Iceland's Bell (11 page)

Luckily the thoughts of these people turned occasionally to other topics, especially concerning how long it took for the soldiers’ wages to be paid. The army’s ranks included not only Danes but also mercenaries of various nationalities and social classes: Saxons, Estonians, Wends, Poles, Bohemians, robbers, farmers, and vagrants. Many of them wondered whether the regulations concerning the payment of wages became valid only if the army defeated the enemy and won territory. Little by little Jón Hreggviðsson came to understand that the army assembled here would soon be sent south, to a certain mountain range called the Carpathians, to fight there for the German emperor. Another Danish army had been sent there before them and had seen a lot of action, but was now in need of additional troops so that it could turn the tide of the fight, and the Danish king had promised that two thousand troops would be sent from Glückstadt to join them as soon as possible. The Danish king and the German emperor were excellent friends.

The man who turned the officers’ roast insisted that the army was sure to achieve fame and fortune when it reached the Carpathians. The man who stoked the fire reminded them how it had gone one year not so long ago, when the Danish army had fought for the German emperor to win Spain and the emperor had promised to pay the Danish king a hundred thousand louis d’or for an old debt, in addition to a hundred thousand guilders as a reward if he should be victorious. “But let me ask you this,” he said, “when did the emperor ever conquer Spain?”

“Never,” said the assistant cooks.

“And when were the louis d’or paid?”

“Never,” said the assistant cooks.

“And when the guilders?”

“Never,” said the assistant cooks.

“And where are the troops who were supposed to be paid?”

“Dead,” said the assistant cooks.

“That was like every other unlucky military expedition,” said the man who turned the roast. “Both good and bad fortune are encountered in war. The Danish army that was sent last year to Lombardy achieved great fame. Its name lives on in the stars. They fought at the fortress of Cremona, which was being held by the French, and now they’re called the Danish Falcons of Cremona.”

“Not quite,” said the man who stoked the fire. “An Italian monk lured them into a sewer running from the fortress into the river Po. True, some sort of battle was apparently fought in the sewer and some of them made it out alive. But let me ask you this, what happened to those Danish Falcons of Cremona who made it out of the sewer? I heard it from a German who was there that when the survivors went to collect their wages, it turned out that Count Schlieben, their commander, had wasted all their pay shooting dice in Venice, so they weren’t allowed to return home and instead were driven like lambs east to the Carpathians and told to fight there against the Magyars, who are a race of wildmen. Now they’ve supposedly been promised their wages, and the king a hundred thousand louis d’or, if they can take over those mountains. That’s just what those dead men need to take over those mountains—two thousand more dead.”

“I’ve always wanted to see mountains,” said the roaster. “It must be exciting fighting in the mountains. I might even think that it’d be better to be defeated in the mountains than to be victorious in a sewer.”

The man who kindled the fire asked, “What do you say, Regvidsen—you who’ve fought with demons and devils on top of Hekla?”

Jón Hreggviðsson said nothing more than that it was pretty obvious as to who got the shillings around here.

“One spoonful for that,” said the roaster, and he went over to where Jón Hreggviðsson was sitting on the butcher’s block and slapped him in the face with his ladle, toppling him to the floor.

On the next day the roughhousing in the mess hall started anew. Jón Hreggviðsson pinned down his overseer, the roaster who wanted to fight in the mountains, pulled down his pants, and whipped him. Trumpets were blown and the regimental guards seized the farmer and hauled him off to headquarters. But the officers, all German, were busy preparing to set off with the army south to the Carpathians, which meant that most of them were drunk, and they couldn’t reach an agreement as to what should be done with the rascal. Some of them wanted to quarter him immediately, instead of wasting time by first cutting out his heart and slapping his face with it and then quartering him afterward, which was the punishment specified in the regulations for discipline-breakers in the king’s army. Others wanted to follow the regulations down to the last detail, because justice eternally protects mankind’s affairs. The matter was finally referred to the judgment of the colonel, who had hired out this and more armies for the Danish king and acted as absolute authority over his soldiers’ lives and limbs, and thus it turned out that this incident caused the man from Skagi to lose his place in his division and his chance to travel with the army to the south to fight for His Most Gracious Majesty.

