The Greenlanders (25 page)

Now he sat below the bishop in silence for some little while, and then he got to his knees and prayed, and, as always in the company of his uncle, his heart lifted upward, and the words of his prayers flew out of his mouth like birds, and his soul slipped easily into the contemplation of the Lord, and this was the great holiness of the bishop, that his presence cast light upon those around him like sunbeams, and the soul rode these beams as a ship sailing upwards to heaven. It was this more than anything else that prevented Jon from revealing his sin to the bishop, although the bishop was his confessor—in the presence of the bishop it was a task of no little difficulty to recall the substance of his sin. It was as his mother had always declared—the holiness of Sira Alf drove out all else, as the sun drives out darkness, and so it was far better to confess the worst sins, the thickest and darkest sins, to another sort of priest, a man of greater melancholy, as the boy Jon’s parish priest had been. And after this praying, Jon kissed the bishop’s ring and went out.

Anna Jonsdottir found the bishop much slumped down in his seat, and to all appearances asleep. She helped him into his bedcloset and pulled the cloaks and furs up to his chin, for he was beginning to shiver. And so, the bishop went on in much this way, some days better and some days not so well, and it was said by the Greenlanders that he was certainly mending, and would be saying mass again by the beginning of the winter nights, or by Yule, perhaps.

In this autumn, the skraelings returned to Eriks Fjord and Isafjord, and set up their camps and fished and traded with the Norsemen as if the killing of Vestein had never taken place. They had much to trade in the way of furs and especially tusks, and most of the farmers were glad enough to see them, and praised their virtues as hunters and fishermen. But toward Yule a skraeling in his skin boat and carrying his hunting tools paddled near to the shore at Solar Fell. This time a man named Solmund Skeggjason, who was the husband of Ragnvald Einarsson’s daughter Gudny, was gathering shells and driftwood along the strand. It was after mid-day, and the sun glared off the water of the fjord into his eyes, and so he didn’t catch sight of the skraeling. As he stood up with his basket, the skraeling threw his spear and it lodged in Solmund’s viscera and he fell down. The skraeling paddled swiftly away and Solmund sat up and pulled the shaft from his belly, but the spearhead was barbed, for hunting walrus, and it lodged in the flesh. Now Solmund began to creep toward the farmhouse, which was up a steep slope, and when he got to the doorway, he scratched at it. When Ragnvald opened the door, his son-in-law fell inside, saying, “My father, I have gathered a spearhead during my labors, but now I cannot find it again.” At this, the man died, and he was carried into the house.

Now activities became very unusual at Ragnvald’s steading. Each time one of the sons or a servingman or a neighbor came to the house, the door would open to let him in, but no one came out. And this was also unusual, that the skraelings didn’t move off, but stayed in their camps and attended to their business as usual, and none of those who traded with the skraelings heard anything of this killing, and so it was afterwards said that the skraeling had kept this news to himself, and not told his chief about it. It was also the case that the skraelings were living in their winter dwelling houses, which were neatly built stone huts, and not so easy to carry off, or to leave, at this time of the year, as skin booths.

Sometime after the killing, when the fjord was full of ice from shore to shore, the Greenlanders in a group of twenty-two men surprised the skraelings at their camp, and caught a group, including the killer, inside their hut. There were seven men and boys and four women. One of the men ran out, and was killed with an ax, and after this the Greenlanders drove all of the skraelings out by setting fire to brush at the windows and doors of the booth, so that the demons were overcome by smoke, and the skraelings were killed as they tried to escape. However, two of the skraelings escaped under cover of smoke and darkness, and ran out onto the ice of the fjord. They ran all the way across to the opposite shore, although one of them kept falling. Opposite to Solar Fell were two beaches, one a flat, pebbly peninsula forming a little harbor, and the other the steep scree of a mountain. The Norsemen chased the two skraelings toward the steeper beach, and the one who had kept falling down was caught and killed. The other managed to climb up the slippery slope about twelve or fifteen ells. Now Ragnvald came up to the dead one and grabbed his left arm and cut it off with one blow of his ax, and then he raised it high and shouted, “Skraeling! As long as you live, surely you won’t forget your brother!” And then it was dark, and the Norsemen went home, leaving the bodies of the demons out in the ice and snow. When the Norsemen awoke the next day, the skraelings were gone from Eriks Fjord, and by the next day they were gone from Isafjord, and no more was seen of them during that winter.

