The Greenlanders (83 page)

Now Snorri and Thorstein and Bjorn Bollason sat with their heads together, preparing to summon a case against Kollgrim before the Thing, and they had strong disagreements about the nature of the case, for Thorstein and Snorri wanted to have the man convicted of witchcraft as well as adultery, because for the one, the penalty was lesser outlawry, which would be no punishment at all for Kollgrim Gunnarsson, as accustomed as he was to the wastelands, but the penalty for the other was death by burning, at least in Iceland and Norway. Bjorn Bollason did not know what the penalty was in Greenland, as there had never been such a case that he had heard of. To this, Snorri and Thorstein made the answer that the laws of one northern place were much the same as the laws of another, since the king was the head of all. Bjorn Bollason cited certain laws that were held among the Greenlanders, especially about trade, that went against the king’s laws, but indeed, the three did not know, for a long time, how to agree on this question, and so they argued about it every day, and there was no improvement in the condition of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir, and it seemed as though she would die.

Now it happened that shortly after Kollgrim returned to Gunnars Stead, Helga went around the mountain, carrying little Gunnhild, and she was much afraid of what she would find at her brother’s steading, for she had not been there in a long while, since before the death of Egil Kollgrimsson. But when Helga pushed open the door to the steading, she grew sanguine, for things about the rooms were neat and well arranged, more so than they had been in many seasons. A fire was laid and a bird was roasting on a spit above the fire, and Helga turned the spit, then went out again. Elisabet Thorolfsdottir was in the storehouse when Helga found her, cutting pieces of some cheese that Helga had made for the Gunnars Stead folk the previous summer. Helga saw that there were four large rounds of cheese left, a fair number for so late in the winter, and she said, “My girl, you have been a thrifty housewife, to have so many whole cheeses these days. We will be coming to you with our hands out before Easter.” But Elisabet did not look around or smile. Helga stepped closer. “Has Kollgrim returned, then?”

“He has. He has returned from another bed, that is what he has done.”

Helga laughed aloud at the absurdity of such a thought, and Elisabet Thorolfsdottir looked up at her bitterly. “You may laugh if you please, but he has been discovered with the Icelandic woman, Steinunn Hrafnsdottir, and only just escaped being killed by some Icelanders. It seems to me that he should have been killed by them. It is a thought I think on every moment of the day, because it gives me such pleasure. As poor as my father Thorolf’s steading was, and as meager the meat, I regret the day he went off to Gunnar Asgeirsson, for on that day it seems to me I was destroyed.”

Helga had no answer to this, but only hugged her child tightly to her breast, and stared at the servingmaid, who stared back at her. At last, Helga whispered, “Is my brother nearby?”

“He may be in the byre doing something. I know not. He seeks my bedcloset at night, not to come into it with me, but to speak of my Egil. He draws news of the boy out of me, and it seems to me that with his questions he stabs me with a dagger, and with my answers, he pulls the dagger out of me, and yet I can’t turn him away, for indeed, Helga Gunnarsdottir, he is in great torment.” And Helga saw that the other woman’s eyes filled with tears.

Now Helga was much afraid to discover her brother, and it seemed to her that she could go off to Ketils Stead and send Jon Andres in her place, but as she stood still, making up her mind what to do, Kollgrim appeared at her back, and said, “My sister, you have come a long way to find little.”

She turned and said, in a low voice, and all the time holding the infant tightly against her, “My Kollgrim, what do I find here?”

“Mortal folk, preparing to seek their fate.”

“What trouble have you made for yourself?”

“Some men are angry with me. I care not about that. But I am parted from my soul, and so there is little left of me to entertain you here.”

“Is it true that you have been with one of the Icelandic women? If you keep apart from her, it is not such a great crime. They will be unable to kill you, and the penalty in law must be small these days, for the ways of folk are looser than they once were. I cannot see how this could be such a great trouble, and yet …”

“And yet, indeed. Gunnars Stead seems to me to have been transported northward by devils, so dark is it about the place.” He smiled. “Take your child away, my Helga. Here is the last thing I will say to you: all of my life, I have sought to take everything from you, to have you to myself, for I thought this was my due, and whenever you turned away from me, even to fetch me something, I hated you for it, and wanted more of you. Oh, my Helga, I am heartily sorry for this, and I beg your forgiveness, and as much as I always desired you, so much do I now desire you to stay away, and not be drawn to me or to this trouble, neither you nor your husband, nor our father, and so you must go off with the child, and say nothing to Jon Andres, and send no messages to our father, who has been trying to save me from my fate for my whole life. You must make me this vow.”

