The Greenlanders (92 page)

When he went about to other steadings, it was as it had been the year before. He talked about this and that with perfect candor. He allowed himself to be fed the best viands. He spoke of Helga and, after Yule, the sad case of the twin sons. He was one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the district, and he dressed with careful richness, and always had two handsome servingmen with him, and when there was little snow on the ground, he rode his finest stud horse, and when there was much snow on the ground, he skied on carved skis. The first thing he did was let folk give him things and make him promises and speak to him of their business. The next thing he did was to make a few remarks concerning their business, always helpful, always canny about the ways of steadings or sheep or cows or men. The third thing he did was to settle little disputes, but carefully, so that both parties felt that the best possible thing had been done for them. He went from steading to steading, beginning with those steadings where he was little known, or known only to speak to. Then he went to steadings where he had visited in the past, or where the folk were under some small obligation to him. Then he went to his own steadings, where folk were his tenants. Then he went to the steadings of men nearly as prosperous and powerful as himself, men who considered themselves his faithful friends, and in every steading he counted the sons and the brothers and took note of what might be used for weapons, and in every steading he considered with care what was offered him, and he measured the constancy of the friendship he felt toward himself from the farmer. He weighed warmth against self-interest, generosity against dependability. He never once mentioned the name of Gunnar Asgeirsson. He was his own man, Jon Andres Erlendsson of Ketils Stead in Vatna Hverfi district, and to all appearances he was simply strengthening his position in the district, as men must do from time to time.

It happened that he went to Mosfell, the steading that was farmed by Ulfhild the widow, where once he and other men had nearly caught Ofeig, and Ulfhild and her sons welcomed him, as all folk in the district had done. Ulfhild set her best refreshments before him, and then, when he had eaten his fill, she took him out to the byre, and showed him the sheep he had given her, and also the horse he had sent to replace the horse that Ofeig had stolen. The new horse was a mare, and she had produced a rather nice young stud colt that was now a yearling. Jon Andres ran his hands over the back of the colt and down his legs, and he saw that someone had treated the animal with care, for it flinched not at his touch. He said, “He is a big fellow already, as big as a two-year-old and with a thick coat.” He smiled. “I should have thought again before choosing to give you that Flosi mare. She will prove to be the best of what I had. Indeed, she is from the Hestur Stead line, and that’s a fact.”

Ulfhild spoke rather sourly. “And which of my sons will ride the beast when he is fully grown? Will you give me another to make it even between them?”

“You seem to like the little fellow, though you speak ill-naturedly. The two of them needn’t ride the beast at the same time. There must be one boy about the steading to do some work.”

“Why then and not now?”

Now Jon Andres laughed. “You are full of complaints, old woman,” he said, “but affairs on your steading look to be as as prosperous as they have ever been since I have known you or your husband.”

“They may be and they may not be. Such things depend not a little on you or such as you. The powerful men in the district have been quiet enough for the last few years. Something is hatching, it seems to me.”

“What might that be?”

“That is for you to tell me. You didn’t come here to eat at my table. If your own isn’t better, then your wife is a poor stick. Nor did you come to look after this mare or sigh after this yearling colt. You came to look about, and to measure the height of my sons and the depth of their prowess. Nor is this the first steading you have visited. Do not think that though you go about by yourself, a train of talk does not follow behind you, my man.”

“Greenlanders always talk, especially in the winter. They do not always know what they are speaking of.”

“It is true that they speak highly of you, such a worthy fellow, so open and helpful, not so much like Erlend, nor yet like Vigdis, but perhaps of another strain.”

“Folk say that of me all the time. It may be true, but at this date, there is little to tell one way or another.”

“You are of the true Ketils Stead strain nonetheless, for when I was a girl, your father Erlend came about in just such a way as you are doing, and what he wanted was help in his case against Gunnar Asgeirsson. And it also seems to me that Gunnar Asgeirsson must figure in your comings and goings, somehow, since you have married his daughter.”

“It must be, old woman, that you have no concerns of your own, since you consider mine so carefully.”

