The Greenlanders (78 page)

“It seemed to me that I wanted to see this boy here.” He reached over and took Egil into his own hands and gazed upon him.

“He is a handsome child,” offered Helga. “Not so many infants his age have such hair on their heads.”

Kollgrim said nothing for a while, only looked at the child, but then he said, “It seems to me that he has the look of death on him, like an early lamb.” He took the boy’s fingers and bent them over his forefinger with his thumb. They were long, thin, and bluish. “All the parts are here, but little is holding them together.”

The boy had looked this way to Helga, too, but she said, “Indeed, you are seeking after evil, and I pray that you find it not. The boy lives and breathes, and it is not for us to look into his fate.”

“I may look into my fate, though, and I see that Elisabet Thorolfsdottir and Egil Kollgrimsson are my fate, and not the chattering birds of Solar Fell, and that is fine with me.” And this is how Helga learned that the betrothal between Kollgrim Gunnarsson and Sigrid Bjornsdottir was broken off. Gossip did not tell who or what had sparked the parting, for neither Sigrid nor Kollgrim remarked on this subject to anyone. The two kept apart, as was proper, but each seemed little grieved to those about them, and one day Bjorn Bollason met Gunnar Asgeirsson at Gardar, where Sira Pall Hallvardsson was holding his Easter feast, and he said to him, “Things have turned out well for us.”

“It seems that this is the case. But with Kollgrim, nothing has ever gone so smoothly as this.”

“Nor with my Sigrid, but it may be that they see with the eyes of men and women now, instead of with the eyes of willful children. I am sanguine for now.”

“Indeed, lawspeaker, you are sanguine always.” And so Gunnar’s friendship with Bjorn remained firm and untested.

Now folk sat quietly at their steadings through the summer, and it was not such a prosperous summer as many had been recently. It was the case that folk expected the Icelanders to make much of Larus the Prophet, or at least expected him to make much of them, but in this summer, he began talking of other things besides the ship and the pope of Jerusalem. In this case, he said, his informant was the Virgin Herself, who had come to him three nights running and given him suck from Her breasts, and these were full of milk that tasted like the sweetest honey and ran like water into the fjord. And this was also the case, that it seemed to him that She had taken him onto Her belly like a newborn baby, and cradled him there. And this is what She told him, that a great devil lived among the Greenlanders, someone who walked as a man but had the parts of a woman as well, and the feet of a bear. This devil, She said, was seducing folk away from goodness and no man had any resources against him. If he gave you food, the food would poison you and turn your thoughts to evil. If he spoke to you, his words would enter your ears and buzz around your head like bees and spiders. If he gave you water, the water would be as fire, burning the Godliness out of you. If he turned his hand to your homefield or your sheep, then his touch would corrupt them until the coming of the Lord as is written. Simple clods of dirt would turn into teeming corruption, worms would crawl out of the nostrils of the sheep, meat from these animals would turn rotten in the mouth, milk would sour, but give off the odor of death, not of sourmilk. The Virgin’s eyes, Larus said, had been spinning circles of icy blue and Her embrace as tight as the clasp of a walrus, that crushes the life out of men.

Now it was the case that Larus had developed a certain following, mostly of women, it is true, and these women came to Larus Stead and sat about with Ashild and little Tota, and they listened to Larus embroider upon his tales, and at first they did nothing that might be called worship, for they were fearful of such a sin as kneeling outside church. Truly enough, they had knelt many days of their lives to say Hail Marys or Our Fathers, or such other prayers as the priests instructed them in, but now the thought of kneeling at Larus Stead, with their ears full of Larus’ visions, rather frightened them, and yet none of these women, or the few men who came with them, could make herself stay away. Ashild was a model for them, and little Tota, too, the one an innocent child who carried her trencher to her stepfather and bowed before him, the other a very figure of goodness, who served Larus, but seemed to direct him, too. “Let us have our refreshment now,” she would say, or “Larus must rest in his bedcloset for a while.” Larus said that the Lord and his saints had given her the perfect wifely temperament, for they had drained all discontent from her, but also all fear.

