Part 1 (2/2)

Now Hauk spoke up and said, ”Will the Ketils Stead folk be invited to the feast?”

”If they are not,” replied Asgeir, ”then Ketil will stand upon his fence and count our guests as they come into the steading, and in his opinion, he will be counting the heads of his enemies. It is better to have him inside the steading, where we can look upon him.” It was a fact that though Ketils Stead lay hard by Gunnars Stead, Asgeir and Ketil were ill-a.s.sorted neighbors, and always found much to disagree about.

Hauk smiled, and Asgeir looked at him briefly, then said, ”My brother, it seems to me that you are looking for a reason to absent yourself from the gathering, and seek the wastelands, even in the dead of winter.”

”It is certain that there are not a few pursuits I prefer to sitting about the steading with a lot of folk, stifling from the lamps and the talk.”

”Even so, you will not find a wife in the wastelands, unless she is a ghost or a snow demon.”

Hauk made no reply, and Ingrid spoke up and said, ”A wife would be ashamed to go with a man who wears feathered birdskins next to his flesh, as skraelings do.”

”And an old woman should be ashamed,” said Asgeir, ”to notice a young man's undergarments,” and he laughed merrily, for he was much pleased at the prospect of his feast, and it seemed to him that he had repaid Ingrid handily for her prediction concerning the mead.

Now the day of the feast came around, and many folk came from Gardar and other farmsteads to Gunnars Stead, and it was Margret's task to help with the serving, but also, of course, to keep her eye on Gunnar. She sat him at a bench with Skuli and Jona Vigmundsdottir, the wife of Thorkel. Margret was a little shy of Jona, though Jona was but a few years older, in part because Jona was married, but largely because Jona had been born in the western settlement. Those folk had come in many small boats, hugging their sheep and goats to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sitting on what remained of their wealth, carrying tales of year after year of bad weather-rain and ice all winter, wind and wind-blown sand all summer, fights at the Northsetur hunting grounds between Nors.e.m.e.n with their axes and skraelings with their bows and arrows. They had arrived thin and remained thin, most of them, moving to vacated farms in the southern parts of the eastern settlement, or taking service in Brattahlid or at Gardar. Once, Asgeir said, it was the western settlement where the wealthy Greenlanders lived, but now not even the attractions of the Northsetur, where men went to hunt narwhal, polar bear, and walrus, could compensate for the dwindling of stock in the homefield. Men must eat mutton and cheese and drink milk. A diet of wild food makes them demons. Now only a few of the hardiest souls, like Hauk, went to the Northsetur, and most folk sought the eastern wastelands, though the game there was not as plentiful.

Even the fact that Jona had been married at such an early age betrayed her as a westerner, for these farmers from the west were anxious to get their daughters off their hands, and find them places at other folks' tables. Gunnar sat across from her, and Margret set a big basin of sourmilk and a small one of honey between them. Jona had one child, Skeggi, some two winters old, who sat beside her. Gunnar pa.s.sed the time making faces at the child, and Skeggi, who was a bold, defiant boy, only laughed at whatever Gunnar attempted. Soon some young men from Gardar took places at the bench, and when Margret brought them basins to eat from, they said their names were Olaf Finnbogason and Halldor Karlson. Halldor was another of the boys from the s.h.i.+p, and he and Skuli were much pleased to see one another.

Margret knew of Olaf, though she had never seen him. He was a boy from Brattahlid, whose father had died on a seal hunt one year, and his mother had sent him to Gardar to be made a priest. He was a quiet boy, thick and short of stature, about Margret's own age. His spoon, which he took out of his spooncase rather furtively, was of Greenlandic horn, and a bit of the bowl was broken off, too. The sailor boys had wooden spoons, and Skuli's, especially beautiful, was of carved Norwegian ashwood, decorated with cl.u.s.ters of grapes. Margret had admired it before. She went off to serve some other folk, then sat down beside Gunnar to eat her own meat.

Skuli and Halldor had dipped portions of honey onto their sourmilk, and Halldor was saying, in a loud voice, ”Who are these Greenlanders that they have never tasted honey before?” To Olaf, he said, ”Just because of the color, you think it is horse p.i.s.s?”

