Part 8 (2/2)

Now Lavrans waited for a long time, then he spoke in a low voice. ”One at least blinds your sight. One at least has brought you some ill luck already, more than a newborn babe has brought you. One at least will do much harm before he does good, because the devil draws him on.”

”He is lively, indeed, but not ill disposed.”

”He is disposed to do as he pleases until everyone around him is displeased. Then he is content.”

Now Birgitta stood up, and she was much offended, and she took the new baby from her father and put her in the bedcloset, and after this Birgitta chatted little with her father, and always spoke to him in a cool and formal tone of voice.

In the middle of the summer, sometime around the feast of St. Benedikt, a s.h.i.+p painted bright colors and sporting a red and white sail rode into Hvalsey Fjord, and stood off Lavrans' tiny landing until Gunnar, who was herding sheep down by the water, motioned it to approach. This was a s.h.i.+p belonging, of course, to Bjorn Einarsson, and Bjorn and Einar and twelve other men, including Thorkel Gellison, disembarked. Gunnar made them welcome and asked after the news in Vatna Hverfi district and at Gardar, and Thorkel told him the following tale: At the previous Yule, Vigdis, the wife of Erlend Ketilsson, declared herself divorced from Erlend, although they had never been married by a priest, and moved away from Ketils Stead and installed herself with a steward and six servants and Jon Andres Erlendsson at Gunnars Stead, and when folk, such as beggars and travelers, came about looking for hospitality and gossip, she sent them off speedily without either. Erlend, on the other hand, seemed willing to entertain everyone in the district, and sent out messengers inviting folk to not one but two feasts, except that when folk arrived for the first of these feasts, Erlend had made no preparations, and acted as if he had invited no one, and when folk arrived for the second of these feasts, more to see what was going on than in the expectation of festivities, he served up much food, but it was all nearly rotten or badly cooked, and he spent the whole time making much of one of his servants, a fat, gap-toothed girl who dressed herself in all of Vigdis' finest gowns, and all at once, one on top of the other.

After these feasts, Vigdis stopped being so unfriendly, and indeed, invited folk to Gunnars Stead and made them talk of Erlend and Ketils Stead and this servingmaid until they were hoa.r.s.e, for she couldn't get enough of any tale. And in addition to this, she had her servants take down the stone wall around the great field Erlend had won from Asgeir and Gunnar, and rebuild it so that the field was again part of Gunnars Stead, and any of Erlend's servants who were found trying to manure the field were driven off by Vigdis' servants.

And after Thorkel told this tale, which the Lavrans Stead folk found very interesting, Bjorn took Gunnar aside and asked for Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir as a bride for Einar his foster son, and he listed all of Einar's a.s.sets in Iceland and said also that he had given Einar the very s.h.i.+p that they had sailed in to Hvalsey Fjord, which was a large enough s.h.i.+p for seafaring, but nimble and neat. And Gunnar replied, as all men do, that he would leave the decision to his daughter, though he had no doubt that she would agree, but he made one condition, on account of the girl's age, that she stay at home, only betrothed, until she was the age that Birgitta had been on her marriage, and, should Bjorn choose to leave Greenland before that time, that she would go away under the protection of Solveig Ogmundsdottir, and live with her as a daughter until she reached the proper age. Bjorn and Einar agreed to this condition, and after that, the men from the s.h.i.+p stayed for two days, feasting and celebrating the betrothal.

When it came time for them to leave, Gunnar had a great desire to go with them on the s.h.i.+p, although it was only going to Gardar, and it was arranged that he and Sira Pall Hallvardsson would go on the s.h.i.+p and then return in Gunnar's big boat, which would be towed along behind. And Gunnar agreed to return some five days hence, the night before Sira Pall Hallvardsson held his Sunday service. At the last minute it was agreed that Kollgrim would go along.

When they went onto the s.h.i.+p, Gunnar was much impressed, for the s.h.i.+p was deeper and wider than she looked from the outside, and had room for a fair number of goods. In addition to this, she was built of six different kinds of wood, including a tall, straight Norwegian fir trunk for the mast. The pieces of the keel were neatly joined, and the strakes nailed to the hull with wooden pegs. This s.h.i.+p, Bjorn declared, had never been damaged, for it was but six years old. Indeed, the carving along the gunwales and the prow, of leaping fish entwined with galloping reindeer, was fresh and sharp. All of the lines and casks and planking and other equipment was of the finest sort.

