Norseman Chief (11 page)

“And what about me?  Will you tell me the truth?”

“Of course I will!  Tell no one else, though.  What am I saying?  You don’t really speak to anyone except for a few words here and there.”  The man gave me a wink before beginning the story, “After my tortoise dinner I was asleep in the cage for protection, when . . .”

He was cut off by Nootau who poked his head into the mamateek, “Just because you are a man now does not mean you may arrive whenever you wish.  Come to the ceremony.”

Nootau ducked back out.  Kesegowaase gave a smiling shrug, “I’ll finish later,” and then he was gone.  I held back a moment and resolved that I, too, would prefer to let the legend of Kesegowaase’s bear kill grow in my own heart.  I decided I would not ask him again and if he tried to tell me I would steer the subject elsewhere.

. . .

The newly ordained men spent the rest of the evening hours receiving their first tattoos from the elders while the village feasted around a roaring fire.  Kesegowaase soon wore several of the permanent markings which would obtain additional company over the years until much of his skin was covered like the other experienced warriors and medicine men.  His ears and the skin surrounding them were decorated like the shell of a tortoise, a reference only he and I understood.  The animal’s forelegs extended at angles to his temple and onto his shaved scalp.  The hind legs and tail protruded from the bottom of his ear across his lower jaw and neck.  Jutting straight from the top of his ear, or the shell of the beast, was the neck and head of the tortoise.  Its mouth was wide open on the side of Kesegowaase’s head and a stream of water came out, snaked up and over his crown, only to disappear into the mouth of the twin tortoise on the other side.  He took the pain with all the stoicism I would expect from a man bent on demonstrating strength.  Hurit looked on with a quiet pride.

The sun set long ago, but the fat, full moon drenched the area with light.  The women danced for their men, until they finally sat in an exhausted sweat to let the men take over.  Nootau dabbed the last of the blood from Kesegowaase’s finished tortoise tattoos.  The boy rose, eager for the next phase of the ceremony, but Nootau pushed him back down, indicating he should lie length-wise on a long-fallen log.  “We have agreed that you will receive another marking so that many generations will know of your triumph over the great bear during the trials.”  And in truth, it was a feat.  I had later learned that only one in five boys survive the trial given to Kesegowaase.  Many died from the wysoccan or thirst or starvation long before the effects of the drug ever wore off.  Others died from a beast or exposure once they escaped their prison.  Hurit’s son did neither and came back with the hide of a bear as if to stamp out any doubts about the delay in gaining his manhood.

Another hour of tapping the burnt poplar dust and ink into the man’s smooth, shaved skin on the back of his head left Kesegowaase with the clawed paw of a bear just above the nape of his neck.  When he stood and smiled at me, I was shocked to see that the young boy I knew just one month earlier had become a frightening warrior.  He looked like someone with the will, mind, and muscling to kill a man.  I thought of the battles I had had with his people not so long ago.  I thought of the ferocity they showed.  But I also remembered that they died just as well as our people when the steel of a blade or the iron of an arrow pierced their skull.  I would have to train Kesegowaase so that the same did not happen to him.

A loud hacking sound interrupted the celebration as Ahanu stood with a great smile, even though he coughed away into the air.  When he finished the fit and the onlookers had all settled, my friend wiped a dab of spittle from his chin, saying, “It is good that Glooskap sees that we replenish ourselves with new men because I fear I will split like shale if I cough like that again.”  His people would not hear of such talk and to a person everyone grumbled loudly.

The old man tutted the crowd, “Oh, I am sure you are wise.  I will likely live forever like no man before me, perhaps taking some of these young women for a bride or two in the coming years.”  The village quickly laughed and returned to their good humor.  “I would like those with the proven, necessary strength, those who passed the trials to come to me.”  The implicit shame heaped on the family of the boy who died was lost on no one.  His family sat, unmoving, on blankets brought out from their mamateek at the edge of the crowd.  The dead boy’s father held his chin high, while the mother dropped tears onto their youngest child who nursed at her breast.  To this day I would think he died honorably, but who am I to understand Ahanu’s people.

Rowtag stood next to Ahanu with a great wooden bowl in his hands.  The man’s arms were bent and the muscles worked, rippling as the bowl teetered, filled nearly to the brim with the red ochre paint their people loved so.  One-by-one Ahanu covered the bowed heads and faces of the six men being honored in the ceremony.  He dipped his hand deeply into the red liquid while praising their god, Glooskap, even pleading for his mischievous twin brother, Malsum, to shift his form into the wolf of the wilderness and guide these men on their lives’ journeys.