Olaf sat silent, red-faced, and Halldor and Skuli began to laugh. Gunnar joined them. Margret spooned some of the honey onto her sourmilk, and looked encouragingly across at Olaf, but he ignored her. Just then there was a commotion, and Ivar Bardarson could be seen taking something from the sack he had brought. There were three of them, large and roundish, like stones, and about the color of stone, too. The guests muttered and laughed. Ivar Bardarson had brought bread, something most Greenlanders had never seen, for Greenlanders have neither grain nor yeast, and make do with dried sealmeat for their b.u.t.ter. Asgeir stood up with a shout, and called for his servant to bring in the vat. It was a great success. Ivar and Asgeir had each surprised the other, and the guests were more than eager. The Norwegians had tasted no drink in half a year. Some of the Greenlanders had never tasted drink in their lives, as there are no beehives, nor grapes, nor barley in Greenland and men can refresh themselves only with water and milk.

When Margret returned to her place, Olaf was silent, and Jona was talking with Skuli about the voyage.

”How long was your journey?” she said.

”Six weeks, by Thorleif's stick calendar.”

”Is that long for such a journey?”

”We were hungry enough when we got here.” Skuli and Halldor grinned.

”Were there storms?”

Halldor replied, ”Thorleif says that there must be as many storms in every crossing as the s.h.i.+p can bear.” Suddenly, Olaf Finnbogason grabbed the basin of honey and poured its entire contents over his meat.

”Ho! Greenlander!” shouted Halldor, loudly enough to attract the attention of folk at other benches. ”You have doused your meat in the horse p.i.s.s and left none for the rest of us!” And he brought his fist down on Olaf's spoon, which lay between the two of them. The handle of the spoon broke off at the bowl. First Gunnar, then Skeggi, then even Jona began to laugh at Olaf's embarra.s.sment, for his face truly flushed purple to his hairline. Other folk smiled and called out. Margret stood up, but really she didn't know what to do, because all of the Gunnars Stead spoons were being used for serving, and anyway, it was customary for a man to carry his own spoon about with him. Just then, Skuli Gudmundsson exclaimed, ”Halldor, it is always the case that you make more trouble than pleasure,” and he reached his foot under the eating board and kicked Halldor backwards off the bench. Then, amidst the gasping and laughter of the guests, he pushed his ashwood spoon across to Olaf and said, ”Have this one, Olaf Finnbogason. It is carved of st.u.r.dy wood, and will fit in your spooncase, to boot.” Olaf muttered his thanks, and stared at the elaborate spoon, but did not pick it up.

The steading was in a great uproar. It seemed to Margret that everyone was shouting, and she was not surprised when Gunnar climbed upon her lap and nestled fearfully there. All about, men were calling out to one another, smiling, scowling, and pouring down the mead, which Margret herself had tasted and found too sweet. Asgeir's face was as florid and s.h.i.+ny as anyone's, and Margret could see him, thumping the s.h.i.+pmaster repeatedly on the back. Margret had never seen her father behave in this way. Margret hugged Gunnar tightly.

Now it happened that Ingrid appeared and herded the children, including Jona and Skuli and Halldor, into one of the other rooms of the steading, where there were two bedclosets. All sat down in the doorways of the bedclosets and prepared to listen to a tale.

Ingrid told them one of her best, the tale of Thorgils the foster son of Orrabein. Even Jona sat open-mouthed at the familiar story of the big s.h.i.+p leaving Iceland with Thorgils and his folk, some thirty of them. They sailed late in the season into a huge storm, and the seas were so high that heaven itself disappeared from sight, unless you were to lie down in the bottom of the boat and look straight up. Two thralls were carried overboard by waves and another would have been had Thorgils not caught him by the s.h.i.+rt just as the wave took him. It happened that the storm lasted many days and nights, which proved that it was a magical storm, the fruit of a curse, and indeed they were cursed, for they were cast up on the eastern coast of Greenland, far from the settlements, and their s.h.i.+p was broken up in the ice floes. Before the onset of winter, Thorgils and his folk managed to build a booth and to kill some of the many seals that frequented the area, and indeed, the seals were not seals, because they smiled like men and came close to the booth. The folk inside could hear the swis.h.i.+ng and flapping of the seals as they walked round and round the booth. But men have to eat, so they did eat the sealmeat, although Thorgils' old mother said that they were the souls of the men who had been washed overboard. In that year many of Thorgils' party died of the bleeding disease, but Thorgils' wife gave birth to a son, who was called Thorbjorn.

