that if he were to turn his head, and look back toward Ketils Stead, he would see Helga there, that he would see her turn her serious face toward him, as she did mornings, lifting her lids slowly and gazing candidly upon him. He had never thought of marrying before seeing Helga, and after seeing her, had never thought of marrying anyone else. This was another reason to kill Ofeig, for Ofeig hated him, and was clever enough to understand the most terrifying way to injure him. He did not turn his head, but he did lower his gaze again, just as Kollgrim made a sudden movement. The door to the steading was open, and Ofeig was lowering his head to step outside when he caught sight of the white figures in the white snow. He let out a great roar, and they were on their feet. Now all stood for a moment, gazing upon one another, except Karl, who let fly one of his arrows. It lodged in the turf beside the door.

Ofeig turned and began to run toward two Gunnars Stead servingmen who held the flank not far from Kollgrim. These fellows, Jon Andres knew, were little more than boys, although one of them had a good ax. Ofeig raised his arms, still roaring, and threw himself toward them. Kollgrim nocked one of his bird arrows. The boys stood their ground at first, then one of them stumbled backward, and Ofeig was upon him, felling him with one blow of his own ax. The arrow flew, and went short. Another of Karl's arrows flew, and lodged in the snow. Jon Andres ran around Kollgrim, and it seemed to him that Ofeig was nearly in his grasp. If he were only to run a bit faster or reach out more readily, he would put his hands upon the fellow. But he could not, and he began to shout, "Ofeig! Ofeig! Ofeig!" a command, a plea, an echo of childhood games. Ofeig glanced around once, perhaps at the sound of his voice, and one of Kollgrim's arrows lodged in his shoulder. Still running, Ofeig reached for it and ripped it out of the flesh and threw it down. Now he roared again, and raced ahead, toward the fjord, the river, and the mountains. They could not catch him, and by daylight he was gone. They went back to the church and gathered up the corpus of the Gunnars Stead boy and got their horses out of the church, and they were much cast down by these events.

A few days later, Helga returned to Ketils Stead from Gunnars Stead with the news that the wedding between Kollgrim and Sigrid had been put off until Easter for some reasons that both bride and groom agreed to, namely that Gunnars Stead was not ready to receive the bride (Elisabet Thorolfsdottir was still there) and Solar Fell was not ready to give her up. Such things were not unusual, and Helga thought nothing of the postponement, except that she was much angered with Elisabet Thorolfsdottir, and did not know what to do with her. Just before Yule, she gave birth to a boy child, but she showed little interest in it, and did not even care to give it suck, when her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were flowing with milk and soaking her robe to the waist. The child was named Egil.

At the Yuletide feasts, at Gardar and Solar Fell, as well as in Brattahlid and at Arni Magnusson's steading in Vatna Hverfi, the Icelanders were much in evidence, for it was the case that they had a great deal of news to tell over and over. It was also the case that a few of them knew how to tell long tales such as was the fas.h.i.+on to tell in Iceland. These were in rollicking, rhyming verse, and sometimes they were spoken, but often they were sung, and the women-Steinunn, her sister, and the others-were fond of dancing to them. The Greenlanders thought this a great entertainment. One of these rhymers was a man named Thorstein Olafsson, and he was a cousin of Snorri the s.h.i.+p's master, from the southeast of Iceland, and he was said to have a large steading there, with fifty cows and hundreds of sheep, which he shared with his brother. He was about twenty-five winters of age, and he had a great, rolling voice which he used to good effect when telling his rhymes. He also had this faculty, that he could make up verses at the moment, about such things as the evening meat or the look of the clouds above the fjord, and he could make these verses either in the old style or the new style, tight, as folk said, or slack. The Greenlanders thought well of him, and he stayed with the priests at Gardar, although there was much going back and forth between Gardar and Solar Fell all winter long.

Snorri the s.h.i.+p's master and Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker became good friends in this winter, and it was agreed between them that Bolli Bjornsson would go off with the Icelanders when they should depart, although when this might be, Snorri was not especially ready to decide. He was happy enough in Greenland, he said, especially as he knew not what he would find when he should return to his steading. The tales of the Great Death in Iceland were grim ones, that was a fact. He supposed that it was to be expected that the Greenlanders would be eager for news of elsewhere, but such news as Snorri brought with him he would not be eager to hear, if he were the Greenlanders, for it was all bad. For Snorri this winter, it was sufficient to go from bedcloset to table to the southern slope that lay before the steading and back to the bed-closet, where he lay under the furs and called out to such folk as were about to come and talk to him. The Greenlanders considered this peculiar behavior for such a well-thought-of s.h.i.+p's master, but Thorstein Olafsson only laughed and said that this was Snorri's nature-he didn't know what to do with himself on land, which was why he left his steading to his wife. Thorstein said that she was glad to have him off, since he never turned a hand to a lick of work. But indeed, he was a good s.h.i.+p's master, and had never lost any cargo, much less any folk, or a s.h.i.+p itself. On a s.h.i.+p he was as light and active as a goat, running here and there, seeing trouble before it appeared. Folk were glad to travel with him, if they must travel.

Bjorn Bollason did not seem to care that Snorri had supplanted him as the center of the household at Solar Fell. He spent enough time sitting in the doorway of the bedcloset himself, asking about this and that-what folk did in Norway and Iceland mostly. Snorri was especially fond of Sigrid, for the sake of her jests and merriment, and she got into the habit of sitting nearby every day, and he would tease her in this wise: "It seems to me that you will make a poor enough wife."

"Nay, indeed, I will make a good wife, a wife such as many men want but not all men deserve."

"And what sort of wives do most men deserve?"

"Little meek things, who serve up the sourmilk with a spoon and a wince."