Kollbein Sigurdsson was much put out by Ragnvald’s actions and said that they endangered the whole settlement, for now he expected that the skraelings would return from the north soon enough, and more of them than the Greenlanders would know what to do with. Others, especially those who had profited by the recent trading, also disapproved of the course the Solar Fell folk had taken, but more said that Ragnvald had earned the second killing by not avenging the death of Vestein, so that the demons had considered themselves free to do as they wished. The years-old killing of Erlend Ketilsson’s ewe was recalled, as well as other thefts and little conflicts, and these were said to show a pattern of increasing audacity. The Greenlanders pointed to the huts of the skraelings, which were empty but tightly built and known to be warm and dry—warmer, in fact, than a Norseman could tolerate, for the skraelings, both men and women, were known to sit about savagely naked—and declared that the way these huts had been built and then left showed a plan, first to take over the farms and pastures of the Greenlanders, and second to go for reinforcements and return. And so Kollbein and the Greenlanders came around to agreement on what was to be expected, but continued to disagree on how Ragnvald and his men should have acquitted themselves. Discussion of this topic raged throughout the winter, and hordes of skraelings in fleets of skin boats were looked for each day, but such a thing did not come to pass, and the settlement was quiet.

This winter was a time of great hunger, especially for the beasts, for the dry harvest had been sparse and the hay poor in quality, and then the snows came early and deep, around Eriks Fjord in particular, so that it was hard, and then impossible, for the sheep to paw through to their forage. Three times before Yule Margret Asgeirsdottir went on skis across Eriks Fjord with Asta Thorbergsdottir, carrying the child tied in a cloak on her back, as she had carried Gunnar as a young girl. Each time she dragged home as much hay as Marta could give her, but the last time she saw that she dared not ask again without putting the Brattahlid beasts at risk. In addition to the hay, Marta gave her a large quantity of dried reindeer meat, but this, too, Margret saw was ill-spared, for the Brattahlid folk were numerous. After this, Margret declared to Asta that they would not cross the fjord again, but would be sparing of what they had and pray for God’s bounty. Now the Gunnars Stead ewes died, and under the thick wool, Margret could feel the ribs and spine as if there weren’t any flesh on the animals at all. Sometime before the beginning of Lent, a servingman from Brattahlid came to them with a few provisions—some butter, cheese, and dried sealmeat. Margret saw that he was gaunt and exhausted from the crossing, which in other years folk did for pleasure on fine winter days.

The child Jonas was now nearly half a year old, with just the finest down on his domed head, which Asta declared signified a thick mane of fair hair to come. Asta was very fond of the infant, and chattered about him to Margret from morning until bedtime. Her examination of his parts brought those same parts of his father so vividly into Margret’s imagination that Skuli seemed to inhabit their tiny dwelling like the folk in old stories who refused to stay in their graves, but rode roof peaks and guarded doorways, tormenting the living inhabitants of the steading. Asta was eloquent on the subject of the boy’s hands, which were large and, according to her, unusually dexterous. He certainly liked above all things to take bits of stuff into his hands and gaze upon them. But this was too much like Skuli and his eternal carving, and Margret found in his evident pleasure a burning pain to go with the pain of her dreams, which continued unabated to resurrect the Norwegian each night so that he died again each morning, only to be replaced by his son at the breast, suckling furiously.

After the visit of Marta’s servingman, the two women ate but a single meal each day, and this consisted of two morsels of dried reindeer meat for Margret and one for Asta, a bit of cheese for each, some pieces of dried seal blubber for Margret, and a small bowl of sourmilk mixed with dried, powdered seaweed. Even with the seal blubber, which folk said always assured a copious milk supply, Jonas began to suckle more often, so that he was almost always at the breast, and still grew thinner, and he was smaller than he had been at the beginning of winter. Now Asta spoke less of the boy and always of the food at Marta Thordardottir’s table, where, she said, every meal was a feast, and all the servingfolk ate as much as they pleased.

