The Greenlanders (35 page)

“It may be—”

“Or perhaps you hear a kind of screaming above the wind, as of souls in torment, as if, perhaps, the mouth of Hell were yawning open and men were given to hear the crying of the Damned?”

“This has not—”

Now Sira Jon’s voice fell to a whisper, “Or it could be that the Devil himself speaks into your ear as you are thinking of other things and tempts you, toward what you could not say, for his words can hardly be distinguished, and yet they fill you with longing? Is this not something that happens to you?”

“Nay. My father’s brother sometimes walks among the birches, back in the mountains where I take the sheep, but it seems to me that he was so foolishly fond of these wild places that he cannot forsake them even in death.”

Sira Jon looked up the slope as if seeking traces of Hauk Gunnarsson, then looked into Margret’s face so sharply that she was forced to drop her eyes. She declared in a low voice, “Ingrid our nurse used to tell many tales of folk who stalked their own steadings out of inordinate love for them, and my father’s brother was as fond of these wild places as other men are of their steadings—”

“What does he look like? What do you see?”

“I know not what to say. Shadows among the birches, a bit of color afar, white or the purplish color of Gunnars Stead wadmal. These are not things I have pondered much.”

Sira Jon leaned so close to Margret that his face was nearly touching hers and spoke in a whisper. “It is said that those who cannot lie in their graves are horrible of aspect, covered with blood, perhaps, or mutilated.”

“This is not for me to say—”

“It is said that you are mad. I would help you if you would let me.” Great drops of perspiration burst out upon the priest’s forehead and a bright red spot appeared in each of his cheeks.

“Perhaps folk do say that. It is true that I was once greatly tried, but—” Here Margret stopped speaking, for Sira Jon had slumped forward in a faint.

Now Margret ran to the servant, and brought him to Sira Jon, hoping that he would give her some explanation for this, but he only looked down at the priest where he lay upon the turf, and said nothing. After a bit Sira Jon revived, and sat up, and looked about, and it seemed to Margret that he was much surprised to find himself where he was. But indeed, he was an odd man, for he only thanked her for her hospitality and gave her his ring to kiss, and went off without a word about his fit. Margret was much perplexed, and through the winter she sometimes considered the meaning of the priest’s visit, but she mentioned it to no one at Brattahlid.

And it so happened that in the summer of 1381 a certain ship carrying Norwegian traders did arrive, a ship blown off course from Iceland, and the folk from this ship stayed at Herjolfsnes in the south. Still another ship appeared in the following summer, although much damaged, while the folk of the first ship were still at Herjolfsnes, and the folk on the new ship stayed for the winter at Brattahlid, and the captains of both these ships agreed to take the news of the bishop’s death to the chapter at Nidaros, and as payment for this favor, Sira Jon gave each captain something of worth. To the master of the first ship, which was called
Olafssuden
, he gave a pair of walrus tusks, and to the captain of the damaged ship, which was called
Thorlakssuden
, he gave a pair of white falcons, and these were the items of greatest value among the Gardar stores, for the wealth of Gardar was not as it had been, but even so, these shipmasters seemed little impressed with their gifts and the Greenlanders said that these Norwegians thought very well of themselves.

When it came time for the
Olafssuden
to return to Norway (the
Thorlakssuden
could not be repaired with such materials as were at hand), the two shipmasters went about getting provisions for their journey. In every instance when they were offered other goods for trade, they refused them, and denigrated their value, and maintained that they wished to keep their own goods for trade in Iceland. For the provisions they needed, they offered very little in the way of seed or pitch or iron goods or wood, much less than the Greenlanders considered their cheeses and dried reindeer flesh and dried sealmeat to be worth, and these two men were said to be stiff-necked and hard. Other shipmasters, especially Thorleif, were warmly recalled, and Thorleif’s ship as well, for it had been long and wide and deep and had carried such an abundance of goods and treasures that every Greenlander had been satisfied.