One day Thorgils sent his steward to fish with the thralls, while he himself climbed up to the nearest icefield to get a view of the pack ice. When he returned, he found the steward and thralls to have disappeared, taking the s.h.i.+p's boat and all the stores of food. Thorgils' wife, they discovered, lay upon a bench in the booth, murdered, and the baby was suckling the corpus.

At this, though all Greenlanders know the story quite well, for it is a true story, the children let out little cries, and Margret s.h.i.+vered.

Thorgils took his knife and cut into his own nipple and put the baby to suck. First came blood, then clear serum, then, at last, milk, and Thorgils suckled his own child thereafter, and discovered for himself what is possible in Greenland, where folk must learn new ways, or die.

Now the outcry in the hall had settled down, and Ingrid said that it was far past bedtime. The hall of the farmhouse was in great disarray, with benches pushed back and overturned and men and women slumped where they sat, asleep. Ingrid looked about. ”Indeed, it is unlikely that this will be the only mess to clean up from this mead drinking.”

Sometime later, the news got about the district that Sigrun Ketilsdottir had been raped by one of Thorleif's men, Ragnar Einarsson, on the night of the feast. Some folk said that Ragnar might not have been the first accused, had Sigrun been differently disposed in the past, but others said that Thorleif's men did not all comport themselves as well as they might, and, furthermore, sailors are what they are.

It happened that one day Ketil and his son Erlend surprised Ragnar in the southern part of the district, where he was over-wintering with some Greenlanders, and they abducted him to Ketils Stead and beat him. Only the intervention of their servants prevented them from killing the sailor in anger, thereby having to pay compensation rather than receiving it.

Now it was well into Lent, but Ivar Bardarson left Gardar and came to Gunnars Stead on skis, and he and Asgeir decided between them that the case must be settled quietly in Vatna Hverfi district, and not taken to the Thing, where most cases were settled. No need to let matters stew until the summer, said Ivar, for it was not such a large incident, although Ketil might make it so. Ketil was well known to be a litigious man. The two went early the next morning around the hill to Ketils Stead, and the result was that Ketil received some compensation for the rape of his daughter, amounting to six large sheep, six goats, and three good milking cows from Asgeir, since the drink served at his feast had gone to Ragnar's head, and from Thorleif's store of untraded goods he received a small amount of barley seed, a vat of pitch, and four iron wheel hubs. Ragnar was allowed to leave Ketils Stead and return to Gardar, where, some folk said, Thorleif ought to finish what Ketil and Erlend had begun. But Thorleif simply laughed at Ragnar's stupidity and did nothing.

As soon as the snow melted and the gra.s.s greened in the spring, Asgeir had the south end of the cowbyre torn down. The cows were carried out into the homefield. This spring there was no hay left at all, but the gra.s.s turned early, and a few of the younger cows were able to stand up almost as soon as Asgeir and Hauk set them down. Others were not so st.u.r.dy, but Asgeir said that they would eat their way back to health, and put Gunnar and some of the other boys to pulling the moist gra.s.s and carrying it to the leaner beasts. After four days all the cows but one old one were on their feet and grazing in the homefield. That was not much of a loss for one winter, and the sheep and goats, too, had lasted well, without sickness. Skuli Gudmundsson said that his father, and other farmers in his district in Norway, did not hold with walling up the cows for the winter, and Asgeir was surprised at this, for it is well known among the Greenlanders that in addition to winter gra.s.s being unsuitable for a cow's stomach, winter light hurts their eyes and has been known to blind more sensitive beasts. Skuli said he had never heard such things.

Margret was extremely fond of her uncle, Hauk Gunnarsson, and in this spring, as Hauk was not going often to the wastelands, they spent a good deal of time together in the hills above the farmstead. They were of like temperament, and sometimes they went for an entire day without speaking. Such days were a relief to Margret, for the nurse Ingrid was always chiding her to speak up, or to adopt softer ways, for soon enough she would be wanting a husband, and it was good to develop pleasing habits early.