The colonel was an outstanding, well-educated gentleman, a count and baron and peer from the land of Pommern. He resided in a stately mansion close by, and Jón Hreggviðsson was taken there. Several soldiers with drawn swords guarded the door. In a hall whose large windows overlooked apple trees in the garden below sat a gaunt cavalier in a golden sash, a goatee, and a peruke, with a sword at his belt and snow-white ruffles at the ends of his sleeves. He was wearing golden, tight-fitting silk trousers and red topboots that hung down in double folds just below his knees, and a blue velvet cloak with an extensive train. He sat with one elbow upon a table and a long index finger upon his pale cheek, reading from huge books. This was the colonel. Sitting like a statue to one side of him was his adjutant, staring out into the blue; to the other side sat his secretary, stooped over his feather pen. Jón Hreggviðsson’s guards informed the doormen that this was Johann Reckwitz aus Ijsland, who had whipped his superior. The head doorman reported this to the adjutant. The colonel continued to read his books, one hand upon his sword and the other beneath his chin, until the adjutant reported to him that the Icelander had arrived. The colonel then ordered that Reckwitz was not to stand more than one span over the threshold, that all of the doors were to be opened behind him, and that all of the windows in the house were to be opened all the way. A draft blew through the hall. The colonel stared at Jón Hreggviðsson for a moment and ground his teeth. Suddenly he swept up the train of his cloak, sprang to his feet, took several lightning-quick steps forward, and sniffed in the farmer’s direction with a look of predetermined loathing. Then he returned to his seat, picked up a silver box, took a long and careful pinch of snuff, and told all the others to do the same. When they were finished he said something in German that only the adjutant heard, and he continued to stare at Jón Hreggviðsson. The adjutant addressed Jón Hreggviðsson in coarse Danish, without moving an inch.

“My lord has read in reputable books that Icelanders emit such a foul stench that men have to position themselves upwind when speaking to them.”

Jón Hreggviðsson said nothing.

The adjutant said: “My lord has read in reputable books that the abode of the damned and of devils is in Iceland, within the mountain named Hekkenfeld. Is this correct?”

Jón Hreggviðsson said that he couldn’t deny it.

Next: “My lord has read in reputable books, primo, that in Iceland there are more specters, monsters, and devils than there are men; secundo, that Icelanders bury shark meat in the dungheaps by their cowsheds and afterward eat it; tertio, that starving Icelanders remove their shoes and cut pieces of them into their mouths like pancakes; quarto, that Icelanders live in mounds of earth; quinto, that Icelanders do not know how to work; sexto, that Icelanders loan foreigners their daughters for purposes of procreation; septimo, that an Icelandic girl is considered to be an unspoiled virgin until she has had her seventh illegitimate child. Is this correct?”

Jón Hreggviðsson gaped slightly.

“My lord has read in reputable books that Icelanders are primo, thievish; secundo, liars; tertio, arrogant; quarto, lice-ridden; quinto, drunkards; sexto, debauchers; septimo, cowards, unfit for war—” the adjutant said all of this without moving and the colonel continued to grind his teeth and stare at Jón Hreggviðsson. “Is this correct?”

Jón Hreggviðsson swallowed to try to wet his throat. The adjutant raised his voice and repeated:

“Is this correct?”

Jón Hreggviðsson straightened up and said:

“My forefather Gunnar of Hlíðarendi was twelve ells high.”

The colonel said something to the adjutant and the adjutant said loudly:

“My lord says that whoever commits perjury beneath the standard shall suffer the wheel and the rack.”

“Twelve ells,” repeated Jón Hreggviðsson. “I won’t take it back.

