The Greenlanders (69 page)

Now Yule and the time for the feast were come around, and Gunnar and Birgitta made ready to go to Hestur Stead. Birgitta was still too weak to go under her own power, and so Gunnar and two servants were to pull her on a sledge, and they considered that this would be light enough work, for the snow was crusty and slick. Birgitta thought that she might be able to skate across the fjord herself, for that is little work and much pleasure. A horse-drawn sledge would meet them at the landing and carry Birgitta to Hestur Stead. And so it was that all the arrangements were made, and the clothing set out and the dishes Birgitta had made and also her gift for Jona, which was a length of striped wadmal, green and white, which Thorolf’s second daughter, Thurid, had woven during the autumn. But it happened that early the day before they were to leave, Birgitta crept into her bedcloset and hid there for the rest of the day, until Gunnar joined her after his evening meat. He saw that she was much cast down, more so than he had seen her even in the early autumn, and he said, “My wife, we have made good arrangements for the days to come, and I am eager for the morning.”

“I have counted the days since I first got up and went about looking for something to put on, and it has been ten days. In fewer than half of that number, the feast will be finished and we will have returned to Lavrans Stead with nothing to anticipate besides another starving Lent. It seems to me that for the last ten days I have been like a person creeping over the fjord in early winter, when the ice is clear and thin and the water below is black. Only a fool would set out on such a journey.”

“It is always fools who set out on journeys. It is always fools who set out on any endeavor. But fools do seem to me bold in their foolish laughter, and courageous in the way that they look out for pleasure. My wife, lately I have been remembering when I took you from this steading to Gunnars Stead, and how readily you set out, and how you took things in hand there, although you were but a child, and how you got me out of my bed when I had been lying motionless underneath this bearskin here for winter after winter. It grieves me that I cannot do the same for you.”

“That girl seems like one of my daughters to me. When I think of her, I confuse her with Astrid or Maria. She was not so little as I am, nor so afraid of the bear. I remember that my father had a bear once, before I was born. He kept it in the cowbyre here, and the cows stayed in the sheep byre through the winter, and the sheep wandered about the place. It was said that he lost more than half of his cows for that bear, and folk considered him a foolish man. I dream often that that bear is still in the cowbyre, and that my father is a young man who goes to look at the bear over and over, and cannot get enough of looking at it. Our cowman, Ivar, had a great piece of flesh taken out of his arm by that bear. I do not want to go to Hestur Stead.”

“Even so, you must go.”

“You cannot pull me out of the water should the ice break.”

“The ice in the fjord is thick and white and covered with snow, and the sun sparkles on it.”

“You have not understood me.”

“I have indeed understood you. Is it the case that you regard me as a woman is supposed to regard her husband, with respect and trust?”

“Yes,” said Birgitta. “It is the case.”

“Then I will take you over the fjord in my own arms, and we will be as fools, laughing and looking out for pleasure, eager to see our daughters and our son, and our cousin Thorkel and our other friends as well, eager to tell tales and to hear the news from every district. You must feign this, no matter how you feel. Will you promise it?”

“Yes,” said Birgitta. And that night a dream came to her of Margret Asgeirsdottir as a young woman, tall and beautiful, leaning toward her as she sat in her bedcloset, offering some broth, and the broth seemed to go between her lips and warm her throat and her chest and her belly, so that she could not get enough of this salty and delicious broth, and when she asked for more, Margret smiled, and Birgitta awoke and it seemed to her that she was remembering for the first time in many years Margret Asgeirsdottir’s rare and radiant smile. This seemed to her a good sign, and when Gunnar awakened she told him of the dream, and then it was time to go off.

At this same time, folk from Brattahlid and Solar Fell were waking up at Gardar, where they had stayed for the night, and making ready to go on skis to Vatna Hverfi district. Sira Pall Hallvardsson was leaving final instructions with the new steward, Haflidi, and the cook Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker had sent him. Sira Eindridi and his son Andres were bringing the packs of vestments and provisions and gifts that they would carry on their backs out into the moonlight, and looking them over to see if anything had been forgotten.