Pa.s.sage to Gardar, out of Hvalsey Fjord and up Einars Fjord to the Gardar landing, took but half a day, for Bjorn caught a good wind, and the s.h.i.+p sailed quickly. As a rule, men from Hvalsey Fjord counted on two days when rowing to Gardar, and would stop for the night at Sudarstrand, where men from Vatna Hverfi kept a landing and some pasturage.

When they arrived at Gardar, they saw that Sira Jon had been looking out for them, for he himself ran down to the landing place and began at once greeting Bjorn Einarsson and asking him questions. Before the s.h.i.+p was even drawn up on the strand, he was hurrying everyone up to the Gardar hall for food and other refreshments. Sometime later he began asking Bjorn how long he would be staying, and how quickly he cared to return to the farms he had been given, and it was apparent to Gunnar that Sira Jon did not mean to let the other man go.

Sira Jon was much older-looking now. What hair he had about the sides of his head was nearly gray, and his cheeks had sunk so that his eyes blazed out somewhat as Bishop Alf's had done. But he did not draw himself up proudly, as his uncle had, and instead seemed to hang his head before Bjorn as a dog does before its master. His face composed itself into youthful smiles and eager looks, and Gunnar saw Pall Hallvardsson watching him from afar. After eating he took Bjorn aside and showed him the accounts and told him the news of Gardar even though Bjorn had only been away for some ten days or so. He also spoke loudly of a dream that had come to him the night before. In this dream, which all about were able to hear, Sira Jon was transported to the cathedral at Nidaros, except that this cathedral was more magnificent even than that one, and looked as Bishop Alf had often described the great cathedrals he had known as a young man. In this cathedral, hundreds of folk in brilliant clothing sat bowed in prayer, and the colored light of the surrounding gla.s.s played over them. Now, at the far end, a great priest arose, and this was the archbishop of Nidaros, although his name was never mentioned, and he declared as he stood before them that he was consecrating his greatest bishop and sending him to Greenland in a giant s.h.i.+p, and this s.h.i.+p would be carrying to Greenland all manner of wealth, from the most mundane sorts of seed and tar to the richest and most beautiful of golden vessels and wallhangings, and he lifted one of these last up, and the colors of the gla.s.s penetrated it, and glowed within it. And then, as if by a miracle, Sira Jon had seen himself running down to the landing and greeting this bishop and making him welcome, and he had risen from the dream and prayed a great prayer of thanks to the Lord for communicating his purposes to Sira Jon, for this dream bore all the marks of a prophecy, namely that he dreamt it in the morning, and that he had eaten nothing before going to bed but the blandest and mildest of foods.

Now, after this, Sira Jon and the others expressed the hope that these things were indeed true, and that a new bishop would be arriving soon, and some folk spoke of the dream in one way, as a prophecy, and others spoke of it in another way, as a delusion, but Bjorn only listened and nodded and did not enter into gossip concerning the dream. After these events, Bjorn and Einar approached Sira Jon with the news of Einar's betrothal to Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, and then Gunnar stepped forward and greeted Sira Jon and was greeted politely in return, except that after every sentence Sira Jon glanced at Bjorn as he had once glanced at Bishop Alf. Then Gunnar brought Kollgrim forward and introduced him, for Kollgrim had never visited Gardar before, and Kollgrim stepped up boldly, kissed Sira Jon's ring, and then, rather than stepping back, stood and stared freely into the priest's face, with his eyes wide open and challenging, for indeed, Kollgrim had never learned to veil his gaze in a courteous manner. Gunnar stood to the side of him, and a little behind, and did not interfere, but only watched the priest and the boy with evident amus.e.m.e.nt. When Sira Jon finally turned away, somewhat agitated, Gunnar only smiled and said to Sira Pall Hallvardsson, ”So, we are not made better friends by this branch of the Asgeir lineage.” Sira Pall Hallvardsson shook his head with disapproval.

