The Greenlanders (61 page)

Folk in Vatna Hverfi district now began to talk about Sira Audun’s three cheeses, the one he had given out at the church, and the two he had taken about to the farmsteads, and their talk first concerned how miraculously good these cheeses had been—soft, salty, free of mold, obviously made the previous summer, but then Vigdis had huge flocks of sheep and goats and some cows, for as sparse as the hay crop had been, Vigdis had more farms than just Gunnars Stead and Ketils Stead, and the men to care for them, didn’t she? When this talk had been going on for a few days, for hungry folk chew over and over the news of food as if it were the choicest morsels, some men went to Gunnars Stead one night and looked about, in spite of the dogs, for one of the men knew spells, and cast a spell over the dogs so that they would not harry, or even bark. And these men saw that Vigdis had plenty of hay hidden at the end of the cowbyre, and also that the storehouse had food in it, although it was hard to tell how much. The cows in the dark byre felt warm and sleek to the touch. And the priest had said to Magnus Arnason himself that the steading was crammed with food. After a while Vigdis’ dogs began to grow restive, and the men crept away.

Now it is the case that folk who have set themselves to look upon their deaths with resignation, and to anticipate the mercy of Heaven for themselves and their children are easily distracted by the knowledge of a store of food in the neighborhood, and their lot seems less bearable to them as they think upon these stores. So it was with Vigdis’ neighbors. Folk recalled how fat she was, how proud, though only the daughter of a cowman, and how niggardly. Serving boys had been beaten for taking a bit of honey, and neighbors had been summoned before the Thing on suspicion of hay stealing or sheep stealing, when anyone could see that the hay had only been used up, and the sheep had only been lost in the hills above the steading. In addition to this, everyone in the district had received one of Vigdis’ tongue-lashings, and in the time of Ketil the Unlucky, more than a few had had verses made against them, and been held up for ridicule. As folk talked about Vigdis’ hoard of food, they began remembering these things, too, and, as it often happens, these injuries came upon them the more freshly for not having been thought of in many years.

Among those who talked about these things, Ofeig Thorkelsson and Mar Marsson were not the most backward, even in the presence of Jon Andres Erlendsson. Indeed, of late no one had suffered injuries from Vigdis as her son had, for the sight of him seemed to concentrate in her mind all the ills that had ever been done against her, and she was often moved to attack him and box his ears. Even so, Jon Andres never joined in the talk among his friends about his mother, and when Ofeig opened his mouth, Jon Andres would get up and go outside.

It was the case that the hunger was not so bad at Ketils Stead as it was at other steadings. For one thing, servingfolk at Gunnars Stead would send food to their relatives at Ketils Stead from time to time. For another, the Ketils Stead shepherd was a talented fellow, and had accumulated a large flock, so that in the autumn many sheep had been killed, and their meat dried for the winter and their heads singed into svid and their brains made into sausage and their feet boiled into broth. Even so, Jon Andres and his friends had little notion of household economy, and by Yule much of this food was eaten, or wasted, and Ofeig and Mar and the others were impatient at the prospect of shorter meals and eking things out as their neighbors did. Mar, in particular, could not stop talking of what there was to eat at Gunnars Stead, and urging Jon Andres to get some of it from his mother. But Jon Andres paid him no attention. After the argument at the church, Jon Andres had been avoiding his friends, and one evening he told Ofeig that it was tiresome to have these boys around him. “Indeed,” he said, “they are not boys anymore, but men with no occupations and no inclination to return to the steadings of their fathers, where they might be made to do some work,” and this was true. For some years, Jon Andres had fancied his band to be something on the order of a band of Vikings, Harald Finehair and his hirdmen was what they were called in the neighborhood, and Jon Andres did not mind this nickname, but after the conflict at the church he grew impatient, and spoke to his friends sharply if at all.

One day he came among them where they were lounging on the benches of the steading, and he said that it was his desire to send them away, back to their fathers, for the life he had been leading oppressed him, and he wished to change it. As a going away gift, he would give them each a suit of clothes, the horse that each had been riding, and some dried meat to take away with them to their fathers’ steadings.