At Ketils Stead, Jon Andres Erlendsson was folding together some sheepskins that comprised his gift for Jona, and one of his serving boys ran up to him and said, “Now they are just leaving, and it is only the master and the sister. The servants are staying behind.” He had been watching at Gunnars Stead, where neither Kollgrim nor Helga had seen him.

Helga was wearing a thick white cloak with finely woven purplish trim, and a striking hood of blue fox furs that was drawn tight about her face, and then fell over her cloak nearly to her waist. In his pack Kollgrim carried a dozen more fox furs, these nearly white with just a tinge to them of blue the color of twilight. Sigrid Bjornsdottir, he knew, would be at the feast.

Helga carried her skates, for the most direct route from Gunnars Stead to Hestur Stead lay partly across the ice of two Vatna Hverfi lakes. Now it happened that the sun rose, and Helga sat herself beside the ice of Antler Lake. Kollgrim was not far off from her, standing on the ice of the lake and looking across it for telltale dark areas in the snow that would indicate weak or melting ice. Kollgrim shouted to her that the ice looked safe to him, and Helga began to tie on her skates with some relief, for the other route to Hestur Stead, which lay over some hills, was much harder in the winter, without horses, than it was in the summer. Just then it happened that she saw a figure nearby, in the corner of her eye, just where the Devil appears, and at first she was afraid to look, because she feared that the figure might disappear, and then she would know that it was the Devil she had seen, but just then Kollgrim cursed and exclaimed, and Helga looked up, and she saw that the figure was not the Devil himself, but Jon Andres Erlendsson. Kollgrim said, “It cannot be that he, too, is going to Thorkel’s feast.”

“It seems to me that Thorkel would hardly have a feast and fail to invite the greatest farmer in the district. Especially since folk would say that such an oversight was a sign of enmity.”

“But—”

“Indeed, my brother, you must turn away from him, and act as if you have not seen him. I am finished, and we must make our way across the lake.” He stepped over to her and lifted her to her feet, and they began across the lake without saying anything more, but it seemed to Helga that the other man was coming closer and closer to them, that she could feel degrees of heat as he approached, indeed, that she could feel the ice under her feet tremble when he stepped onto it with his servingman. She thought of how she would greet him, as if in surprise, or perhaps more coolly and distantly than that, knowing that he knew that she had seen him. It seemed an impossible thing to be cordial to him, and yet when she stumbled and Kollgrim took her elbow to steady her, she could feel in Kollgrim’s hard, trembling grip that he was much angered, and so at once it seemed to her that it was an impossible thing not to be cordial to him. She wrenched her elbow from Kollgrim’s grip, and they skated onwards, somewhat farther apart. Helga saw that Kollgrim was looking at her, and so she dared not glance back to see where Jon Andres Erlendsson might be. She promised herself that she would see him at the feast.

And indeed she did, for Thorkel made much of him, and he was everywhere in evidence. Even though it was clear to everyone that Thorkel’s regard was partly for the sake of separating himself from Ofeig, it was also the case that Jon Andres Erlendsson was a personable man, and charming even to folk who should have known better, who had suffered from his mischief or lost cases to Erlend’s and Vigdis’ tricky legal maneuvers. Kollgrim said, “How the Devil has the trick of making himself attractive to folk.” It was not a trick that Kollgrim himself had, Helga well knew. “Even so,” she replied, “it would be well for you to dissemble your curiosity before our father, for he is looking for a reason to bring us back to Hvalsey Fjord, and I can see him approaching now.” But indeed, dissembling was no trick of Kollgrim’s either, and the agitation of his spirit was as visible to Gunnar and Birgitta as it was to Helga.

Now Birgitta greeted her children joyfully, and pinched their arms, as mothers do in the winter, to see if they have any flesh, and looked into their faces, and she gazed first upon Kollgrim and then upon Helga as if she could not look at them enough. “Indeed,” she said, “I would not have other folk overhear me say this, but truly I had forgotten how they glitter, these children of the Asgeir lineage. I have to beat back my pride as folk beat back their hungry dogs with a stick.”