Hauk's hunting prowess was well known among the Greenlanders, and Asgeir had joked more than once that he was not going to be the one who probed into what skraeling tricks his brother might have taken up. There was no telling what a Christian man could learn from the demons in the north. Nor did Margret ask questions, but she watched with eager, though veiled, curiosity, every time he set a snare or a trap, every time he fingered a bit of a plant, or plucked it and put it in his pocket. She followed in like manner his gliding, calm, and silent gait, and emulated the utter stillness of his posture when he paused to listen for the sound of a hare or a fox in the underbrush. She had seen him, in other times, bend suddenly and pick up a hare by the leg or a fox by the neck, but he denigrated his own skills-skraelings, he said, could stand still as a stone over a seal's breathing hole, sometimes for two days and nights, and even then have the wit to sense the seal rising through the water and fling a harpoon suddenly downward to make the kill. A skraeling man could walk over ice in the fjord so quietly that the seals swimming below would not hear him, sharp as they were. ”It may be,” he said, ”that we Greenlanders, with our sheep and our cows and our great stone churches are not so well off as we think, and the skraelings, with their howling dogs and everlasting moving about are not so badly off as we think.” And that was all Margret ever heard him say on the subject.

One day, the sailor boy, Skuli, came up to Margret and handed her a bird cage that he had made from willow withes, and he told her only that her uncle had asked him to make it, and showed him the proper shape. Margret thanked him for his work, and her uncle came up behind her, and nodded at it, but he did not say what it was for. Some days later, when Margret was in the hills with Hauk, and he was laying snares for ptarmigan, she saw him do a thing that she had never seen a man do, and that was to reach out to a lark perched on a branch of birch and take the bird in his hand. Then he closed his other hand gently over it, and put it in his pocket. When they returned to the steading, he took it, still living, out of his pocket, and put it in Margret's cage. ”Now,” he said, ”when the bird sings to you, think of his song as your uncle telling you a tale, for if it had been up to me to choose a shape to be born in, I would have chosen such a shape as this.”

Now Skuli went back to Gardar, and he gave Gunnar a great parting gift, such a gift as belonged to no child in the eastern settlement-a carved model of Thorleif's s.h.i.+p, with six men sitting in it and a sail made of gray wadmal that could be taken down and put up again, and Thorleif himself standing in the bow. The tiny mouth of the figure was open, as if it were laughing. He also had a small gift for Asgeir, a tiny k.n.o.b of soapstone in the shape of a seal, as smooth and s.h.i.+ny and wet-looking as the real thing, Asgeir said.

Thorleif and his men were hard at work tarring and repairing their s.h.i.+p, and sewing up rents in the sail, even though there was still a great deal of drift ice in Eriks Fjord. Thorleif, Asgeir, and Ivar Bardarson spoke of the winter, as men must when they meet for the first time in the spring. The hall at Gardar had been covered, almost completely, by a snowdrift, all through Yuletide and a while thereafter. ”Not so bad,” said Ivar, though Thorleif rolled his eyes. Had not an old couple in Isafjord died of cold inside their own steading, with seal oil still in the lamps? ”Isafjord folk,” said Asgeir, ”expect the worst and, often as not, receive it.”

The feast of St. Hallvard came on and Margret was twelve winters old. Thorleif, for all his declarations, lingered at Gardar, and his sailors were about Vatna Hverfi district, still. Margret, Ingrid said, must stop her wandering about the hillsides and tend to her weaving and her spinning and to the making of such provisions as all women devote their lives to. And Gunnar. Asgeir glowered down at Gunnar. Gunnar must not grow up sitting about the steading and telling tales to the servingwomen, but must turn his hand to such farm work as he was capable of.

And this, too, was to be the case, that Gunnar was not to sleep in Margret's bedcloset any longer. He might sleep with Karl, one of the younger servants, or by himself.

”Not even dogs sleep by themselves,” said Gunnar. But he would not sleep with Karl, and so he lay by himself every night in the big bedcloset that had horseheads carved upon it.

Now it happened that the young man Olaf Finnbogason came around the hill from the landing place at Undir Hofdi church, and Asgeir said that he had come to teach Gunnar to read, and that Gunnar could have Olaf in his bedcloset with him if he cared to. And Gunnar took a small soapstone basin off the eating board and threw it against the stones of the wall, but he was not punished, and everyone went out of the steading, and when Gunnar came out later, they were all hard at work.

