Norseman Chief (19 page)

. . .

We had settled around the hearth without exchanging much in the way of pleasantries.  The rain poured down onto the thatch and bark roof with many trails of water snaking their way into the main room, splashing in a steady stream onto the rafters and coursing their way down the beams only to fall atop many places on the sleeping platforms.  It seems our priest was only so adept at manual labor.

I sipped the first ale I had consumed in countless years.  It tasted bitter.  I winced, wondering if I had lost the yearning for it or if this was a particularly sour batch.  My memory was not clear on exactly what it should taste like.  I licked my teeth to scrub away the flavor then asked, “Where are the others in your party?  Certainly, you were not left here alone.”

“Hmmph!  He’ll know.  I most certainly was left here alone!  Do you think I cannot survive on my own?” he asked indignantly.

My eyes scanned the poor repair work on the house, his lack of supplies, and thought of his likely poor hunting or farming abilities.  “Priest, I do not think that you
can
survive on your own for more than a few days or weeks.  Most definitely you will be dead by Christmas if we left you alone when the snow comes.  So why are you here after all this time?”

He looked to the roof, exasperated.  “He’ll know,” he said again.  I was not sure what that meant.  “Why am I here, he asks.”  The priest brought his gaze back down to the lot of us and roughly scratched his nose before continuing.  “Oh hell, Halldorr, why do you care why I am here alone?  None of the Greenlanders would have anything to do with this place so they dropped me off and left the same day.  This Vinland of yours has a nasty reputation concerning death and despair.  I can’t say that I blame them for leaving after all that happened here.”

“So, Father, I understand why they are not here.  But why are you here?  If that is too difficult, why not tell me your name first.”

The priest flailed his arms into the air, shouting, “I can’t believe it!  You are going to sit right there on your ass and say that you do not know who I am?”  I had to steady my compatriots and see that they lowered their weapons after his outburst.  They cautiously did so.  The priest paid them no attention, preferring to bob his head back and forth mumbling to himself.  I looked into the man’s eyes, studying them to see if anything looked familiar after so many years away from my people.

“Torleik?” I asked.

“Yes, Halldorr, you shall be awarded with the festival prize, though I don’t know what that is.”  He returned to his mumbling.  The man had changed more than most men in his years in frigid, isolated Greenland.  His mind did not seem to be what it once was.

“Torleik, time has been unfriendly to all of us.”  My hand swept over my companions.  “The young men you see were mere babies a few seasons ago and the grey among us were once strong.  You have aged and I am truly in your debt for not recognizing you straight off.”

“Ahh, the grey!  You know that the One God, through his wise servant Solomon tells us that ‘grey hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life.’”

The man was right.  The One God’s word did say just that.  Perhaps his mind was not so addled.  Turning the subject now, “I am sure Leif, my old brother, looks strong and robust despite his years.  Why did he send you to me?”

Torleik looked to the roof again, saying what I gathered was his typical response to most questions, “He’ll know.”  He stood, rustling through a small hudfat that rested in a heap against the wall.  I expected him to produce a letter from the jarl and was not disappointed, at first.

Halldorr, master of Vinland, friend of my father, uncle to me, I, Thorgils Leifsson, jarl of Greenland, wish to express my gratitude at your vigil over our southern territories for all these years.  Your services are no longer required as our interests lie more firmly entangled with nearby Markland.  You are released.

The Most Humble Servant of the One God, Thorgils Leifsson

“That’s it?” I asked, incredulous.  “You come here to tell me of my own brother’s death and this is how you do it?  What of Thjordhildr, Leif’s mother?”

“He’ll know.  Good woman.  Faithful and dead.”

“Freydis, the sister?”

“He’ll know.  Bitter, angry woman.  Good to bed with, so I’ve been told.  Also dead.”

I don’t know why I was sad that day.  I had not seen these people for many years so learning of their deaths should have not been surprising or saddening.  Yet it was.  Somehow, plopped there in the rundown longhouse, built by my own hands years before, it was as if I saw another part of me dying.  My father and mother died when I was but a boy, but thanks to life and the One God, I gave up the bitterness it brought.  Just then I thought of my king, Olaf of Norway, he was over sixty years old if he yet lived, and he probably did not.  Erik Thorvaldsson – dead.  My adopted brothers Thorstein, Thorvald, and now Leif all dead.  Kenna dead.  Freydis, my enchantress, dead.  Every one of my people who I had known, except a few scraggy, old Norsemen left from the Huntsman’s boat, all of them dead.  The news hit me like when two shield walls strike at the start of a battle.  My mind wheeled.