Shortly after this, it got to be time for everyone on the place to retire, for the three priests, with Pall Hallvardsson, kept canonical hours, and so Gunnar and Kollgrim were shown a small chamber with a seal oil dish for light and heat and a pile of reindeer hides on the floor for them to sleep upon and wrap themselves in. Kollgrim was very disdainful of these provisions and declared that the floor stank, although no one had inhabited the room in a number of winters and Gunnar did not find the room unusually dirty. By the dim, flickering light of the lamp, Gunnar spread out the reindeer skins to make a soft bed for his son, then tucked others tightly about the boy. Finally, he lay down and settled himself to go to sleep, but Kollgrim would take no rest. He bounced and fidgeted, threw off his coverings, and turned awry so that his foot was in Gunnar's belly. Gunnar sat up and looked at him by the light of the lamp and saw that, though his eyes were open, the boy was nearly asleep. Gunnar lay down again. But still the boy wiggled beside him so that every time sleep came, Kollgrim sent it off again. Gunnar sat up. Kollgrim was still in this state of open-eyed dreaming that he had been in before, and Gunnar found this oddly provoking, although as a rule, he did not often allow himself to be provoked to anger about anything. It was true that when he was angered, it was Kollgrim more often than not who had caused it. Now the boy cried out pettishly in his sleep, as if put out by something, and Gunnar leaned over and shook him until he seemed to wake up, but when Gunnar spoke his name in a sharp voice, the boy made no response. Gunnar shook him again. Kollgrim's eyes closed. At last, Gunnar dealt the boy a blow upon the side of the head, and he woke up.

If there needed to be any proof that an imp was in partial possession of the child, then this was it, that after jumping about so, and causing such difficulty, Kollgrim opened his eyes, with their fan of lashes, and looked at Gunnar in guileless question, as innocent and well disposed as any child could be, as Johanna herself looked when she awakened between Birgitta and Gunnar in the morning. Now Gunnar said, ”It is true, boy, that my father Asgeir was greatly disappointed with me, and went about asking whether he could change my name from Gunnar, which was the name of his father, to Ingvi, which was a strange name, and the name of a stranger, my mother's father in Iceland. But it seems to me that he would have been much pleased with the likes of you, for you bustle about, even in your sleep, as Asgeir bustled about from dawn to dark on the longest days.”

”Lavrans sits all day in his chair beside the fire.”

”Lavrans is close to seventy winters old, and much afflicted in his joints. But my father was some forty-five or forty-eight winters when he died, still a young man with bright yellow hair, although he seemed to me at the time as old and set in his ways and bitter to me as Lavrans does to you.”

”Did he greet you angrily, as Lavrans does me?”

”Every time he saw me, his countenance fell, for all folk considered me a do-nothing, and it is true that it seemed for a time as if a sleeping curse was upon me, especially after my father's brother was killed on the ice far to the north.”

”Did he go among the skraelings?”

”Hauk Gunnarsson went often among the skraelings, and was not averse to their ways. He wore the skins of birds for his underclothing, and my old nurse was greatly scandalized at such a thing. But folk didn't speak of the skraelings then as they do now, for the skraelings hadn't shown their true devilish natures, and hadn't killed Christians as they have now. Nor were they about in such numbers as they are now. Hauk Gunnarsson ate his meat raw sometimes, at the end of winter, as skraelings do, and foxes and bears, and he said it wasn't a sin to do so, but a necessity in the far north, where the world is white from year's end to year's end.”

”Lavrans is a do-nothing, and yet everyone serves him, day and night.”

”After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life folk sit about the fire and stay warm, for the chill of death is upon them, and even the thickest bearskin can't keep off the s.h.i.+vering.”

”But folk say that Lavrans was never prosperous or hardworking, and that is why Lavrans Stead is so mean. And Gunnhild sometimes speaks of Gunnars Stead at night in bed, and she says that the fields and the lakes there were like the meadows of Paradise.”

”It is true that Gunnars Stead is a fine farm, and any man would long from time to time for such a place. But when I see Lavrans beside the fire, I am fond of him, for this reason, that one time, after the death of Asgeir Gunnarsson, I went to the Thing at Gardar, and I had few friends, if any, and my booth was small and made of a piece of wadmal, not of white reindeer skins, as it is now. Although my father was Asgeir Gunnarsson and I lived at the great farm of Gunnars Stead, men pushed past me without seeing me, or they looked me up and down and recollected what was said about me and laughed into their beards. And so it happened that I wandered away from the Thing field, and I saw a young girl standing on the hillside, right on the hillside out there, where the Gardar stream runs down, before it divides and flows into the homefield.”

”Was that girl my mother?”

”Indeed it was she, and she had just pa.s.sed her fourteenth birthday. And now it happened that as I was looking at her, she turned her head and looked at me, and from that long way, I could see the blue color of her eyes, and I climbed the hill toward her, gazing at her eyes the whole way. She was not like any other girl I had known, for my sister was tall and much inside herself, and her hair was always braided perfectly, as if her head had been carved from stone, but Birgitta was slight and not a little disheveled. However, she looked at things as if her soul went out to them and fixed upon them. And so I went and sat down on the hillside next to her, and we talked and became friends, and it seemed to me that this young girl and only she would have the strength to save me and make me a man.