I reacted to the prayer with a start for I thought of how similar to my old gods this brother of Glooskap sounded.  Odin himself had a roguish opposite called Loki who could shape shift to any form or even either sex he desired.  Many times he, too, appeared as a wolf.  I dismissed my musing as thoughts for another time.

With heads and even the small tufts of hair on their crowns completely covered in red, Kesegowaase and his peers were given the distinct privilege of speaking their mind regarding any matter they deemed important for the tribe.  My young friend spoke first, though I do not know if that was by design because he was the oldest or if he happened to be standing in the correct place.  At any rate the crowd hushed and gave the young man respect, listening intently.  The only sounds other than his voice were the great crackles and hisses spouting from the fire.  The flashing, dancing light from the fire blended eerily with the blue light from the moon to paint a dreadful figure in Kesegowaase, but his words were drenched in peace and wisdom beyond his years.

“Fathers and mothers of my people, I honor and praise all of you living and dead for showing me the way in life.  Just over one moon ago, I was like this creature before me.”  He pointed to a young boy of about two years, who sat on his father’s knee, his enormous eyes fixed on the terrifying face of Kesegowaase.  “But now you and our chief have seen fit to extend to me the right of manhood by allowing me the gift of the trials.”  Some gift, I thought.

Etleloo, who sat to my left, leaned in, “If you could just see the trials, you would not think they are a gift.”  I chuckled at him.  This man, the man who at first tortured me, was slowly becoming a friend, though I do not know if he would have called me one at that time.

“Despite my serious words, our friend and captive, the Enkoodabooaoo, laughs.”  The village gave a short gasp at the reprimand I received, but Kesegowaase tempered the remark.  “Our chief laughs when others are serious so I suppose that may indicate that Halldorr is wise, like out leader.”  My eyes met Kesegowaase’s and we nodded at one another.  I then glanced at Hurit who watched her son, enraptured.  She looked beautiful most times, but her silhouette appeared so strong that night with her prominent cheek bones catching every stray band of light, that I wanted nothing more than to stand and proclaim my love for her in front of the whole of the village.

My thoughts wandered for a time to more base subjects pertaining to Hurit and me and so I am not certain of what Kesegowaase said, only that he made reference to Ahanu over and again.  He probably was just speechmaking.  Any good speech must spend time ingratiating the speaker to the king, warlord, or chief.  No matter how much the man in question seemed to be above such praise, everyone with power wanted to hear they were somehow wonderful.  My friend Ahanu was no different.

“So, I propose to make an active alliance with the Huntsman and his band of men.  May it be the beginning of a friendship and peace that will last generations.  May our warriors and their men be as one body when the time comes to protect one another.  May our blood be theirs.  May their blood be ours.”

His speech caused a bit of a stir with muttering erupting all around.  Etleloo shot up to his feet once Kesegowaase found his seat.  “I will not hear of this.  We, the al gon kin do not make alliances.  That is what makes us strong for we are not bound to the whims of any man or village.  Look at the angry people toward the late day sun.  The Abenaki and the Maliseet have seen fit to ally themselves with countless other tribes.  They now even call themselves the Wabanaki as if an alliance makes them a new people.  They are the same.  And what has this alliance gotten them in return?  My father took me to trade with these Wabanaki when I was but a boy.  They live in cages built of their own hands to protect themselves.  They live in fear, hidden behind wooden fortress walls.  The alliance did nothing but get them notoriety from the larger peoples.  They are now a destination for siege and attack.  Why would we ask for such trouble?  Who are we to take advice from this boy?”

Ahanu screeched, “Etleloo!  You will sit!”

The two men stared at one another, neither wanting to give in and show weakness.  Whispers stirred around the great fire.

Nootau broke the stand-off by rising himself and slowly walking to face the fiery Etleloo.  He spoke in hushed tones so that neither Etleloo nor Ahanu would lose face among their people.  But I was close enough to hear.  “Etleloo, you have offended the way of our people, the very people you say you want to protect.  Kesegowaase is no longer a boy, he is a man, but you’ve offended the very nature of the trials by calling him one.  He was given the privilege to speak his mind.  That is the way it has always been among the al gon kin as you now call us.  You know the council will decide any such talk of alliance.  Now, I will have you apologize to Ahanu before sitting.  You may make peace with Kesegowaase at another time.”  Before allowing Etleloo the chance to respond, he quickly spun around and raised his hands.  “Our good warrior Etleloo has agreed to strike his words from our ceremony!  He only wishes to hear more of the thoughts from his new companions in the ranks of warrior and hunter.”