"It is true that a wife must cast her eyes down before her husband."

"As men cast their eyes down before the face of G.o.d. Yes, folk say this, but wives who cast their eyes on the floor see nothing but their own feet."

"And what sort of wives do most men want?"

"Someone who will tell them what they might do, but not what they must do."

"And what sort of husbands do most women want?"

"Someone to tell them what they must do, but let them do as they please anyway."

"Indeed, you will make a poor wife."

"Nay, my betrothed is a great hunter and a bold man. He will have pleasure upon coming home to me, and I will have pleasure arranging his affairs for him."

"What else is there to know about him?"

"He is a handsome fellow. He is the brother's son of Margret Asgeirsdottir, whom you know."

"This old woman who speaks little?"

"She speaks when she has something of worth to say, or someone of worth to say it to."

"You are marrying the brother's son of a servingmaid?"

Now Sigrid colored, and fell silent, and Snorri could see that she was annoyed with him. She said, "Strangers bring news from afar, but they know nothing of the news at home. You have been to Vatna Hverfi district, so you must know that it is the richest of all the districts, and my Kollgrim has possession of one of the greatest steadings there, and his sister is married to the man with the greatest steading and the most other holdings. Margret Asgeirsdottir's tale is her own, and you would be a lucky man if she told it to you, for she has never told it to anyone." She paused, and then said, "She goes as a servingmaid of her own accord, but my father and mother consider her a guest, and the weaving she does for us in the nature of gifts to us."

Snorri smiled teasingly, and said, "There is no place for anger in a good wife."

"Then indeed, there is no place for honor or virtue, it seems to me. I am tired of this talk, and have many things to do." And so she got up, but the next day she came back, for Snorri was not an ill-tempered man, and his teasing was pleasant to her. After this talk, though, Snorri endeavored to have talk with Margret Asgeirsdottir, but she had nothing to say to him, no matter what he might say to her.

Another one who liked to talk to Sigrid Bjornsdottir was Thorstein Olafsson, and whenever he came over from Gardar, he made it a point to waylay her and amuse her with new verses that he had made, and it happened that one day when he appeared on skis with some other folk from Gardar, she went up to him and said as follows: Folk who pay for meat with song Must chew for a moment, and sing all evening long.

Thorstein was much pleased with this, and said as follows: But they may look while they sing Across the room, at smiles blossoming.

From time to time Kollgrim came to Solar Fell on his skis, bringing game for meat or furs, and he, too, was much drawn to the Icelanders. Although he said little to them, he watched them so that he made them uncomfortable. One day Snorri said to Sigrid, "Your betrothed has more eyes than tongue."

"That is a virtue in most folk, to look about but to keep foolishness to oneself. You may see the results of his ways in the furs he brings me and the broth you are supping so eagerly."

"This fellow seems to me the perfect Greenlander, half man and half bear."

"I see nothing of that in him."

"He looks at folk as if he were about to eat them up."

"And others look at folk as if they wished them to do their business for them. My Kollgrim will eat no one up, but other folk will succeed in having their work done for them."

"This sharpness ill behooves a good wife."

"As you have not seen your own wife in five winters, it may be that you have forgotten what behooves a good wife. But surely she has not, as she has carried on your business without you." And so their conversations went on, and Snorri spoke highly of Sigrid to Bjorn Bollason, but never to Sigrid herself, and Sigrid went to Snorri's bedcloset every day, but only as if she could not avoid it. Even so, the Icelanders continued to make little of Kollgrim, and said among themselves that the merry maiden was thrown away on such a sour fellow. And seeing Kollgrim, and his quiet ways, Thorstein Olafsson felt emboldened to talk with Sigrid more and more and beguile her with rhymes, many of which were about herself, and all of which made her laugh.

It was also the case that Kollgrim befriended his father's sister, and sometimes sat near her while she was weaving and spun bits of wool for her, for he, like Gunnar, had this knack, but they hardly ever exchanged words, and never spoke of Gunnar. It seemed to Margret Asgeirsdottir from time to time that it was Gunnar himself sitting beside her, but most times it did not seem like this. One day it happened that she was sitting at her weaving when Kollgrim appeared with a dozen hares, and then he sat down near Margret and looked at her work without speaking. Sigrid was away from the steading. Margret threw her shuttle quickly and rhythmically, hardly pausing to count her threads. She was weaving wadmal for one of Sigrid's s.h.i.+fts, and it was the purplish color that folk from Gunnars Stead were known by. A little time pa.s.sed, then Margret said, "It seems to me, my Kollgrim, that we are dead sticks among this chattering flock at Solar Fell."

"These Icelanders make a great deal of noise."

Now they sat silently again, listening to the click of the shuttle. Then Margret said, "But those who chatter are always apprehensive of those who say nothing."

"They may be. I have thought little of this."

"Asgeir Gunnarsson used to say of Hauk, his brother, that he could make killing the fiercest bear sound like a day at the b.u.t.ter churn."

"Some don't have the trick of storytelling."

Now Margret turned from the loom and looked Kollgrim straight in the eye, and she saw that he saw her and was listening to her, and she said in a low voice, "But some do." And they were silent again for a s.p.a.ce. Then she said, "It is not such a good usage to seek the waste places all the time."

"There must be meat on the table."

"And herbs and greens. But there must be folk in the steading as well. My father's brother took no wife, and no wife brought him sorrow and he brought sorrow to no wife."

"It is hard for a man with fixed habits to hear such things. I am accustomed to my sister Helga, and now she has been stolen from me, and all that folk do about it is to shrug their shoulders and say that that is the purpose of sisters, to go elsewhere."

"She has not gone far."

"Far enough. She thinks little of me anymore. Her heart is full of him."