“I am concerned with preserving my sons until they are strong enough to do something about the place. That is what I am concerned with. The great ones will bring us down in the end, and that is a fact.”

“Nay, old woman. It is not a fact. Nothing that hasn’t yet taken place is a fact.”

“It is a fact that men love to fight, and pay for their pleasure with a few deaths or deadly injuries, and it is a fact that women can do little enough about it. If it comes to my sons to fight, then their hearts will fly to it as quickly as the hearts of any other men, though they are lazy enough about everything else.”

“No one cares to fight.” And at this, the old woman only smiled, and led Jon Andres back up the hill to the steading, where she offered him more refreshment, although he had eaten only a little while before. After dusk and moonrise, he mounted his horse and went on his way over the crusty snow, wondering about the talk of the district, and whether his plans lay as open to everyone as they did to him. He stayed at Ketils Stead for some time after this, and saw that Helga’s confinement had turned her inward somehow, so that she had little to say to him, and he seemed to himself a much misused and isolated man.

Now the spring came on, and the ice broke up in the fjords, and folk were pleased enough, after a hard and snowy winter, to have what bits to eat they had left in their storehouses and cupboards, and at Easter they gave thanks for what there was to give thanks for, and otherwise prayed for better times. The Icelanders, with Sigrid Bjornsdottir and Bolli Bjornsson, made ready to depart, but at the last minute, Snorri Torfason the shipmaster changed his mind, and put off the departure for another season, much angering some of his folk, especially Thorstein Olafsson. But indeed, though he was a small, lazy man, it was the case that once Snorri had fixed his mind on something, he would not, or could not change it, and he had fixed his mind on staying with Bjorn Bollason yet another year, for living, he surmised, was easier there than it would be back in Iceland, even if his wife Gudrun were still alive, which, after eight winters, he somewhat doubted. Bjorn Bollason was happy enough to have Snorri, and Thorstein, and Sigrid, and Thorunn, for his enthusiasm for them never waned, but Signy his wife could be heard to mutter under her breath from time to time, for the case was that she and Thorunn were not such good friends as they had been, but they were forced to live as sisters anyway.

Thorstein and some of the other Icelanders had gotten into the habit of going on the seal hunt every spring and fall, and they were not so bad at it, if a Greenlander with some experience was watching out for them. Even so, most of the Greenlanders thought that trading these Icelanders, even with their weapons, for such a hunter as Kollgrim Gunnarsson was a poor bargain, especially since, in the two years since the burning, no ship had arrived, and no bishop had walked among the folk gathered on the strand and blessed them with real wheaten wafers and true wine. Indeed, at every hunting gathering, the men could not forbear speaking of what had been lost with Kollgrim Gunnarsson. Wasn’t every man’s portion less now? And he had been such an inward fellow that he had never taught much to others, such an inward fellow that it had never occurred to anyone to seek his teaching. Some folk had never even heard him speak. But he was gone now, and folk said among themselves that his burning was unaccountable, and the circumstances of it grew cloudy in the memory. Gunnar went on every hunt now, and that was remarkable, too, that the father had so little knack for what the son did so well. But it was said that the father wrote things down, as a priest does, and folk considered that such a skill was like a deep hole into which other skills fell and were lost, whether the man who wrote wished or not. Jon Andres went on every hunt, as well, and he was as good as most men.

Helga was not glad to see the coming of the summer, with the seal hunt and the Thing and much other traveling about to look forward to. This strange state of unfriendship continued between herself and Jon Andres all through the spring, so long that she ceased to wonder about it, and began to resent him for prolonging it, and to turn away from him herself. Whatever the reason for its beginning, the estrangement itself became the reason for its continuation. Even so, Helga shrank from letting him go off, for fear that he would be killed and never return. Certainty that he would be taken from her for eternity, and her grief at this, beset her every moment, from the time he mentioned that he would be going off soon, to the time that he returned and lay stiffly in her bedcloset again, and this fear made her even more distant from him. It was as if she could not even shout to him, as folk shout across the fields, yet he was right beside her.

