Part 14 (1/2)

LOVE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”The Lord sees what we are reduced to.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”I was hoping for an occasion.”

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

”Yes, I'm sure-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”Still what?”