And so it happened somehow, through the winters, when the priests were snug at Gardar, that some of the Larus Stead neighbors got in the habit of going to Larus Stead at special times, when there would be meat on the table, set at twelve places, and Larus would wear a special robe that one of the women had woven for him, and folk would sit at the table and partake of the dried sealmeat and the broth, and Larus would speak of one of his visions—never more than a part of one really, but each in order, from the first to the last. At another time during the meal, he would speak of the persecutions of the Greenlanders, of his trial and victory at the hands of Bjorn Bollason and Eindridi Andresson, of the taunts of the farmers at the seal hunts, of how he was received in this great steading and that one.

Now when the Easter of 1407 came, and there was a priest in Thjodhilds church, it seemed to some of these folk that they had sinned and betrayed the Lord, for they shifted in their seats and their blood thrilled in their veins during Eindridi Andresson’s service, and some of these folk swore to themselves that they would stay apart from Larus. Others, however, saw the deficiencies in Sira Eindridi’s service, how he mumbled the Latin through not knowing it very well, and how he even skipped bits of the service that they thought they remembered, and how he tried to make up for these things by intoning a long sermon full of dire threats and harsh words. These folk thought fondly of the simple meals at Larus Stead, and the supple way that Larus told his tales, as a grandmother may tell a tale that everyone knows already, in her own voice, but also in the voices of many who have come before. What talent had Larus had for such things when he was a servant at Brattahlid? None to speak of. Was not this itself evidence that the saints and the Lord and the Virgin were indeed talking to him, as he said they were? At any rate, after Easter, some of the women fell away, and did not come back to Larus Stead, but others came as often as they could, and brought other folk, kinfolk and neighbors, with them. It happened that Gudrun, the wife of Ragnleif Isleifsson, and the former wife of Osmund Thordarson, looked in one day, and though she did not stay long, Larus told Ashild that this was a great victory for them, and Ashild agreed.

News of these doings came to Bjorn Bollason, for indeed, Larus Stead was not so far from Solar Fell, and Bjorn Bollason did not know what to think, and he spoke about them to the Icelanders, telling Snorri how Larus had predicted the coming of the ship over and over, although other details of the predictions had been false ones. But still, he had seen the ship, and the women upon it, and Bjorn was perplexed by the mixture of truth and error. And so Snorri sat up in the bedcloset, and put his trencher of meat away from him, and he told Bjorn the following tale:

Once when Snorri was a young man on his uncle’s ship, carrying dried cod to England, it happened that the ship was blown off course in the passage between England and France, and a great storm came up, and they took refuge in a certain town of France that was named Calais, and this was a great shipping town, but also a great warring town, sometimes English and sometimes French, so that the folk there spoke the language of France equally with the language of England. It was not a place such as Snorri cared for—cramped and full of rough folk. Now it happened that although the cargo of the ship had been saved, the ship itself needed some repairs, and so Snorri and his mates stayed in Calais for some weeks, lamenting all the time the passage of good sailing weather and the coming of winter, for they cared little for the idea of staying in Calais until spring.

Now it happened that one day Snorri and another young man were out upon the streets of the town, and they saw folk streaming toward a large square, and so they were taken up in the stream, and soon they came to a place where a scaffolding had been set up, and many folk were milling about and eating and drinking flagons of ale or wine. Pretty soon, a certain priest climbed the scaffolding, a great tall fellow with long arms and a big head, and he began to harangue the crowd with strange tales about the Devil, and the Lord, and the coming of the end of the world. His voice seemed to Snorri to rise like a great wind, and pass through the crowd, bending them in this direction and that, until men did not know what they were doing or where they were going, and only pressed in upon the scaffolding that held the priest, so that some folk fell to the pavement and could not get up, but were crushed beneath the feet of the others. And this also happened, that the fellow’s voice seemed to get louder and louder, without strain, and folk gave over talking and eating and drinking, and only listened, and Snorri and his companion as well. Folk began to weep, and not just women, of which there were many. And soon after they began to weep, they began to wail, and even to scream, so that the square was full of a great noise. But this was also the case, that the priest got louder and louder, and Snorri heard every word that he said, and the reason for this seemed to be that he was speaking directly to Snorri himself, as if into his very ear. Now Snorri could not say how long this preaching went on.