Olaf received as payment from Asgeir a new s.h.i.+rt, new stockings, and new shoes. He was given a bedcloset, a place at the bench, and his own cup and trencher. He brought the ashwood spoon that Skuli had given him and two books from Gardar. For seven days he sat with Gunnar for a while each morning and showed him the books. Gunnar said that they were poor things, and teased Olaf unceasingly about going outside, or eating something, or getting a drink, or any of a number of activities that Gunnar preferred to puzzling out the words that Olaf set for him. Finally, Asgeir said that they might put the books away for a day or so. On that day, Olaf helped manure the homefield, and Gunnar helped sc.r.a.pe the second field for seeding with the barley and oatseed Thorleif had traded to them. On the following day, Asgeir awoke early to find that the cows had broken into the homefield, and the farm folk spent most of the day rounding up cows and repairing the stone fence. After that, Asgeir said that reading was a winter amus.e.m.e.nt, but that Olaf needn't return to Gardar until the old priest asked for him.

Sigrun Ketilsdottir was now far along with her child by Ragnar Einarsson. It was also the case that Ketil's flock had been hard hit by disease during the winter, and five of the six sheep he had received as compensation had died. Of this event, Erlend Ketilsson, who liked to go about the district and put his feet under other folk's tables, had much to say. Asgeir shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his own healthy flock. Many folk said that Ketil had not been blessed in his children. Only luck, they said, had preserved Sigrun from motherhood before this, and Erlend was a blowhard and a complainer. Nevertheless, folk thought that Ragnar Einarsson would do well to marry Sigrun and settle at Ketils Stead, or even to take Sigrun back with him to Norway. Sigrun herself said, ”Folk live prosperously in Norway as well as in Greenland.” But Thorleif said that as far as he knew, none of his sailors had come to Greenland to find a wife. It was certain that Thorleif and his sailors were eager to begin their return journey. Their s.h.i.+p was fully repaired and made ready, and Thorleif was collecting provisions and finis.h.i.+ng his trading.

It was the custom, from time to time, for Greenlanders from all parts of the eastern settlement to gather far to the south, at the mouth of Alptafjord, where there were great birdcliffs, and many eggs in the spring. Asgeir, for one, considered these eggs a treat, and there was always the opportunity for much talk with folk from the south. In this spring, he was moved to go to the egg gathering for the first time in a number of years, and declared that Margret and Gunnar would go along. They would stay with Thord Magnusson in Siglufjord, near the hot springs. Thorkel Gellison, too, would go.

The nesting sites were on the seaward face of the island. West of this island, Thorkel told Gunnar, was Markland. The open ocean, which Gunnar had never seen before, was deep and blue, and it beat against the birdcliffs with a roar. There was no birch scrub, nor any other vegetation-the cliffs glared white in the high sunlight, alive and teeming with skuas and gulls. The skies resounded with bird cries and the rush of beating wings.

Gunnar carried a small willow basket full of moss with a loop to hang it over his shoulder, and Asgeir firmly grasped him by the hand and pulled him up the slippery rockfaces toward the nesting grounds. Ahead of them, Kristin, the wife of Thord Magnusson, and her two children scattered over the cliff. Kristin was very quick. She would raise her basket and shout, then bend down and pick up one or two of the eggs in the nest, which she would weigh in her hand and hold up to the sunlight. Some she kept and others she set back into the nest. Asgeir said to Gunnar that these were too old-the birds inside them had already begun to grow. He picked one up and weighed it in his hand, then cracked it. Inside was a yellow ma.s.s with feet and a beak that Gunnar could make out. Asgeir picked up another and held it up to the light for Gunnar. There were no shadows through the translucent sh.e.l.l. Asgeir nodded and Gunnar placed it in his basket. When, a while later, Gunnar showed Asgeir that he had gathered ten good eggs, Asgeir looked at him and said, ”My son, were there eggs to be gathered every day, I might have some hope for you.”

Some time later, Asgeir took Gunnar by the hand and eased him down the side of the cliff. Below him, drawn up on the strand, were many other boats from many other farms in the eastern settlement. Folk were standing about on the sand, talking and eating. Emboldened by Asgeir's praise, Gunnar said, ”My father, can all of these folk be Greenlanders?”

”By Ivar Bardarson's estimation, there are some hundred and ninety farms in the eastern settlement alone, and that was before the coming of folk from the west, too. Ivar Bardarson has talked of writing a great account of the Greenlanders, through which all the folk of the world will learn what is really the case with us.”

”Then Ivar Bardarson has learned to read, like Olaf?”

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