Etleloo saw my change in countenance and lifted a hand to my shoulder, “Tall brother, what news does this man give that makes you appear as death?”

As a woman, I cried at his question.  But it was not out of sorrow for the loss of so many over the years.  I cried out of happiness – I have said I cried as a woman that day.  Tears came to my cheeks that day because I was not alone and had a new people.  Etleloo had called me brother as he had countless times before.  We were brothers.  We were brothers not because we happened to fall from the same womb, formed from the same man’s seed.  Our brotherhood was forged as the steel blade or stone arrowhead.  It was crafted from the shedding of blood together when we went on the warpath, our own and the Mi’kmaq blood.  It was crafted from countless time spent arguing the next move of the village as we sat around the council fire under Kesegowaase’s patient eye.  We were brothers, these men and I.  I was a Norseman.  I would forever be a Norseman, but I as the Christ talks of grafting branches, I was grafted onto the Algonkin tree.

After mustering my manly composure back to where it belonged, I asked, “So you’ve delivered your message.  Do they return after the winter to retrieve your old bones?”

“He’ll know.”  By the One God I already hated that!  “They will not return for me.  I plan to die here.”

Torleik surely would die in this hovel if left to his own devices.  His death would be cold and painful and come much more quickly than if we helped him.  “How is your writing in the Latin,” I asked.  “He’ll know!” I shouted before he could say it.

The priest looked sideways at me before muttering, “He’ll know,” under his breath.  “Better than yours.  I found the note you left in the chain.”

“That is fine,” I said, rising.  “You’re coming with us.  Bring your gear.”

“I’ll do no such thing.  I came here to die naturally!”

“I can assure you that if you refuse to comply, your death will be quite unnatural.”

“You wouldn’t kill a priest.  You’re a Christian.”

“Aye, that is so, but they’re not.”

Without another word, I ducked out into the light rain.  Eventually, those inside gathered that I meant to leave and joined me.  The priest was last out of the house, carrying his pack and a disgusted expression.  I made my way through the wilderness back toward my old house on Black Duck Pond with a trail of men behind me.  Talking was light among my new people.  Torleik was silent.  After stopping briefly at the longhouse to pull down the monstrous moose antlers I had mounted on its wall, we marched on to the canoes.  I had Torleik carry the moose antlers, which hung up frequently on branches due to their breadth.  The priest muttered and grumbled about his new lot in life while weaving sideways and tilting to avoid what he could.  His grousing only grew worse once we reached
Sjor Batr
and he was forced to sit in the middle, steadying the massive antlers while his feet became wetter and wetter in my leaky wreck.

CHAPTER 9

Skjoldmo squirmed on the log, wrinkling her nose at the parchment stretched out before her as if it emitted a stench.  It did not, but the independent-minded child did not like her situation one bit for she was the only student in Torleik’s reading and writing class.  While it was cold outside, the fire in our hearth made it warm enough for Skjoldmo’s filthy toes to be bare, free from her tiny makizins.  She repeatedly stuck the short quill she used between two toes and reached her foot up to write in that manner, but Torleik would become incensed, swearing in Latin and Norse, while swiping the foot off the girl’s bark shield which was currently acting as a desk.

“I know your father lounges behind me encouraging this behavior, but that will leave you with no excuse, young Skjoldmo!”  He was correct in his guess and I gave my daughter a look of shock in the fact that I had been discovered.  She thought this was terrific and smiled broadly, showing the even gaps between her tiny white teeth.  “And I may wipe that smile off your face if you keep following in his footsteps, girl!”  He said the last with some derision.

Her mouth and nose bunched up into a scowl at the old priest, but after I nodded she returned to her practice of the Latin alphabet and its twenty-four letters, writing it again and again for the man.

Bringing Torleik to live among us was not much of a scandal.  The Norsemen my new people had already gotten to know were affable enough that one more would hardly make a difference.  However, the man’s presence did cause friction in my own home.  Hurit did not want to share our mamateek with another man, especially one who would spend his days around Alsoomse and the home instead of out with the other men.  His proficiency with writing Latin cast absolutely no spell on Hurit who scoffed at the idea of her child learning the skill.

Besides, my woman argued, Alsoomse watched me scratching characters all over the page, why could I not instruct the girl if it was so very important.  I did not tell the woman that for the past year my eyes were exhausted by the time I had read or written just long enough for two logs to burn down on the fire.  Looking at the page any longer would make my eyes feel as if I forcibly crossed them for an eternity.  This was one time when I gave her no reason and told Hurit to obey.  This did not make her happy and we argued, but she was a good woman and soon relented since I rarely asked such things.  Eventually, we made up and made love, the priest uncomfortably clearing his throat under the blanket next to us as if we did not already know he was there.  Torleik would have to get used to these activities and their sounds if he would live among the Beiuthook, our walls gave no protection against hums of pleasure or clatters of arguments.