And he lived to be three hundred years old. And he wore a golden band around his forehead. His halberd sang the sweetest song that has ever been heard in the North. And the girls are young and slender and come during the night to free men, and are called fair maidens and are said to have the bodies of elves—”

16

Before the doorway of a noble mansion in Copenhagen stands a soldier, wearing a black hat, high rubber boats, and a new coat. He is girded with a belt but carries no weapons. He shuffles for some time before the house, creeps up the doorsteps, and stands a while longer at the top, stooping a bit at the knees, staring up at the sheer gable with his fists clenched around his thumbs. Affixed to the door is a brass clasp with a hammerhead that is used to strike a tiny anvil beneath and thus send a clapping sound into the house, but the new arrival can’t figure out how to work such a machine and instead announces his presence by rapping three times upon the door. He waits for a moment or two but no one comes. On his next attempt he doubles the strength of his knock, again with no result. The soldier grows restless and starts pounding the oak with his fists over and over, heavily and hard.

Finally the door is opened, and a dwarfish woman steps into the doorway. She is hunchbacked, with a ledge-shaped mouth and a chin that hangs down to the middle of her chest, arms too long and too thin, and drooping hands. She fixed the soldier with an evil stare. He greeted her in Dutch. She gave a shrill bark and ordered the black devil to clear off immediately.

“Is Arnas home?” he asked.

At first the woman was so utterly sickened to hear a common soldier mention the name of such a man on his own doorstep that she could say nothing. When she stemmed her gorge she spoke to him in Low German, and the soldier got the distinct impression that she was calling him a black devil in that language as well. Next she tried to close the door but he stuck his foot between it and the doorpost. She pushed against the door for a few moments, but she quickly realized that strength had precedence over principle here and disappeared into the house. He withdrew his foot but didn’t have the courage to follow the woman in. Several moments passed.

Both the house and the surrounding neighborhood were completely quiet, and the soldier continued to dawdle on the doorstep, becoming ever more distressed. Finally he heard a rustling sound at the door. A pair of eyes peeped out, and then a thin nose emerged, snorting.

“What’s the matter?” snorted an Icelandic voice. But since the soldier wasn’t able to think straight in that language, he bade good day in Danish.

“What’s the matter?” came the snort again.

“Nothing’s the matter,” answered the soldier in Icelandic.

Then the door opened.

Standing there was an Icelander, with a reddish complexion, a long face, thin, flat hair, slightly twitchy wether’s eyes, colorless eyelashes, and nearly hairless eyebrows; he was wearing a dress coat with patches on the elbows. The man did not possess the self-confidence necessary to be the servant of a nobleman, but his quirky mannerisms certainly distinguished him from other commoners: he snorted and blinked incessantly, jerked his head as if he were trying to avoid being bitten by midges, and rubbed his nose with an index finger; he would also distractedly scratch one of his calves with the instep of the other foot. It was difficult to tell if he was old or young.

“Who are you?” asked the Icelander.

“My name is Jón Hreggviðsson, from Rein on Akranes,” said the soldier.

“Welcome, Jón,” said the Icelander, extending his hand. “Good. And he’s gone and enlisted as a soldier.”

“I’d traveled a long way and they nabbed me in Glückstadt out in Holstein,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Yes, they’re cruel men for taking roving knaves,” said the Icelander. “It’s better to stay put in Akranes. Good. By the way, I don’t suppose you’re keeping company with Jón Marteinsson?”

Jón Hreggviðsson answered no to that—he wasn’t familiar with the man he named; on the other hand he did have urgent business with Arnas Arnæus—“or am I mistaken in thinking that he’s the master of this house?”

“Doesn’t know Jón Marteinsson, good, good,” said the Icelander. “And comes from Skagi. What’s the news from Akranes?”

“Oh, they’re doing alright,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“No one’s dreamed any significant dream?”

“Not that I can recall—except sometimes children dream about the future. And old women feel pain in their thighs before the wind shifts to a northeaster,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Who’re you?”

“My name is Jón Guðmundsson from Grindavík—I am called Grindvicensis,” said the man. “I do as a matter of fact hold the title Doctus in Veteri Lingua Septentrionali; but my favorite indulgence nowadays is scientia mirabilium rerum.* As I was saying: good. I don’t expect you have anything to report? Haven’t heard anything new? Haven’t heard tell of any peculiar creatures or suchlike on the shores of Hvalfjörður?”

“Well, no, damn it,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “On the other hand we do get bites from sea monsters out on Akranes, and some of them are darned ugly, but such a thing is hardly considered news, even if someone lands in a tussle with one of them. But since we’re talking about freaks of nature, some kind of satyr came here to the door—a blend of troll and dwarf, though in the shape of a woman, and I’ve never had it worse in seeing such a creature because she called me a black devil in German when I asked about the householder.”