One day Margret put Jonas on her back and declared that she was going to snare some ptarmigan, for the weather was fine and without snow or high winds for the first time in many days. As always now, the child moaned to be at the breast, but soon he fell asleep with the motion of Margret’s skis over the snow. Ptarmigan signs were easy to spot, and made the water come in her mouth as soon as she saw them, so that she had to sit down, panting, at the thought of food, though winter ptarmigan were often bitter to eat. Ptarmigan, she knew, were always fat as demons, even in the snowiest winters. Her fingers trembled as she tied her snares, and she was unaccountably clumsy, fouling her lines and crushing the snow and flailing about. After only five snares, and still just within sight of the steading, she grew so tired that she could think only of sleep, and she was ready to lie down in the snow and nap, but Jonas awoke screaming to suck, and this aroused her. Such a distance as she was from the farmstead she had trotted past without thought in the summer, but it now formed the limit of her strength, and even her determination. She took Jonas from her back and brought forth her breast to give him suck, but after the briefest while, he put back his head and screamed, and she could see no milk on his lips, nor was her breast full and hard as it once had been. Slowly, for she was very fatigued, she arranged herself and the child so that he could suckle the other breast, but this, too, had nothing. Now she rubbed some snow between her hands until it began to melt, and touched it to his lips. He took this greedily, so she gave it to him again, and he was satisfied for a while. When he stopped howling, her eyes closed, for she could keep them open no longer.

It so happened that Asta thought so hard about ptarmigan roasting on a spit that it was as if she could hear the popping of the fat and smell the fragrance of the cooking meat. Soon she became impatient, and arose from her bedstead and went to the door, but Margret was not coming, so she went back to her bed and lay down. But then it seemed to her that she heard shouting, as if of men over their trenchers, and she went to the door again to look out. All was white waste, and she ate some of this snow. She went back to her bed and lay down, but as soon as she had pulled up her furs for warmth, the sound and fragrance of the roasting birds drove her out again, and to the door, and it came to her that Margret had caught some birds, and was roasting them on the hillside, so that she might have them all to herself. At this, Asta donned her cloak and shoes and went out of the steading. Now she followed Margret’s track, and the snow was deep and powdery, causing her to stumble about, for she had forgotten to put on her skis. And when she came to where Margret and Jonas sat, slumped and sleeping, with no ptarmigan roasting on a spit, popping and browning, she burst into tears and began shaking Margret by the shoulders.

Now Jonas suckled at the breast all the time, night and morning, but it seemed that the only time he got anything was just after Margret awoke. Other times in the day, when he was hungry, they gave him snow, and they ate much snow themselves, and Asta sometimes said that hers tasted like sourmilk with bilberries, but Margret said that hers never tasted like this, although such a thing was pleasant to think of. Jonas no longer played such games as he was accustomed to, nor did he try to sit or creep, as he had, but only sometimes did he take something in his hand and look at it while he worked at the breast, but soon enough it would fall from his hand, for his grip had no strength. One day they ate the last of the seal blubber, and soon after that the last of the cheese and butter. Now their provisions consisted of a few pieces of dried reindeer meat, a little sourmilk, and some angelica stalks, and they each ate one bit of dried meat every day and a mouthful of sourmilk, and otherwise they lay under their furs in the bedstead, all together, for any touch of the cold made them shiver so that they could not hold a spoon. Margret’s breasts were so flat that they looked as though they had never been, except that the nipples were raw from the constant sucking of the child. And one of these days, when Margret awoke in the morning after a long sleep, Jonas was still asleep in the crook of her arm, with his hand slipped into the slit of her dress and outspread on her skin, and his arm was as thin as the bones of birds, though his belly was round and fat, and she saw that he was, indeed, not asleep, but that the life had passed from him in the night, and she put her hand over his hand that rested against her skin and she wrapped him more tightly in her cloak and lay there quietly, waiting for Asta to awaken.

One day after this, the servingman came from Brattahlid with news, and he found Margret and Asta dozing in the bedcloset, as was their habit, and they were so exhausted that they could not by any means sit up. Margret asked him if it was Lent yet, and he laughed and declared that it was nearly Easter. The other news he brought was that a whale had stranded on the ice near the mouth of Eriks Fjord some two days previously, and all the men of the settlement were engaged in carving up the great leviathan, and he bore with him some other provisions, sent by Marta Thordardottir to last them until the whale flesh had been carried home.