She shrank from letting him go off, but men go off, whatever the women about the steading have to say about it. There is business that must be done, and so Jon Andres went off to the seal hunt, and took his share, and the seal hunt went on for five days, with a day and a half for getting there and a day for getting back. And on the third of these days, Johanna and Helga went out into the yard beside the steading, and began to lay out the bedclothes to be beaten and aired. It could not be said that the two were easy with one another, but Johanna had not left Ketils Stead, although she spoke of it from time to time. The sky was high and sunny, with but the thinnest layer of pale cloud stretched out here and there. The grass had greened in the previous fortnight, and was dry and thick. The birch and willow scrub was beginning to bud out, and the angelica about the watercourses was beginning to unfold its rich, wide branches. In spite of her unhappiness, Helga was not immune to these signs, and she looked about her, and caught sight of her children playing at the edge of the homefield, and felt a certain pleasure and hope for the future. Jon Andres was a man some thirty-six winters of age, and he had gone on countless seal hunts, and returned unscathed every time, had he not? Johanna went in and out without smiling, as always, but it seemed to Helga that her sister, too, walked with a lighter tread, and sensed an end to unhappiness.

Now it was the case that this long summer day passed as such days do when folk have their work, and are sunk in their thoughts, so that they look up, now and again, and discover that the time for the morning meat has passed, or that some bits of washing have dried already, or that the sun has passed its zenith although the morning seems only to have begun. And it happened that Thormod, the shepherd, and his brother, Thorodd, whom Jon Andres had left behind to take care of the work about the place in his absence, came to Helga and received permission to take a flock of sheep over to Gunnars Stead, and spend the night there.

At the evening meat everyone was as sleepy as could be from breathing so much warm air. Gunnhild could hardly lift her spoon, and Unn could hardly swallow the meat Helga chewed for her. Even Johanna drooped where she sat, and the servingmaids, Thormod’s wife Oddny, and the two others, had little enough to say, although usually they chattered over their food. Helga shooed them to their bedclosets as soon as the meal was over, and went to her own with Unn, but once there she lay awake for a long time, through the late dusk, thinking of Jon Andres with a peppery longing that set her to fidgeting among the cloaks and furs until her robe was all twisted about her once and then again. By then it was dark, and she began to think of all she might have done—sewing, or weaving, or spinning—when it was still light, instead of simply throwing herself about in futility. But she was reluctant to get up or light the seal oil lamp.

Now as she was speculating about what she might do, she heard a distinct swish and thump, so distinct that she could not dismiss it, but indeed, she little knew where it might be coming from, for it did not seem to be inside the steading. She lay silently. Now Johanna turned over in her bedcloset and hit her knee or her elbow on the side, and it seemed to Helga that the other might have been just such a sleeper’s sound as this, except that Johanna was just there, across the room and to the left, and this other sound had no such particularity. She listened again to the silence, and considered the five women and two little girls in the steading, and after a few moments of this consideration, she sat up where she was, and rearranged the cloaks about her over Unn, so that she was more thoroughly hidden among them. Then she crept out of the bedcloset and began to feel her way toward Oddny’s bedcloset, where Gunnhild slept, intending to do the same thing there, but just then there were a great many sounds—thumps and brushings, and she understood at once that they were coming from the roof of the steading, that someone was trying to get into the steading through the turves above them. Now she reached out her hand in the dark, and put it on the railing of Johanna’s bedcloset, and then upon her sister’s shoulder, which she shook, and then upon her mouth, so that she prevented the other woman from crying out as she woke. Now she turned and leaned into the bedcloset and said in a whisper, “Now we are hard put, for some bear or other beast is trying to get into this nest of women, and indeed, we have no weapons, for everything has been taken on the hunt, and I know not what to do.”

Now Johanna sat up, and her face was pale in the gloom, and she listened to the sounds raining down with little bits of earth from the turves above them. She said, “That’s what demons do in old tales, they ride the roof beam until the steading shakes under their weight.”