The Greenlanders (21 page)

“I have heard this tale.”

Pall Hallvardsson took her hand in his and lifted it up so that she could see it in the ray of light that came in through the single high window in Lavrans’ dairy. “Just as this hand might come into the light through the will of Pall Hallvardsson or Birgitta herself, so Birgitta can will her fears into the light of the Virgin’s care, for prayer is the arm and the shoulder and the strength that does such a simple deed, and the virtuous heart turns to prayer even as a thirsty person turns to water.”

“This must be so, if the priest says that it is so.”

Now Pall Hallvardsson leaned forward and spoke more quietly in Birgitta’s ear. “The race of the Asgeirssons,” he said, “is known to be a wayward and self-reliant lineage. In addition to this, many in the district speak of the enmity between Gunnar Asgeirsson and Erlend Ketilsson, and say that this enmity is cherished more carefully in the heart of Gunnar Asgeirsson than it is in the heart of his neighbor.” He paused. “True enough, Erlend is a choleric man, but a hasty one as well, and not as hard as he might appear on the surface.”

“I have no knowledge of this, but Gunnar sees a few things very well, namely whose servants they are who scuttle about on a certain large field, and whose cart it is that they drag here and there, and whose byre it is that receives the thick hay taken off the field in the autumn. Never once has this cart turned toward the Gunnars Stead byre in what some might call a neighborly fashion.”

Now Sira Pall Hallvardsson grew very wrathful. “It seems to me that the Gunnars Stead folk are much to blame in this, that they stand looking over this field and drinking in the actions of guiltless folk who act only in the interests of the bishop and the justice he brought to the Greenlanders. Have you become as folk to whom gall tastes as sweet as wine?”

At this Birgitta dropped her eyes and spoke no more, but only kissed Pall Hallvardsson’s ring when her father came to let the pair out of the dairy. And Sira Pall Hallvardsson said to Lavrans later, “The heart of a woman is known only to God, and a great enigma to those to whom it is given to guide these eternal strangers through life.” And the two men shook their heads in rueful agreement on this score. Early the next morning, Birgitta returned to Gunnars Stead, and thereafter she went about her work with great steadiness and purpose. The Hvalsey Fjord folk, and Lavrans among them, agreed that of all the priests, Pall Hallvardsson was the wisest and the most to be trusted, and sometimes they spoke among themselves of what would happen if the bishop were to die.

Not long after this, Birgitta went to Gunnar where he was dredging a canal through the homefield, for Gunnar and Olaf had decided to enlarge the farmstead’s water system, and she spoke to him at length of Vigdis and her designs, and the result of this was that Birgitta and Katla stopped visiting Undir Hofdi church and Birgitta stayed quietly at home for the rest of her term. One day Gunnar rode away from the farm early in the morning and did not return until the late summer dusk. Sometime later, there was talk in the district that one of Erlend’s thirty cows had been meddled with, so that her ears and her teats had been nicked with a knife, and a wide band had been tied tightly around her eyes and she had been led into the lake, which was quite cold, and tied there overnight, facing Erlend’s farmhouse. By the time of the seal hunt, the talk subsided, and just after the beginning of the winter half year, a daughter was born to Birgitta, and she was named Gunnhild, and everything went well with her. Shortly thereafter, on the feast of St. Andrew, a son was born to Vigdis at Ketils Stead, and this was a great surprise, for Vigdis had grown so stout that the coming of the child had gone unnoticed. This child was named Jon Andres, and he did well enough considering that Vigdis was something close to forty winters of age.

It so happened that shortly after the beginning of Lent, Margret Asgeirsdottir felt the quickening of life within her, and she calculated that the child would be born around the feast of Mary Magdalen, but she said nothing of this, neither to any of the Gunnars Stead folk nor to Skuli Gudmundsson, who visited from time to time.

It was Skuli’s habit, when he lived in Vatna Hverfi district, to ride from farm to farm and stay at each for some days, for he was considered the representative of Kollbein Sigurdsson, who was the representative of the king. He had at first intended to stay at Undir Hofdi church, with Nikolaus and his “wife,” but this elderly couple was hard put to take care of his needs, and yet were too polite to allow him to take care of himself. He told Margret that awaking in his bedcloset to the sound of Unn’s slow, hobbling step as she approached with a bowl of sourmilk and knowing that she would be hurt if he arose to help her, or even appeared not to be asleep when she came up to him, was no little difficulty for him.