In the last days before the departure of these two in the summer of 1383, the master of the
Thorlakssuden
, a man by the name of Markus Arason, went about gathering payments for the wooden beams and laps of his broken ship, and those who refused to pay were told that they would have none of the driftage. This was contrary to the law of Greenland, which at this time said that driftwood was the property of that man whose strand it caught upon, but the
Olafssuden’s
master declared that he cared nothing for the law of Greenland, and that the ship would be burned to the water line if not paid for. And indeed, on the evening before the departure of the
Olafssuden
, the
Thorlakssuden
was broken apart with axes, and folk who had paid the Norwegian were given their beams and laps, and the rest of the wood was burned in a great bonfire, and his sailors stood about the fire with their axes to prevent anyone from throwing water upon it. And the Greenlanders considered this a great crime, but they were unable to prevent the departure of the
Olafssuden
, and this event was spoken of for some years.

Another topic of discussion among the Greenlanders was this, that following the killings of the Erlendssons by Gunnar Asgeirsson there occurred seven more killings in the course of five winters, and this was a greater number of killings than folk expected, and in addition to this, there were robberies and some rapes, and the desecration of the churchyard at the church in Herjolfsnes. Not all of these killings were properly announced, and in four of the cases, the killers went undiscovered, or at least, unpunished, for it is truly said that folk know more than they speak about. It was also true that those who desecrated the churchyard were thought to be sailors from the
Thorlakssuden
, and after the departure of the Norwegian’s men, it was a pleasure to the Greenlanders to blame these folk for all sorts of things.

But another thing was also true, and this was that the Greenlanders felt the absence of the bishop and, as far as that went, of the king’s ombudsman Kollbein Sigurdsson, and disputes were too often decided between men on the spot, without the counsel of the prosperous farmers of a district. Since the coming of Bishop Alf, fewer and fewer men had bothered to make the long journeys that they had once made, either to Gardar at Yule and Easter for the celebration in the cathedral, or to Brattahlid just after the mass of St. Jon the Baptist in the summer, and Osmund Thordarson, the lawspeaker himself, declared that there was little he could do to persuade men to leave their farms in the middle of summer when there was much work to be done. Others said, perhaps truly, that there was little that Osmund tried to do, in fact. But the result was that some years Osmund was left to recite the laws to not more than two dozen men, and few cases were brought and only half of the thirteen district judges were present at any rate.

Sometimes folk declared that this was a great scandal, and other times they said that after all no murders had occurred in their district, or near their steadings, or only one, and the killer was known and would not kill again, for this is also true, that no matter how evil times become, they are not so evil as they might be, and even Erlend and Vigdis lived from day to day, and did their work, and carried on much as before, and if this was possible for them, then how much more possible would it be for others, who had not suffered as they had? Even so, there came to be some little dissatisfaction with Osmund Thordarson. He was too genial, or too careless, or too old—each complaint was different, but every man had one.

It happened that about two summers after the departure of the
Olafssuden
, another ship appeared in Einars Fjord, a large, richly painted vessel with a beautiful red and gold sail. Its master, a prosperous Icelander by the name of Bjorn Einarsson, was called Jorsalfari, or “Jerusalem traveler,” for he had taken a ship to Jerusalem and to many other places as well, including Rome and Spain as well as the more usual places. What was especially interesting to the Greenlanders was that his wife was with him, a woman who was very richly and fashionably dressed. A scribe traveled with him as well, his foster son Einar, who wrote down all of Bjorn’s adventures and all of his discoveries.

In addition to Bjorn Einarsson’s beautiful ship, there were three others in the party, and each of these three was a serviceable, seaworthy craft, and the Greenlanders were not a little impressed with the array they made. It was soon apparent that Bjorn was a man possessed of great luck. He was red-faced, portly, and high-spirited, and he himself said that he was much pleased at coming to Greenland, for though, he told Sira Jon, he had been heading for Iceland, Greenland was a place that few came to, a place lost to the considerations of men, especially since the coming of the Great Death and its subsequent visitations. And he went on in this vein. Sira Jon made him and his wife and foster son greatly welcome, and the sailors were sent with gifts out among the Greenlanders, and they had a lot to tell, much of it about Bjorn Einarsson, for he was a man whom talk clustered about wherever he went.