Ofeig Thorkelsson was not the only one of these men to be on bad terms with his father. Mar and Einar, who were brothers, had neither spoken to nor heard news of their father, who lived in the southern part of the district, since the summer, and they feared that he with much of his household had died in the hunger, for the steading was not a prosperous one. Even so, Jon Andres told them, they must find another place to live, for his intention was fixed, and he intended to be free of them by the evening, or at the latest, the next morning. Andres Bjartsson and Halldor Bessason now got up and began to gather their belongings together, and it seemed to Jon Andres that Halldor was actually relieved and pleased to go, while Andres was resigned, as he had had news of his father at Yule, and all had been well at his father’s steading at that time.

Mar and Einar began to grumble. Jon Andres said, “After these years of friendship, it would not please me to throw you out, or for us to part with ill feelings. But it is the case that times are different now than they have been, and such bands as ours do not repay in good fellowship what they cost in wasted provisions and trouble with neighbors, for I will not hide from you the fact that folk in this district are angry at me for the mischief we all have done, and they speak against me, and declare that I have incited you. Arnkel Thorbergsson is especially angry at the seduction of his daughter and threatens action against me if he and she do not chance to starve before the Thing. But I knew nothing of this seduction until he told me of it.” And Jon Andres glared at Einar Marsson, for he was to blame in this.

Ofeig settled back against the wall, and Jon Andres turned to him. “Do not think, Ofeig, that I exclude you from these arrangements. Although we have been companions since boyhood, your pranks no longer amuse me. I think it would be well for you to reform your character, and apply to your father for forgiveness, for after tonight you will get nothing more at Ketils Stead.” He paused, then went on. “When I heard the priest pray over you not so long ago, my eyes were opened, though yours were not. It has seemed to me for these last days that I look damnation in the face and am too ignorant to recognize it, but if I did I would be a hundred times more terrified than I am now, and right now I am terrified enough.” Jon Andres saw that Halldor was nodding a bit in his corner, as if he had had similar thoughts, and he went on, “Folk in the district will say that it was I who led you out of the proper ways, and indeed, I am willing to take this blame, if such a thing will recommend you to your fathers. When I look back, I see that I was full of seething resentments and longings that I couldn’t speak of, they were so mixed together. But I see that you do not attend to anything I say, and so I will not go on, except to say that I expect you to attend to this, the necessity of being away from Ketils Stead by the morning light.”

And for the rest of the day and evening, Jon Andres sat up and looked alertly about himself, for it seemed to him that Ofeig, and maybe Mar and Einar, would come at him and try to kill him, but they did not. They left quietly with Halldor and Andres, going on skis and leading their horses in a line behind them. After they left, Jon Andres slept, only with three servants standing guard over the steading, and when he woke up, he loitered about the steading rather aimlessly, wishing for companionship, for he had not been without some of these boys since he was twelve winters old.

After leaving Ketils Stead, Halldor and Andres parted from the other two, and took their horses and goods to the south, and what they found there was no better, but no worse, than what was to be found at any other steading in the district, namely that some folk had died and some had not, and there was little food to be had. Einar and Mar decided to go to the steading of their uncle, the brother of their mother, a man named Ari, and they parted from Ofeig and made their way to Yfirfoss Stead, where Ari lived, but they only stayed there two days, for Ari had nothing to give them. Ofeig made it his plan to linger about Undir Hofdi church, and to squat in the priest’s house there, for he knew that Sira Audun would not be back for some weeks. It seemed to him that if Thorkel Gellison were to find him, he would kill him rather than take him in again.

Einar and Mar returned from Yfirfoss, and went to the steading of another uncle, this one the husband of their mother’s sister, a man named Bengt, and they left this steading after four days. Then they went to the steading of a cousin, a man named Ingvald. Here they stayed for two days before leaving. At each of these steadings, the one thing they spoke of was how much food Vigdis of Gunnars Stead had stored everywhere on her farm, and it did not take long for this news to penetrate every steading in the district, and for men to begin to talk about what a crime it was for this old woman to have so much food all to herself. Sometime in their travels, Mar and Einar began to discuss a notion they had, of taking some of Vigdis’ food and using it as a gift to win themselves a permanent place on some steading. In every case when they brought this up, as something that ought to be done, or could easily be done, one man or other on every steading looked at them with quickened interest.