”The next day was the last day of the Thing, and all morning men were striking their booths and taking to their boats and leaving, and I knew that I should go to Lavrans, but I had no friends to take with me, and I was afraid. I also knew that Lavrans lived far away, in Hvalsey Fjord at the mouth of the fjord, and that the Hvalsey Fjorders were usually the first to leave. But I walked about in fear and did not approach him, and before long almost everyone was gone, and it was time for me to go, too, for I had come in a boat with a man from Vatna Hverfi who was eager to leave. Finally I saw that Lavrans' booth was still up, but that his servants were beginning to take it down, so in a panic I ran to where he was packing up his belongings, and I said that Birgitta Lavransdottir was my only friend in the whole world and I wished to have her for my wife. Now another man such as Asgeir or even myself as I am now, with five handsome daughters, might have knocked me down for such a speech, but Lavrans has never acted as other men do. He only smiled and looked at me with a gaze that was somehow like Birgitta's and somehow different, and less, perhaps, since Birgitta has second sight and Lavrans doesn't, and he said that such a thing was not as he had desired when the child was born, for then King Hakon had been an unmarried man, and available, but now, alas, the news was that King Hakon had taken Queen Margarethe to his wife, and so Birgitta Lavransdottir would have to look elsewhere, and in short, he gave her to me, and she did as I thought she would, though she was but a child, and I even more of a child, though five winters older.”

Now Kollgrim yawned and declared that this was a nice tale for Gunnar to tell, but not as nice as the tale of the Sandnes polar bear, who used to speak to folk at a big farm in the western settlement just as they were falling asleep or waking from sleep, and tell them what the animals said about them. Kollgrim fell asleep against him, and Gunnar slipped him among the reindeer hides. Then he carried two or three hides away from the boy and settled himself down. The rooms at Gardar were so well turfed that the tiny lamp and their breath were enough to keep them warm all night.

There was much activity at Gardar, of animals and men and farm business and church business and other business. The news of Sira Jon's dream seemed to imbue everyone with a fresh sense of haste, and folk ran here and there, straightening, polis.h.i.+ng, s.h.i.+ning, and arranging, as if the new bishop's s.h.i.+p had already been sighted in the fjord. Even so, Gunnar felt a great longing for Lavrans Stead come upon him, so that every conversation seemed tedious to him, and all the news he gathered stale and dubious. Kollgrim was especially tiresome, for he refused to stay among the other children, and was always going among the cattle or wetting himself in the water below the landing spot. The day stretched out in length, and Gunnar spent much of it down by the water, admiring Einar's s.h.i.+p. Even among Bjorn's larger ones, this one attracted the eye by its trim lines.

For Sira Pall Hallvardsson, the day seemed to pa.s.s with painful quickness, for there was much to talk about, and not only to Sira Jon, with whom Pall Hallvardsson, of course, had business, but also with Sira Audun and the other boys and with folk from other districts who were visiting for various reasons. In fact, for the first time ever, Sira Pall Hallvardsson could not help conceiving something of a horror against returning to Hvalsey Fjord and the loneliness there. As a young man new in Greenland he had gone from district to district, filling in for absent priests and visiting many farmsteads, but now Sira Audun and an a.s.sistant, Gizur, did this, and they complained bitterly about it. It was hard to find boats, and hard to persuade folk to lend servants as rowers, and harder still to come to the churches, most of which had fallen into bad repair, especially in the southern part of the settlement, so that Sira Audun had written a verse, as follows: Men who come to cut turf with the priest Men who come to lift stones with the priest Women who come to sweep sand out of the church Women who change broken lamps for whole ones All these are as blessed as the kneelers; Our Lord hears loudly their voiceless prayers.

But Sira Pall Hallvardsson expected that the younger man merely longed to be among the comforts of Gardar, and it was true, that being himself a Greenlander, Sira Audun would hardly be received with the sort of curiosity that had opened doors to himself. Sira Audun's father was a man well known in the south for parsimonious dealings with his neighbors, and perhaps Sira Audun was something like his father, or seen to be, which amounted to the same thing. Nonetheless, his hymns and verses were pleasing.

And now, the night before, Sira Audun had sat upon the tall stool in his room, where he entertained Sira Pall Hallvardsson for a few minutes, and he had said, ”Indeed, brother, I little like to be away from here, and I always leave with a sense of apprehension and return with a sense of foreboding. I begin looking out for the buildings as soon as they can be seen, or for messengers sent out to meet me.”

”What is it you fear, then?” said Sira Pall.

”Not that he will harm others.”