The afternoon seemed as if it would never end, but suddenly another thing happened, and this was that some men on horseback, some magistrates and knights, rode into the crowd, and got up on the scaffolding, and pulled the priest down, so that he disappeared among the horses and the milling folk. But even though he could not be seen, he seemed to raise his voice, calling out to the Lord for help, and this came into every man’s ear, as the sermon had done, and the crowd began to press upon the magistrates, and fighting broke out, so that other men on horses, who were lingering by the side of the crowd, galloped among folk, wielding their weapons, and folk fell under the hooves of the horses, but other folk took out their knives and severed the tendons of the horses, so that they fell to the cobblestones, and then these folk fell upon the riders and beat them.

Snorri and his companion spoke between themselves, and agreed that these French-Englishmen were of an especially volatile temperament, for indeed, the preaching had inflamed them mightily. The two Icelanders tried to make their way out of the crowd. Numerous blows fell upon them, but at random, and they came to the edge of the square. Now great bells had begun to ring all over the town, making a resounding clamor, and more men on horseback galloped to the scene, and others came as well, on foot, and the result was that by nightfall, many folk lay injured and even dead in the square, and a proclamation was made in the town that those in the square whose dress told them to be of low estate could not be touched, even out of Christian mercy, whether for burial, or sacraments, or healing. And the racket of the bells went on all through the night, and in the morning, it was proclaimed that this priest, who was himself a devil in disguise, had been tortured and executed at the hands of the magistrates, and that the folk need not fear him any longer. And then the ban was lifted on attending to the folk in the square, and these men and women and children were carried off to their homes or their graves, as was necessary.

Now after this event, there was a great discussion of the nature of this priest—where had he come from, how had the scaffolding gotten into the square, how was it that his voice grew louder and softer at the same time, so that it rose above the noise of the crowd and yet seemed to whisper into your ear, what was the truth and what was the sin in those words he had said, how long had he preached—all afternoon, only a short while. And no one agreed on any of these questions. Some priests said that this fellow was a true prophet, from Paris, and others said he was a devil, with no earthly home, and some said that men had built the scaffolding in the night and others said that devils had carried it there, and others said that angels had carried it there, and some said that those who died in the square were martyrs and others said that they were damned sinners, and there was no authority who could persuade all the town of any one view. Then it came time for the Icelanders to leave, and Snorri was glad enough to go, but since then he had been turning this scene over in his mind sometimes, and it seemed to him that the truth of it was that the preaching, whether true or false, had inflamed the folk, and brought about great evil. Any Icelander knows of the evils in the world, especially of those that no man can help—such as cattle diseases and volcanic eruptions and the coming of the Great Death—but this was an evil that men rushed to, not one that came to them.

Now Bjorn Bollason looked at Snorri in silence and then he said, “It seems to you that this fellow Larus will bring about such an evil?”

Snorri shrugged.

“We have tried to stop his preaching before, myself and Sira Eindridi. But it seems to me that our efforts only gave him strength.”

“You may kill the fellow.”

“I have thought of that.”

“But it happened in Iceland that Abbot Thorlak, of Thykkvabaer, was driven off, and though he was a bad man, folk venerated him after he was beaten, and he lived out the last two winters of his life in great respect. It seems to me that the evil has begun here with this fellow Larus, and that events will take their course, as always.” And indeed Bjorn Bollason nodded, for he had no notion of what to do.

Now the time for the autumn seal hunt came on, and some of the Icelanders asked if they might go along to help or watch, and Bjorn Bollason sent some in his large boat, and he persuaded another farmer, in Brattahlid, to let some go along in his boat. There was grumbling among the Greenlanders that these folk would cause inconvenience at the best, and ill luck at the worst, but indeed, as folk said, “The lawspeaker would sell his head to become an Icelander. His eyes and ears are already theirs.” And this witticism went about, and the Greenlanders were much pleased with it. Two of the Icelanders turned out to be of some use on the hunt—Thorgrim Solvason, husband of Steinunn, and the taleteller Thorstein Olafsson. Thorgim carried a great ax with a sharpened steel head, and felled many seals with it, and Thorstein carried a sword. These two Icelanders thought that this was the best hunting they had ever seen. The other Icelanders, however, had not the stomach for the killing and the blood, and were mostly good only for rowing in calm water.