Not long after leaving Ingvald’s little steading, they ran into Ofeig, who told about staying at the priest’s house at the church, and they came there and joined him. Ofeig had no food left, and Mar and Einar had just enough for a mouthful for everyone, and that night they began chatting again, as always, about Vigdis, and the next morning, all three of the men left the church house and went in different directions, and two days later, all three were back, and about twelve other men besides, and these men lingered about the church house all day, and then, in the evening, they departed in a band and directed themselves toward Gunnars Stead.

It was a saying among the Greenlanders, that “not every gobbet in the stew is mutton,” and this was the case, also, with Ofeig’s band of men. Some men will join any undertaking simply to see what might happen, others have vaguer motives even than this. They follow any movement, perhaps, simply because movement is of interest in the dead of winter. A few men, such as Bengt, the uncle of the Marssons, had heard of Vigdis’ quantities of provisions and ached to see them, merely to see the truth of the tale. Mar and Einar thought of stealing a portion. Others, perhaps, thought of this, too, for more than a few of these folk were men with families and servants. One or two of these men bore recent grudges against Vigdis, or older enmity from the days of Erlend and his sons.

However their feelings stood when they left the priest’s house, it is the truth that the quick walk through the snow in the frigid dark developed their appetites wonderfully, such appetites as men have who haven’t been satisfied in two winters, or in the summer between them. They came to the steading as men come to a feast, or bears to their first kill of the spring. The farm buildings lay before them in the moonlight, as neatly turfed as in the days of Asgeir Gunnarsson or his father, for Vigdis liked things to be in good repair. The storehouse lay near the steading, and the cowbyre behind, with the sheep pens open to the south. Another cluster of buildings, which included a smithy and a bath house, lay off the path from the church, some ways in front of the steading, and here the band of men stopped and listened for the barking of the dogs. None came, for the dogs were in the chambers off the cowbyre with the cowmen, and the wind blew from them into the faces of the intruders. All was silent. Einar and Mar went to the storehouse and forced open the door.

The mixed odor of meat and whey rolled forth through the door like a blast of heat, inflaming Einar so that he stumbled into the storehouse and began reaching in the dark with his hands and grabbing anything he touched. There were sausages and joints of dried or smoked meat, rounds and loops of cheese hanging from thongs, lumps of butter stacked against the wall. Einar groaned so at the wealth of provisions that Mar and another man pushed him out of the way in the dark, and then stepped on him in their impatience to get inside. The doorway was low and narrow, as with all storehouses, and the men crowded around it, inhaling the rich odors.

It is the case that when folk come long distances for a feast, the wife and her servingwomen must feed them all as quickly as is seemly, for the longer they wait, the more quarrelsome they become, and the more they stare at the bowls and trenchers passed to their neighbors and the more they feel slighted at the size of their own portions. Now it happened that Einar’s fall blocked the doorway of the storehouse, and in the darkness, men could not see how to lift him out of the way, or how to get around him, but they could hear Mar and the other man pulling things off the hooks and shelves, and indeed, they could hear the working of jaws and low grunts of pleasure, for it is with a man as with a dog—hungry ears are sharp ones. The men in the doorway began to shout at one another, and shove each other aside, and fear that other men were getting more to eat and to carry away than they themselves were. Now Ofeig said, “Nay, enough of this. There is more to be had in the steading.” And he ran through the snow to the door of the steading, and with one heavy blow of his shoulder, he knocked it down.

At this, a dog began to bark, and soon some others, and men began to run from the storehouse to the steading. Inside the steading, Vigdis sat up in her bedcloset and held forth her seal oil lamp, and was heard to say, “Now I see that Satan and his minions have come upon me at last.” Two elderly servingmen came in from another chamber in the steading with raised staves, and a blow from one of these glanced off Ofeig’s shoulder, angering him so that he turned and brought his great fist down on the fellow’s neck. The man collapsed on the floor. Perhaps the band of men had intended to do no injury, only to take some food and leave, but after this blow, the doing of injury seemed a simple and natural thing, a thing that could not be avoided in the course of events. Other servants came running from the cowbyre, all old men, and they, too, carried staves, and shouted about the devil’s work, and the dogs came with them, barking and howling at the top of their lungs, so that there was great confusion.