Sira Pall did not need to ask who it might be who wouldn't harm others. He said, ”He is busy and has all the threads of the bishopric sorted out in his hand.”

”Even so.”

”So what is it you fear?”

But Sira Audun could not say. Sira Pall walked off calmly, as if dismissing such concerns from his thoughts, but when he went in for his interview with Sira Jon, he could not help looking at him closely.

Of the condition of the church and steading at Hvalsey Fjord, the condition of the poor folk under the church's protection, and the size of the revenues he had received so far in the year from the Hvalsey Fjorders he spoke at length. He was careful to figure in repairs to St. Birgitta's sheep fold as well as the services of the younger Lavrans Stead ram, an animal of Birgitta Lavransdottir's own breeding, who produced exceptionally fine offspring even if the ewe was not very large or thick of wool. Sira Jon became annoyed with these items, and declared, ”Is it in such bits and pieces that you expect the church to eke out her due?” but Sira Pall Hallvardsson was not disconcerted, and said only ”Yes” in a mild and soothing tone of voice. In addition to these things enumerated, Sira Pall Hallvardsson went on, St. Birgitta's church had a great excess of whale meat and whale oil left over from the winter, and these commodities could easily be transported to Gardar for use there.

”Such oil always burns with a stink that is repellent to us, worse even than seal oil. And the meat is good only for dogs after a day or so, even if it has been dried.”

After his report, Sira Pall Hallvardsson knelt before the other priest, thinking that the other man would never accommodate himself to life among the Greenlanders, and then he made his confession, and among the sins he confessed was covetousness toward Einar, the foster son of Bjorn Jorsalfari, for even on such a journey as the visitors were on, Einar went daily among writings and books and ma.n.u.scripts as Pall Hallvardsson hadn't seen since his boyhood in Ghent, and he spoke of authors, and recited fragments of poetry in Latin and Norse and German as set Pall Hallvardsson's heart afire with longing. In addition to this, Einar was now betrothed to the child Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, a child Pall Hallvardsson had always known well and felt much love for, as she was beautiful and good-natured and like unto her mother in the calmness of her temperament. And these thoughts of the books and the girl, not to mention the travels, tormented his thoughts, although he liked Einar well enough.

This confession seemed, for a time, to render Sira Jon speechless, for he said nothing, and his silence drew Sira Pall Hallvardsson onward, to speak more and more fully of what it was that he envied of the Icelander. Now, Sira Jon cut him short with a brief sentence of absolution, then suddenly ran off, and some while later, Pall Hallvardsson heard him speaking to one of the servingwomen. At the evening meal, he presided with his customary aplomb, only, as usual, glancing often at Bjorn, who was eating beside him. When Pall Hallvardsson came out of the hall, Einar was nearby, in the yard, and Pall Hallvardsson went up to him, for indeed, he could not stay away from the man, for as folk say, when envy does not engender hatred, it engenders love, and this was what happened to Sira Pall Hallvardsson.

There were folk who did not care for Einar, for he was always ready to contradict what was being said, and to take a greater part in the conversation than some thought proper. In addition to this, he could not forbear correcting folk. If a man declared that a cool but rainy summer was better for the hay than a sunny but dry one, Einar was sure to insist the opposite. After this, a few would offer stories of the starvation of eight winters before, when no rain at all fell until after the hay crop was all burned up, but Einar persisted with tales of the gra.s.s rotting in the fields and the hooves of livestock softening and disintegrating, and the weight of his stories was so great that talk would stop.

Or discussion would arise of the efficacy of certain relics. St. Olaf's finger bone at Gardar would be recalled to have cured a madness, and Einar would declare that the relics of St. Olaf were well known for curing scrofula and other skin ills, but not for curing madness. At this someone would a.s.sert that his father or grandfather had been there when the cure took place, or was a member of the household, at which Einar would declare that in that case, it must not be the finger bone of St. Olaf, but of some other saint, perhaps St. Hallvard, or even a saint from Germany or France, such as St. Clothilda or St. Otto, and folk did not know how to answer these notions, for they had not heard of these saints, and hesitated to admit it. It was true that Einar's tales had this effect on people, that when he was finished speaking, they were reluctant to admit how little they knew in comparison to him. It was also the case that he often corrected his foster father when Bjorn related tales or made talk, but Bjorn did not mind, and indeed, thanked the younger man for remembering things he himself had forgotten.

Nevertheless, like Bjorn, Einar was a generous and interested man, as free with tales and trinkets from abroad as he was with advice. Best of all, he was of the sort of

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