Now the party from Gardar and Solar Fell came in. Bjorn Bollason went about and began greeting everyone, and there was not a name that he did not know, nor a face that he did not remember. After him came Signy, and after her came Sigrid, and the two of them were dressed very richly, in shades of green wadmal much decorated with white and blue tablet weaving. Sigrid’s dark hair fell in luxuriant curls almost to her waist, and her face was full of merry eagerness. Helga saw Jon Andres Erlendsson pause in his talk to look at her, and indeed, they were two of a kind, two dark heads in a room of pale folk, and one could not help staring after them. Jona came forward and led the two Solar Fell women to the upper bench of the main room, and offered them some refreshment after their journey, and she also led Sira Pall Hallvardsson to the high seat, and gave him some refreshment, also.

Hestur Stead was a large steading, with fourteen large rooms and many more smaller ones, and of these, some five or six had been put up by Thorkel himself, as his horsebreeding prospered. By dusk, it seemed to Helga that there were folk in every room, more folk than she had ever seen gathered in one place, and more folk than could sit at benches in the hall of the house, and so benches and tables had been set up in four of the rooms, and Helga was to sit in the high seat of one of the rooms, Kollgrim in another, Bjorn Bollason in a third, and Thorkel himself in a fourth. It was not a usual thing for a woman to sit in the high seat, and concerning this, Helga was a little shy, but Thorkel would not let her forgo it, and said, “The Greenlanders pay little attention to custom any longer.” Still Helga hesitated, but then Thorkel said, “It is my wish, but you may have Gunnar beside you if you care to,” and so they sat in this fashion, and had an opportunity to converse apart from Birgitta and Kollgrim.

After they had eaten a little and exchanged news of the servants and the livestock and the neighbors, Gunnar said, “What ill luck have you encountered at that steading?”

“Indeed, my father,” answered Helga, putting down her spoon, “there is no sign of Vigdis or either of her servants who were killed, nor, in the hills, is there any sign of others who have been killed on the place. Things are as calm as if nothing has happened there. In fact, it seems to me that the air about the steading is fresh and warm and pleasant.”

“You think that because you have lived in Hvalsey Fjord, where the wind blows from the open sea.”

“No doubt you are right in this, Father, but even so, our move has brought me much pleasure, and only the grief of longing for my mother and father, and wondering how they are getting from day to day.”

“And your brother? What has the move brought him?”

“He brings home a great deal of game, and is very industrious about the steading.”

“And is he, too, a calm spirit about the place?”

“One might say that in general he is. Once or twice he has fallen into his old state of dismay and confusion and weeping, but he is open and generous with us, and wishes to be good to us.” Helga looked down and said in a low, but brave tone, “It seems to me that these states are fewer because we do not search his face and his doings thinking that we might find something wrong with him.”

Gunnar smiled. “It may be that you can reprove my vigilance. Birgitta does so often enough. Does he hang about Ketils Stead, then?”

“Nay, Father, he avoids the place, and avoids the man.”

“Is this a better sign? I am not so sure. It shows what he is thinking of.”

“It shows that he is thinking of himself, as well, and guarding his behavior.”

“My daughter, do you think that I can still govern the man or the steading? The arrow is shot. If it should land ill, then it is best to know about it.”

“It has not landed ill, Father. We are well, and fed, and very self-satisfied at Gunnars Stead.” Helga smiled at Gunnar, who smiled back. “I am telling you the truth. And you must tell me the truth, also, about my mother.”

“It may be that she longs for you and Kollgrim. It seems to me that she is much afraid, but not more afraid than she has been since the end of the hunger. At least she came to this feast, and folk are making much of her.” Now the two were served more meat, and each, out of courtesy, turned and spoke to the others they were sitting beside.

Some time later the eating was finished, and folk began to take down the benches and tables and go from room to room, speaking with praise of the food. Kollgrim did not move from his high seat, but only gave up his trencher to one of the servingwomen and sat with Birgitta, looking out over the folk who had eaten in their room. Now he moved his hand along the bench and put it over the hand of his mother. Birgitta said, “You have a great reputation as a hunter. Praise of your skill has come to us from three separate quarters this fall.”

“This is how we see that the skills of the Greenlanders have fallen off in late years. I know that I learned but a portion of what Finn had to teach. Game has been plentiful, and my skills appear greater than they are. I spy on the skraelings, as Finn did. They have many tricks.”