Etleloo was stuck with no choice so he did what the older, wiser Nootau intended.  After the applause from Nootau’s words died down, the angry warrior said, “It is as Nootau has said.  Ahanu leads us with wisdom and I have allowed my words to tumble out thoughtlessly.  I will listen to more plans from the other five . . . men.”  He plopped down on the log next to me, huffing into the air, chewing on his cheek.

The next young man stood to speak, swallowing visibly at the prospect of creating a commotion like the one he just witnessed.  He looked equally as horrifying in his red face, but his speech was not filled with the confidence of the first.  In fact, none of the others had even a degree of the speaking ability of Kesegowaase.  Instead, they droned on and on about making sure that the rivers still had ample fish.  Fish!  As if they controlled this.  Another spent some time discussing how he’d like to make sure the Mi’kmaq never attack like they had so often in the past.  I remember thinking that to ensure they never attack, it would be best to kill them all, these Mi’kmaq, whoever they were.  This young man offered no specifics, though.

From the talks of all these young men, I did learn why Kesegowaase’s words caused such a stir among the others.  His speech carried the only words of substance, the only real words with real suggestions, and the potential for real outcomes – perhaps good or perhaps bad.  The village had gotten used to listening to nothingness from their new young men, so that when one proposed an idea requiring thought, they lashed out.  They were no different in this behavior than all of the peoples I had come across as I sailed the seas – most wanted only to hear a good story, not the truth for the truth could require thought.  A new thought might require action.  A new action might lead to a series of new thoughts and more actions.  In the end they might find they actually created something of value – a legacy.  But, as I have said, Ahanu’s people wanted none of this that night.  By the end of the speeches and as the fire died down to a glowing heap, most villagers had forgotten Kesegowaase’s bold suggestion and praised the other speakers for their mediocrity.

I can say for certain that four men and one woman did not forget about the daring proposal, however.  Each of us, Ahanu, Etleloo, Kesegowaase, Hurit, and I were lost in the thought much of the night.  For my part, I wondered about a permanent peace between such different peoples as the Huntsman and his band of Norsemen and Ahanu and his al gumna kyn.

CHAPTER 6

My time of servitude at last came to an end and I was free to come and go as I pleased.  So I did go, leaving behind what had been my home for one year and the people and friendships I had won.  My destination was my Norse home at Leifsbudir where Leif, Thorhall, and many others worked to put our marker on this new land.  At some point a new, young adventurer or merchant like Karlsefni would likely come back to Leifsbudir to make himself a name among the Greenlanders.

Kesegowaase, Rowtag and several other men accompanied me in their own canoes while I piloted
Sjor Batr
, the swift little boat I had made to reach their tribe.  Hassun, who was ejected by Ahanu from Rowtag’s canoe before our journey even began, was again left in the village to learn more of Nootau’s, that is, his father’s, healing magic.  The young man groused silently as he marched up the bank, but obeyed his chief, as a new shaman would be needed someday.  Many men would have leapt at the opportunity to be selected for such a noble role in their village.  Like all men however, Hassun had his heart set on another life, and even though it may not have been entirely suited to him, the fact’s current honor did not matter.  He would outgrow his bitterness, I thought.

Ahanu paddled with me in my canoe, making light work compared to my exhausting solo journey to their village the previous year.  We chatted at length about the sea beneath us, about the far distances I had travelled in life, and even about the One God, Glooskap, and Odin.  It was a peaceful trip, with nothing exceptional to report.

My friends stayed for two weeks as I re-opened the homes on the rise of land up from the cove.  Eventually we moved further inland to sleep in what had become my own longhouse situated next to Black Duck Pond.  The earth was still dark from the gallons of blood Freydis shed in the yard when she killed our own people.  The mass grave I dug was still an abnormally placed hillock in the otherwise flat landscape.  The thought made my heart heavy for it led my mind to ponder the good friends I had lost on that wicked day.  Helgi and his sullen brother Finnbogi were among the dead!  They were men I would miss.  I said nothing to Ahanu or his al gumna kyn.  What would be the point?

For several days, we hunted and fished together, bringing in much meat for me and for them to last the winter months when it was best to remain undercover.  We smoked it all in narrow strips over a fire kept smoky with damp leaves heaped atop the flames.  Despite the prolific hunting and good company, they soon began to miss their families, and so I waved goodbye to them from a spot at the mouth of the brook that emptied into the shallow cove.  As had happened too many times over the years, I stood there alone.  Right Ear was with me, of course, but at that particular moment he howled in the muddy shoals that were quickly forming while the tide fell away, splattering wet muck into his coat.  He would sleep on the floor that night.