That winter passed by without incident, Torleik became a part of the fabric of the tribe, but still separated by his deep faith.  I was proud of his ability to learn the Algonkin talk and speak openly about the One God with the people.  They in-turn told him about Glooskap, which he, like I did before him, tried to compare to Christ in the One God’s word.  In the end the talks never went anywhere and I was pleased that no feelings were hurt.

Skjoldmo was a rapid learner.  By the time the men gashed the maples and drove a cedar spout into the trees, she was able to recite the entire alphabet by memory, even knowing some common words that started with the first few letters.  Torleik was pleased, but was careful not to give his only student too much praise.

Several days after the maple trees had been tapped, when pockets of white still lay about between the seemingly endless mud created by rapidly melting snow, Skjoldmo came with me to carry buckets of sap back to the village.  Etleloo always said that a woman should do such tasks, but I liked the peace of the forest in spring when the warmer air collided with the cold surrounding the rivers and land.  It was good to get away from the sloppy paths of the village and the trodding people whose steps moved the mud from one spot to another.

It was early in the morning so I hoped to avoid talking with anyone else until we returned to the village.  That was not meant to be however, for we quickly caught up to Etleloo’s wife and their daughter, Makkito, and Kesegowaase’s wife and their daughter, Kimi.  The two women chatted endlessly in an easy manner, something in which my wife was not always competent.  My presence interrupted their talk for only a moment until they saw I planned to say nothing at all.  The women quickly returned to their conversation while Skjoldmo, shield and stick in hand, led the two older girls off the path in search of some enemy.

The women sighed when they temporarily lost their helpers.  Then Kesegowaase’s wife said, “How is it with your people, Halldorr?  Do you train your women to be warriors?”

She and I did not always see eye-to-eye on subjects.  I did not know if she baited me or truly wanted to know.  I did not and do not understand women, even now, so I simply answered, “No.  My Norse people expect our women to make us babies and make sail cloth for our longboats, uh, big canoes.  My new people, Kesegowaase’s people, expect much the same from their women, I think.”

“Hmm.  Then why do you let your daughter run around and fight like a man?  How will she find a husband willing to turn her mamateek into a stable of babies?”

The truth is I didn’t know why I encouraged Alsoomse the way I did.  I called her Skjoldmo.  I taught her how to fight like a man, even though the boys her age still hadn’t learned much in the way of fighting yet.  Each time Hurit tried to discourage a particular behavior to steer the girl toward the way of her people, I allowed the little girl to continue it.  “I don’t know,” I said.  “I suppose we will just have to find our own path.”

“Father.”  Kesegowaase occasionally called me that because I was married to his mother.  His wife called me that to ridicule my age, I think.  “Why must you find your own path when the paths of our peoples have been laid out before us?”

“Huh!” I huffed as we came to a grove of maples with wooden buckets hanging from the trees.  I checked the levels of sap in them as we walked by.  “Woman, though you are young, you are much too old to think our paths are set before us.  Many, many times have I thought I could see what would happen tomorrow, only to be surprised to find that a new path sprang up while I slept.”  I found a bucket that had been filled with the sticky sap and so replaced it with the empty one I had brought with me.  It wasn’t long before I found a second bucket and switched it with a fresh one as well.

I spoke to Kesegowaase’s woman as a righteous old man that day, acting as if I had even a small idea of how we found ourselves on the paths of life.  Before Olaf saw me converted to the One God, I always attributed my fate to the spinning by the norns beneath the Yggdrasil Tree, winding my path like the roots in which they lived.  Then I became a Christian, that is one of the “little Christs” the name implies.  I began to think that it was Providence, the One True God himself, who thrust a new path in my walk without first consulting me.  Now with the addition of Glooskap to my knowledge of the unseen, holy realm, I was thoroughly confused.  Did his mischievous twin, Malsum, the wolf, gain pleasure by uprooting my plans to put new ones before me?  That day with the women gathering their own buckets, now ignoring me after my speech, I thought it most likely that they all, Odin, the norns, the One God, Glooskap, and Malsum sat in some great longhouse buried deep in a forbidden fjord laughing.  I pictured them drinking mead throughout the night, making merry.  They played games of chance with my life in the midst of their bawdy party.  Rolling dice, casting lots, whatever their hearts desired.

“Skjoldmo!” I called into the forest, when I exhausted myself from thought.