At this report the Icelander Grindvicensis snorted and gaped, then rubbed his right instep against his left calf and vice versa. When he could finally speak again he said:

“May I point out to my good compatriot that when he says that he wants to speak with my master, my master is not the kind of householding farmer one finds out in Iceland, though he is indeed an Icelander—he is a refined and venerable lord, Assessor Consistorii, Professor Philosophiae et Antiquitatum Danicarum,* and His Royal Majesty’s Erudite Archivist. And consequently, his wedded wife and affectionate darling, the mistress of this house, is also of noble standing and is therefore to be accorded praise, not derision and mockery.* And who is it who has sent you, a rank-and-file soldier, to meet with my master?”

“That’s my story,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Oh, good. But what sort of testimonial, written or otherwise, do you have from a high-ranking individual allowing you to speak with my master?”

“I have the kind of testimonial that he understands.”

“Indeed. I wonder if this might be merely some sort of scheme contrived by that coxcomb and gallows bird Jón Marteinsson to finagle books and money,” said the Icelander Grindvicensis. “Or might I, my master’s famulus in antiquitatibus,* be permitted to have a look at this testimonial?”

Jón Hreggviðsson said: “I’ll give my token to no one but him. I sewed it into my rags up north in Trékyllisvík. And when I was made a soldier I put it into one of my shoes. Thieves looked down on me as scum of the earth and therefore it never crossed any of their minds that I might be carrying such a treasure. You can tell that to your master. I could have bought my own life with this treasure many times over, but I chose instead to suffer starvation and beatings in Holland, the gallows in Germany, and the Spanish Jacket* out in Glückstadt.”

The learned Icelander now stepped out of the house and locked the door behind him, then told Jón Hreggviðsson to follow him around the corner. They entered an orchard behind the house, where the black bare boughs of tall trees drooped with silver frost. Grindvicensis invited the visitor to take a seat upon an icy bench. He himself went and peered around the corner and behind the trees and bushes as if to make sure that the enemy was nowhere near, then finally returned and sat down upon the bench.

“As I was saying: good,” he said, in the same schoolroom tone as before, filled with enthusiasm for his own wisdom. He said it was unfortunate that he hadn’t ever really had the opportunity to examine the world with his own eyes, except as a schoolboy on his trips from Grindavík to Skálholt, when he had tried as far as he was able to observe and record everything astounding, incredible, and incomprehensible, especially in Krýsuvík, Herdísarvík, and Selvogur. On the other hand he had always willingly collected material from well-informed persons of high as well as low standing, with the result that he had a number of books in the making concerning these subjects. Now as he understood Jón Hreggviðsson to be a man well acquainted with Germany, he was eager to hear whether it was true that there still lived in the depths of Germany’s forests those creatures, called elgfróðar in Icelandic, that are half-man and half-horse?

Jón Hreggviðsson replied that he’d never run into such a creature in Germany, but he’d once wrestled a hanged man there. At this the learned Icelander interrupted and said that he was overly vexed by such phenomena, because anyone who mentioned specters was usually reproached for being superstitious and repudiated by the learned popinjays here in Copenhagen, not least among them Jón Marteinsson, since the doings of dead men in this world were not to be ascribed to natural science and hardly to mirabilia* either; it was up to the theologians to forswear such things. He then asked Jón Hreggviðsson whether he’d had any dealings with giants, because he had a tiny Latin text in the works concerning that subject. Did the farmer know whether a troll-bone might have been found in the earth in his highland pasture or on the heaths above Borgarfjörður?—foreigners pay a great deal of heed to documentary evidence written up in books, he said. Jón Hreggviðsson said no to this, because he thought it likely that such a large bone would be quite soft and would disintegrate rather quickly. On the other hand, said the farmer, about a year ago he’d come to grips with a living troll-woman on Tvídægra, and, after having thought about his dealings with the monster as thoroughly as possible, he’d come to the conclusion that she’d been questioning his masculinity. The learned Icelander found this hugely interesting and his opinion of the soldier increased to no small extent at this revelation; he said that he would copy down this information exactly as he’d heard it in his book
De
Gigantibus Islandiae.
*

“By the way,” he said, “I don’t expect that you’ve heard mention of a child, if it could be called a child, having, as it did, a mouth upon its chest, which in the year before last beheld the light of day at Ærlækjarsel in Flói?”