The other farmers greeted him suspiciously, at first, and, though showing all the forms of hospitality, were also ostentatious about the hardship his coming made for them, giving his horse what appeared to be the last of the hay, scraping the bottom of the cooking pots to make the evening meat go around, declaring that certain healthy cows belonged, not to the farmers themselves, but to neighbors. Skuli, however, did not appear to be counting the livestock or surveying the farmsteads, or looking longer than was polite at the fine possessions inside the houses, and after a while, after it was discovered how handy he was at fashioning some needles or carving gamepieces or repairing anything made of wood, the hay and food became more plentiful and milk appeared on the table that was yellow and full of cream. One result of this was that Margret was able to see him more often, as he was always in the district. Another result was that others were looking out for him more, especially those with marriageable daughters, and more often noting his whereabouts.

Many folk considered that of all the districts, Vatna Hverfi district was the most favored, because of the multitude of lakes, large and small, that brightened every cleft and hollow. Of these, two were very large, and most of the farmsteads were scattered about the shores of these two. Gunnars Stead, however, and Ketils Stead were situated to the north of these lakes, each on a smaller lake of its own. Although more isolated, these farmsteads were also on the way from Vatna Hverfi district to both Gardar and Undir Hofdi church, and so travelers to these places often passed by, and sometimes stopped for refreshment. This had been a great practice in the time of Gunnar Asgeirsson and his son Asgeir Gunnarsson, when the farm was large and prosperous and the farmers fond of company, but since the death of Asgeir, travelers had found the hospitality there more haphazard and the host a less jovial companion, and so most people in the district stopped at Ketils Stead. Although Erlend Ketilsson was not a generous man by nature, he knew the power of the reports travelers carry with them, about what they find when they stop. In addition to this, Vigdis was very fond of news, and often spoke of how far away from things Ketils Stead was. The result was that the way from Vatna Hverfi to the church and the fjord bypassed Gunnars Stead entirely, and the folk there often didn’t see others for days on end. Skuli Gudmundsson was much taken by this remoteness, and often commented that when he was at Gunnars Stead, it was as if he were not in the district at all.

Skuli was possessed of a very fine horse, strong and quick and on the large side, but not exceptionally good-looking or distinctively marked. Margret said that this horse brought them good luck, and she was very fond of it, although Skuli remembered the beautiful matched red horses of King Hakon, which came from Flanders and were extremely large, and he sometimes regretted that his horse was so humble-looking. Since living in the district, he had seen most of the horses owned by most of the farmers, and all of the good ones, for the farmers liked to bring out their horses most of all, more than their sleekest cows or woolliest sheep, or even their children, and parade them for the admiration of visitors. It so happened that he conceived a desire for a dark gray stallion owned by Thorkel Gellison. Thorkel was well aware of the value of his beast, for the animal was big and aggressive as well as good-looking, and Thorkel got good payments for breeding, as well as much pleasure from horsefighting with his neighbors. Skuli spoke of this horse very warmly and frequently, and sang his praises whenever he could.

The result of this was that the horse got to be in great demand for breeding, and brought Thorkel much wealth, so that one day, when Skuli was staying in the southern part of the district, Thorkel came to Skuli and offered to breed the horse for free to one of his mares, and give Skuli the resulting foal. Skuli thanked him, but said that he had a mare in mind that he considered the best mare in the district, and this was Mikla, Olaf Finnbogason’s mare of Gunnars Stead. Now Thorkel agreed to allow Skuli to borrow the horse and take him to Gunnars Stead for the breeding and bring him back at his leisure. A few days later, Skuli rode the horse to Gunnars Stead, and the horse was as delightful as Skuli had suspected. Skuli’s own horse was to stay at Hestur Stead, awaiting his return. When Skuli rode into the farmyard, Margret Asgeirsdottir came up to him, and said, “My Skuli, you have thrown away your luck, for it seems to me that this gray horse will be your death.” Skuli laughed at this. “The beast is only borrowed,” he said, and, as there was no one about, he kissed her on the lips, then went to find Olaf.