I was not entirely lonely, though.  The rapid tap-tap of a yellow woodpecker brought a smile to my lips as I recalled the day I first set foot on this island.  A similar bird, perhaps an ancestor to this very woodpecker, shit right onto Arnkell, one of my men.  The other men with us had made good sport of it, but Arnkell spent most of the day grumbling about the incident.

But it was not the woodpecker, Right Ear, memories, or the great moose of the wood which were going to keep me company.  My books, which I had little time to read while performing my role as a captured skraeling woman, would engage me in conversation through the coming frigid months while I waited at my post for relief from my true people.  But like the creativity of the past, which sprang from my hands or mind when I used isolation from other human contact as a chance to build a longboat or canoe or learn a language, I used this new time alone to experiment with making my own parchment.

I knew of the general process from what I learned while talking with my old tutor, Crevan, and my wife, Kenna in the great hall of Kaupangen.  First, I searched the area surrounding my home at Black Duck Pond until I found a hillside with limestone.  It was not a long quest and soon I had a large bath filled with water and crushed limestone and rotten vegetation where I soaked a fresh deer hide for four or five days.  I had also learned that some ground up mussel shells help with the bath so I added them in, but don’t know exactly what they do to the mix.  When I skinned the beast, I was exceptionally careful not to tear the hide since that would only make the resulting parchment into smaller, more irregular sheets.  For some reason, I wanted the proud parchment of kings, tall and broad, to tell my tale.

Much of the hair came off during the bath, but what was left could easily be scraped away.  I assembled a vertical, crude, square frame, punched holes at the edges of the hide with an awl fashioned from a bone from the very deer that had given up its hide for my project, then tightly stretched it to the structure with cords.  I wished I had a rounded knife to scrape at the skin so as to reduce the chance of puncturing it as it became thinner, but I had nearly no supply of iron ore and was not much of a blacksmith, so I made due with a small eating knife, accidentally poking a hole just once near the very center.  In hindsight and after learning much from my neighbors the skraelings, I should have used a curved rib worked to a sharp edge along its rim.

The final step was to use a coarse stone to sand away at the parchment.  I reached my left arm through the taut cords to support the back side while I pushed the stone in back and forth across the stretched hide.  I was impatient on this first try and so did not sand long enough or create an even writing surface.  As a result, the brown ink I made from bits of iron left behind by the smithy and the galls of oak leaves absorbed unevenly, creating darker and lighter text across the page.  Nonetheless, that was the beginning to my journal writing.  It would be many years before I compiled it all together in what you read today, but my first thoughts were jotted on that deer hide parchment while I was alone in Leifsbudir.  I believe I wrote a letter to Leif about my new allies, the skraelings, though I had no way of getting it to him unless a ship and crew came to relieve me of my watch.

I told myself I was joyous those first several weeks of isolation.  My dog and I could come and go as we pleased.  I could piss in any river or on any toadstool without the prying eyes and giggling smirks of Ahanu’s people.  I had seen their own men’s pissing tools for they preferred less clothing to my more, but did not see why I developed a following of children whenever I rose to relieve myself.  My books, one I stole, one a gift, were never far from reach and I spent most mornings and evenings refreshing my mind, speaking the Latin out loud.  I had become a reclusive scholar and I thoroughly adored it.  At least, I told myself it was so.

They called me the Enkoodabooaoo, or one who lives alone.  Ahanu and his al gumna kyn called me that even when I lived among them, with people only two broad steps away at all times.  They were so close and the walls of the mamateeks so thin, I could regularly hear the grunts and moans of pleasure as husbands sank into their wives.  Why was I the Enkoodabooaoo?  Maybe I was more like Thorhall the Huntsman than I thought.  He left our band because he felt hemmed in by the oppressive towns.  Huh!  These towns he spoke of generally contained less than two hundred souls.  He would have died in Europe with the thousands of people traipsing all over the roads and waterways.  So I decided for those short weeks that I was the Enkoodabooaoo.  I preferred to be left alone to hunt, fish, to study.

But I was not happy to be in isolation.  The winter would fall around me in just a short time.  It was clear that Leif was sending no one to retrieve me.  The ice would soon clog every bit of Eriksfjord, preventing any longboat or knarr traffic for many months.  It was clear that no other intrepid adventurers would come to make their fortune in Vinland.  Why would they?  By now, everyone in Eystribyggo would think that the entirety of the place was cursed by the old gods.  Thorfinn had packed up and left for fear of attacks by the skraelings.  Worse yet, Freydis had seen that an entire crew of men and five women were slaughtered like chickens in the coop.  It was cursed.  They likely thought that I was already dead.  I was alone.