The first thing Bjorn did was ask who had the best horses in Greenland, and he was told about Thorkel Gellison of Hestur Stead and about Magnus Arnason of Nes and about Ragnleif Isleifsson of Brattahlid, who had the best horses in the northern part of the settlement, and he took four rowers and his wife and foster son in the big Gardar boat and went first to Brattahlid and then to Vatna Hverfi district, and at each of these places he traded for a fine pair of horses for himself and his wife, to be kept for him whenever he desired to come from Gardar and ride about the district. At Brattahlid he traded a fine pair of silver candlesticks, and with these a pair of iron wheel hubs to pay for the horses’ keep. To Thorkel Gellison he gave a carved ivory crucifix, and with this a bag of rye seed to pay for the keeping of the animals. And folk were surprised at Thorkel Gellison, for he allowed himself to be traded out of his favorite gray mare and a roan stallion that some said was better even than the famous gray. But Thorkel said to his steward that this Icelander would neither be staying in Greenland nor taking horses with him on a sea journey, and it would do the beasts good to be sat on by a man of luck.

Bjorn’s wife, whose name was Solveig Ogmundsdottir, was not very pretty. Nevertheless, she wore such clothing and headdresses as Greenland women had never seen before, embroidered in gold and silver, with gold threads woven through the silk. Her shoes were especially delightful, as colorful as the dresses, and soft and dainty. She had a special pair of shoes for going about in muddy weather, and these were made of violet leather and wood, with designs of birds and flowers painted on them. She was glad to display these things to folk who were interested, and although she spoke in an odd, and perhaps affected, manner, there was little gossip about her except as praised her wealth and her apparel and her courtesy. In the winter after their arrival, Solveig gave birth to a boy, and he was cared for by two children who were skraeling children. These had been rescued from an islet at the mouth of Eriks Fjord, and they were very fond of Solveig and Bjorn. They went about with them everywhere, and lived with them at Gardar, and of this peculiar arrangement, Sira Jon said nothing.

Of news, this was the greatest piece, that now there were two popes, one in Rome, whom some folk considered to be a madman, and another in Avignon, among the French, whom some considered to be the tool of the king of France, and far from the sight of God, and this schism was some seven years old. Sira Jon asked if Pope Urban was no longer the pope, then, for the crew of the
Thorlakssuden
had spoken of that election, and of the return of Gregory to Rome some years before, and Bjorn replied that indeed, Urban was still in Rome, and considered to be pope by Norwegians and Englishmen and the Holy Roman Emperor, but that there was a Pope Clement in Avignon who had gained the support of the French and the Scots and the king of Castile, and this Clement had all the old cardinals with him, and Urban’s cardinals were all new ones, created by himself, and what was worse, each pope was busy excommunicating everyone loyal to the other one: whole towns and regions had been excommunicated, and among the people of the countryside there was no assurance that rites performed were in any way effective. Bjorn himself had little to say of this matter, for he had been to Rome and seen it for what it was, a crowded, miserable rubble, where decent folk might be set upon and beaten even unto death for no reason, for a few coins or a trinket. And this was also true, that every cardinal kept fighting men about him, and more than one had used various pretexts for ordering the slaughter of innocent folk; indeed, this other pope, Clement, had ordered the slaughter of the citizens of a certain town, called by the Italians Cesena. The case was as follows, that the cardinal accepted hostages, and freed them as a sign of goodwill, and then called out his English mercenaries, and had the gates of the city barred and then for the space of three days and nights, these Englishmen had become as berserks, frenzied with killing and laying waste, for when all is said and done, Englishmen are well known to be ungodly folk. It was said that upwards of ten thousand or more of the folk were put to the sword, as many or more as died in the Great Death, Bjorn did not know how many. And more fled. And many fine things were broken apart and burned and stolen.

This news cast Sira Jon sorely down, and he said to Bjorn that among the hopes of men, that small one of the Greenlanders, the hope for a new bishop, must now be blasted. After this, to give him some cheer, Bjorn spoke of his journey to Jerusalem. There, he said, the sun shone so bright and hot that folk had to remain within their houses during the day so as not to be burned up or faint at their tasks, and in addition to this, the countryside around the town was much parched with the excess of heat. Nevertheless, the place shone with the beauty of holiness, and a man could wander there among the holy places for many years, and never see his fill of them, for nearly every step that a man took was in the footsteps of Abraham, or David, or Joshua, who caused the destruction of Jericho, so that what had been a great city was now a little village, as Bjorn had seen for himself, or Jon the Baptist, or Our Lady, or Jesus Christ and Peter and the other disciples. At times when Bjorn himself could not remember this or that, his foster son Einar supplied the information, for Einar had gone on all these travels and written everything down, and Bjorn had fostered him with this in mind.