In the time since Skuli had moved into the district, Margret had learned to cover her feelings completely, even from the sharp eyes of Birgitta Lavransdottir, so that she felt herself to be two persons as a fur-lined cloak is two cloaks—humble, brownish wadmal on the outside, with a modest hood and simple bone buttons, but thick, glittering white foxskin underneath. Her passion had not faded and could not, she discovered, be sated by Skuli’s presence. It was not diminished by his reverence for appearances (as exemplified by the two horses) nor his carelessness about them (casting her dangerous glances in the presence of Birgitta, or even Olaf). In the year of their liaison, he had grown inordinately proud, Margret thought, and yet his brilliant dress and wild sociability excited her, even as his striking appearance mounted on the gray horse riding into the farmyard filled her with admiration she was hard put to contain.

Olaf was much impressed by the horse, and anxious to make the match with Mikla, but, he said, it would be some time before the mare would come into heat, for she was often later than other horses, and she had only just borne her new foal. About this Skuli was not disappointed, since he would thus get to keep the stallion that much longer, and he intended to do Thorkel the good turn of getting other breeding fees while the animal was in the area. The horse was not turned out with the others, but kept carefully in the horsebyre, and Skuli checked him three times every day for scratches and tiny injuries.

Bit by bit in the course of his year with Margret, Skuli had come to view some things in a different light, and this was especially true since his coming to Vatna Hverfi. For reasons of economy, or simple laziness, Kollbein Sigurdsson neither came to Vatna Hverfi district nor sent messengers to his representative, and for much of the time there was no news at all from Foss and Thjodhilds Stead. Skuli’s tie to Kollbein and through him to the court of the king in Norway seemed to loosen, seemed to lighten, almost to disappear. Now he hardly remembered his dead wife, or even his children, or his land on the hillside near Bergen. His friendship with Margret seemed as much a marriage to him as his doings in the district seemed his business. He took as great an interest in the livestock of some of the farmers as he would have in his own, and was earnest in his advice. In the same way, Thorkel Gellison’s stud horse seemed to him to be his own while it was in his care, and he showed great pride in it.

It seemed to Skuli that this life could last forever, or could shade gently into a similar one that included Margret as his acknowledged spouse, some children by her, ownership of a Vatna Hverfi farmstead, and a race of horses in the byre that were descended from Mikla and the gray stud. From time to time he suggested this to Margret, and she saw that in unguarded moments, he acted as if these impossibilities were already accomplished. Olaf, for example, was so friendly with Skuli that Margret could see that Skuli often forgot that Olaf was her husband. And now they were much thrown together by the planned breeding of the stallion and the mare.

Gunnhild was a strong-minded and active child who consumed all of Birgitta’s attention and most of Svava Vigmundsdottir’s as well, for Svava had returned to Gunnars Stead just before the birth. The two women were much occupied in concocting enticing viands for the child, as well as in following her about and preserving her from danger, for Svava declared that she had never seen a child with such a penchant for things she was not allowed. Also in this year, Easter came early and was followed by the sudden breakup of the ice in the fjord and the early greening of the mountain pastures. Olaf and Gunnar were much pleased by this, and assisted Hrafn and his sons in taking most of the livestock, which now numbered six horses, eighteen cows, and a hundred and five sheep and goats, up into the hills. Twenty of the best ewes and their lambs were once again removed to Hvalsey Fjord, and this was a three-day trip. So it was that Margret was left alone about the farm to do as she wished, and so it was that she and Skuli often resorted to their accustomed trysting spot. Skuli seemed not to notice the coming of the child. Their habit was that Skuli left early in the morning on his gray horse, and Margret walked off some time later. When they met, the horse would be hobbled and left to graze as he might.

It so happened that one day some travelers brought a tale to Vigdis at Ketils Stead that Thorkel Gellison’s gray stud was often seen wandering in the mountains north of Gunnars Stead, and one of these travelers made a verse,

The gray stallion seeks mares where there are none
,
But the hirdman seeking wives knows where to look
.