Jón Hreggviðsson wasn’t sure about this; on the other hand, he was familiar with a lamb with a bird’s nose that had been born in Belgsholt in the parish of Melar three years ago. The learned Icelander declared this excellent news and said that he would record it in his book
Physica Islandica
*—he said that Jón Hreggviðsson was a wise and discerning fellow for a man of the mob, and was most likely an entirely decent chap; “. . . but,” he added, “I don’t think that the lord of this house, my master, would have any interest in conversing with such a lowly man. However, I will attempt to make enquiry on your behalf, if you haven’t already lost interest in the matter.”

Since this was definitely not the case, the learned Icelander took it upon himself to report the visitor’s business, going into the house by the main door, stooping and snorting, puffed up with responsibility. He had not so much as disappeared into the house when Jón Hreggviðsson heard a yawning beside him upon the bench, and when he turned around he was surprised to see a man sitting there. The man must have congealed there like the rime, because he hadn’t been seen coming in through the front gate nor from out of the house nor from over the wall—besides the fact that the learned Grindvicensis had taken a look to make sure that nothing was hiding in the bushes or behind the trees.

They examined each other for a moment. The man was blue from the cold and had his hands pulled up within his sleeves.

“What a crap of a country—now there’s rain as well as frost,” said this surprise visitor, and he sucked at his upper lip with his lower one.

“Who’re you?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

“There’s no need to get to that right away,” answered the stranger, and he started poking at the farmer’s boots. “Let’s make a deal for the boots instead. I’ll trade you my knife.”

“These are His Majesty’s boots,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Screw His Majesty,” said the stranger apathetically, almost emptily.

“Screw your own appetite, pal,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Alright then, let’s trade knives, instead of doing nothing at all,” said the other man. “Straight up, sight unseen!”

“I never buy anything without seeing it first,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“I’ll show you the hilt,” said the man.

They traded knives. The man’s knife was a fine piece of work, but Jón Hreggviðsson’s had a rusty blade.

“I always lose,” said the stranger. “No one trades fairly with me. But it doesn’t matter. Now let’s get up and go to Doctor Kirsten’s and pay for a tankard of beer with the knife.”

“Which knife?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“My knife,” said the man.

“Which happens to be my knife,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I won’t drink away my knife. On the other hand, you can drink all the beer you want for the rusty one.”

“Nothing gets past you, Jón Hreggviðsson from Rein. You’re not only a murderer and a thief, you’re also the worst of men. May I ask what you’re doing hanging around outside this miserable house?”

“It doesn’t look to me like you’re much better than a beggar yourself,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “What’re those on your feet, may I ask? You call those shoes? And why’re you squeezing your hands like that up into your sleeves? And where’s your house?”

“My house is a massive palace compared to this one,” said the man, full of passionless obstinacy, like a hackney.

“In my opinion,” said Jón Hreggviðsson in response, “there’s never been an Icelander, since Iceland was settled, who has owned such a magnificent house as this one—and there were a lot of people who had good houses in the old days.”

The stranger could not be convinced. He seemed to need to say something, then spoke quickly and tenderly and somewhat grumblingly, with a slight drawl, as if he were reading from an old book:

“Many a king lost all that he owned in his quest for a pearl. And many a man’s son was prepared to lose the breath of life for a princess and to undergo trials to take possession of the kingdom. Let them be sea-kings and men of Hrafnista, lying with witches after landing in perilous storms up north in Gästrikland, or in Jötunheim—such things happened to heroes as famous as Hálfdán Brönufóstri, Illugi Gríðarfóstri, and Örvar-Oddur himself, and they weren’t considered lesser men because of it.* But to sell the pearl and the princess at once, and the kingdom besides, for one witch—such a story is not to be found in all the realm of antiquitatates.”