“Yes?” I heard her yell from some distance away.

“Come back when the others girls come to the village.”

I heard a grunt as my tender Skjoldmo likely hit one of her playmates.  “Yes!”

I looked at the two women who seemed intent on talking in the maple grove for a time.  They saw my questioning glance and nodded that they would see that my little warrior girl would find her way back to the village.

My normally quiet steps were abnormally loud that day as my makizin-covered feet sloshed through the mud.  The Norse-made boots that clad my feet for many seasons had given out years before and Hurit replaced them with a pair of shoes she made from an animal I brought in from a hunt.  I cursed to myself as I noted that some frigid water leaked in through a new hole in the sole of the left makizin.  Another set of yelps and screams from the woods followed by loud splashing told me that the two women back in the maple grove would have to come to my mamateek tonight and complain about Skjoldmo’s rough play with their daughters.  I smiled, thinking of the darkened eyes or bloodied noses the girls probably had by now, while making my way through the still wood to the village.

. . .

Sometime later that day, Etleloo’s wife and Kesegowaase’s wife came running into the village distraught.  I stood next to a great cauldron where men stood slowly stirring the heated maple sap until it would become sweet, delicious syrup.  We let the women come to us, since to a man, we had experienced the hysteria of women enough to know that showing calm at whatever the trouble appeared to be was of paramount importance.  I noted that they did not carry any buckets, full or empty.

Kesegowaase sat on a log, smoking his pipe and was the first to receive their story.  “Husband, chief, your daughter and those of Etleloo and Enkoodabooaoo are missing.”

Kesegowaase sat quietly for two heartbeats then glanced in my direction with a raised brow.  I shrugged to tell him I didn’t know where they were.  “How long?” he asked.

“Some time we think,” his wife answered.  “We haven’t seen them since our trip out to gather sap when the sun was still new.”

“Gather some of the women and search the area around the maples.  There are some hollow trees and nooks among the rocks where Halldorr’s Alsoomse perhaps stuffed the bigger girls for future torture.”  The chief laughed at his own joke and the women ran away to collect their friends, women who would show more concern than the men.

When they were out of earshot, I walked to the chief and joined him on the log.  “Owoosika, you give me honor by joining me this day.  Shall we share the pipe?” asked Kesegowaase, now fully grown into his role as leader of his people.

“Thank you,” I said, not wanting to offend him.  I took a long drag on the pipe he offered, remembering the first time I had joined his grandfather for a smoke.  My eyes closed and I held the smoke in for a short time before letting it slowly flow out so that it encircled my head, letting its connection to the spirits be made in its own time.

As perceptive as his grandfather before him, but without the constant humor, the chief asked, “Now what is it that you want to say on the matter of the missing girls.”

“Chief, adopted son, I fear that perhaps there is more here than we perceive.  It is again warm with the melting snow.  It is a time when we and the Mi’kmaq gather sap.  I wonder if some of the enemy have returned with the break in weather to steal from untended buckets, but fell upon the girls and took them as a prize to their chief, a crime of opportunity.”

He honestly considered the idea for a moment.  “That is possible.  But isn’t it even more possible that your little girl and her shield have led the other two on some adventure?  This has happened before, correct?”

It had, and so I did not have to answer.

Kesegowaase continued.  “And if it is as you say and our daughters have been taken by the Mi’kmaq, there is nothing to do today.  We will not go running back to the Pohomoosh or whomever offering them tribute, these filthy dogs.  We will not go to them and offer them war.  These are just missing girls, not boys who will become men and leaders of the tribe.  And under no circumstance will we go and offer peace.  You have lived with us long enough to know what happens to those who intend to give the Mi’kmaq peace.”

He paused for a time, sizing up my reaction.  Since he did not ask me a question in his talk I did not speak.  I gave my adopted son, my chief no sign of what I thought.  But he was wise enough to sense that I worried.  “I believe we shall finally get you a son, Enkoodabooaoo.”  He tapped my leg like an elder pats a youth.  “When the weather is right, when the leaves are green, and the moon is hidden we will raid their village and get you a proper boy to raise as your own.  And if Alsoomse returns on her own tonight like I expect she will, we will still go to fetch a brother for the girl this summer.”

Our talk was done.  I placed my hand upon his shoulder while rising, “Thank you, Kesegowaase, chief.  Thank you for your counsel.  It will all be as you say.”  I gave him a smile and he nodded while returning to his pipe.

I walked back to the hardened clay cauldron, stared at the steaming liquid, and plotted how, for the first time in my life I would disobey an order given to me by my leader.