I was alone and free to spend each day with the snows falling, heaping outside the longhouse.  I was alone to spend each day wondering aloud to Right Ear about what I would do with my day.  Would I empty the night bucket before or after breakfast?  I wonder.  Would I gather water from the snow around the house or would I take the extra ten steps to the pond and break the thin ice?  I wonder.  Would I befriend the extra field mice that found their way to warmth of my house?  Or, would I step on them?  I wonder.  I would have much time to wonder these weighty issues as I waited for only the One God knows who.

It is likely that you have already guessed at what I did then.  With haste, I gathered my supplies, everything I cared about or thought I would need.  The entire list was actually quite small and all the items fit easily into
Sjor Batr
along with Right Ear.  Instead of carefully closing the longhouse doors behind me, ensuring that they were locked with the keys securely fastened to my belt, I left them swinging on their hinges.  The iron keys, I hung from a peg on the outside wall.  I scribbled a note on a fragment of parchment in my native language of Norse, which most, if not all, of any adventurer’s party would not be able to read.  I rolled the note up and stuck it into one of the links of the thick chain that hung from the roof timbers to hold cooking pots. 

The message read simply,

Resolute Norsemen, I am Halldorr Olefsson, brother and friend of the jarl of Greenland, Leif the Lucky.  I live.  My dwelling is currently with the skraeling people near the point of land Thorvald Eriksson called Kjalarnes, a south and west journey by sail.  They are a good people and can be relied upon for trade.

Your servant, Halldorr Olefsson, the Enkoodabooaoo

I did my best to spell the last word in our language, knowing that even if someone ever came to the house having learned his letters, he would never be able to comprehend what all those characters strung together on the page meant.  But, like a deranged hermit, I laughed at my private joke that day.

Right Ear and I paddled
Sjor Batr
, once again into a stiff wind which was intent on bringing the coming winter.  As we snaked our way down the west coast of Vinland, we pulled the boat up into the woods and struck a fire for warmth using my jasper stones.  I was quite disheartened when, just like my first solo trip to Ahanu, the skies opened and a driving sideways rain came.  This time I showed that I was capable of exhibiting basic sense and waited for another day before embarking on the longest leg of the journey.  I saw the sun again after huddling under the canoe and a moose hide with Right Ear in order to keep dry.  A warmer wind blew from the south and we made rapid time to the little remote island which marked the half-way point between Vinland and Kjalarnes.

No wildlife other than countless seabirds lived here.  We spent three days eating their eggs and practicing our archery on them as they swooped at us.  Their flesh was as good as any other sea fowl I had eaten and it helped me sleep soundly by extending my belly.  I saved some of the best feathers for writing quills.  How strange it was to think that before King Olaf instructed Crevan teach me my letters, I would only think of feathers for their ability to make an arrow fly true by turning them into fletching.  I was a different man and old, I thought – the long hair that hung from my head was quickly proving this.  Many of those hairs at my temples were now quite grey.  My beard had gone from having only one white hair among many blonde hairs, to having clumps of the white.

Thinking of my hair that day, I took a large feather, and inspired by Ahanu’s people, I tied it near the crown of my head so that it dangled and swung as I walked.  I marched around in the bird droppings which littered the ground, trying to catch a glimpse of the decoration as it bobbed.  Right Ear growled at me, staring at my head as if some creature sat there, ready to become his prey.  But I soon felt ridiculous since I was not one of Ahanu’s people, so I quickly removed the feather and tied it near the head of my short battle axe instead.  A good compromise, I thought.

Three days later I paddled into the mouth of the stream which led to Ahanu’s village.  Some boys, who had been playing warrior atop the large rocks where my brother Thorvald had been killed years earlier, saw my approach.  They continued right on with their game pretending to chop scalps from one another, not bothering to alert anyone of my presence.  The wind carried their laughter to me and I thought of my son, Snorri, who was being raised far away.  He was probably killing make believe skraelings or English at this very moment as these boys were killing make believe Mi’kmaq or Abenaki.

The light prow of
Sjor Batr
skidded into the pebbles laying at the shingle, grating loud enough so that a gaggle of five women who were cleaning dishes upstream looked my way.  One of them, the old hag, my nemesis who had heaped the coals on me, marking me for life, was among them.  She paused her toil long enough to wave at me, “Welcome back Enkoodabooaoo.”