“How can I?”

“You must, or I will take you by the arm and not let you go until you do, as I did once before.”

“I will say nothing, but I will pray, as I did once before.”

“And it will have the same result as it had once before, I trust. Now be off.” And Helga turned and went off, and for two days she kept her vow not to speak of this matter to Jon Andres, but after that he came to her, with news of his own that he had heard from other folk, and she answered the questions he asked her.

Now Easter came on, and Bjorn Bollason had agreed with the Icelanders that if Steinunn Hrafnsdottir made no change in her insensible condition by Easter, then he would summon the case as seduction by witchcraft, and as Easter approached, and the woman sank deeper and deeper, he sent for Sira Eindridi, for he wanted to speak to the priest about witchcraft, and Sira Eindridi came as fast as he could on skis, although he had other duties to attend to. Bjorn was sitting at his evening meat when a servingman came into the steading with news that Sira Eindridi and another man were approaching, and Bjorn jumped up and went out of the door to the steading, feeling the eyes of the Icelanders upon his back. Now he went down the slope, and met Sira Eindridi below the shrine to St. Olaf the Greenlander, and before the priest even had his skis off, Bjorn was walking back and forth in perplexity, pouring out the tale of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir. “Indeed,” he said, “with Sigrid, and now Steinunn, it seems to me that these women are unaccountable. As soon as they grasp a man, they cease to want him, but want another.”

“Desires flow through them like the breezes, that is all we know about them,” said Eindridi.

“Now Snorri and Thorstein have been convinced by Thorunn Hrafnsdottir that the fellow used witchcraft to win her sister, and they say they have seen such things many times before. Indeed, they are common as flies in Norway and other places like that.”

“Such a thing would not surprise me. The Devil works among us, and he has his agents. This fellow Kollgrim spends all his time in the waste districts, where the Devil holds sway. And he goes there alone, not with other men. How hard would it be for the Devil to come to him and speak privily into his ear? How hard would it be for the Devil to take the shape of a hare or a fox or a seal, and speak unto him, and tempt him? And how hard would it be for such a man to resist? The Gunnars Stead folk have always been wayward, even for Greenlanders. Does this woman Margret Asgeirsdottir take communion or confess herself? Nay, she keeps her own counsel, does she not?”

“You speak as hardly as the Icelanders.”

“We have known each other for many winters, Bjorn Bollason, and surely by this time you know that I speak my mind. Sira Pall Hallvardsson has done the Greenlanders an ill service by being so weak and kindly. They think that sin is a little thing, and that the Lord is their mother, who pats them on the head and sends them off to find another pleasure when they have destroyed their own playthings.”

“Even so, what are the laws about witchcraft? Know you those of the Church? I’ll warrant you are as ignorant of them as I am.”

“What we don’t know of the letter, we know of the spirit. This Snorri is full of notice. I suspect that he knows more than he tells of such things. And the laws of most places are the same in regard to most grave crimes.”

“That is what the Icelanders say.”

“If there is a devil among us, then it is a greater sin to let him go free than to punish a guiltless man, for as soon as a guiltless man receives his death, he is forgiven in the eyes of the Lord, and welcomed all the more fervently into Heaven for the injustice of his punishment. But a devil who goes free turns others away from the Lord, and brings them into the kingdom of Satan, does he not?”

And Bjorn had no answer for this, and it seemed to him right and proper that in this circumstance, he should give his judgment over to Sira Eindridi, who, as a priest, would know more of such things.

In Hvalsey Fjord, the winter weather was somewhat colder and snowier than it was in districts farther inland, and it seemed to Gunnar that he and his household folk had a difficult time of it this year, for indeed, he saw that everyone was old now, and more or less afflicted with the joint ill, or other ills. Only Johanna and Thorolf’s son Egil could not be called elderly, but Johanna was getting past the marriageable age without suitable offer, and Gunnar was getting past the age of having the vigor to go to every Thing and negotiate a match for her. The fact was that her virtues were those that become known after long acquaintance—at first she might seem to a shallow young man rather forbidding and unpretty, for though she had the Gunnars Stead features, they were not softened by anything from Birgitta, and in repose, her face seemed to be carved from stone. That out of this stone mouth often came remarks of such pungency that Gunnar was delighted for days was not a marketable quality in a wife. In addition to this, she seemed pleased enough with her condition, and, like Helga before her, considered finding a match more of a duty than a pleasure. Gunnar was nearly decided not to go to the Thing this year, although he had never missed the assembly in his adult life, even when most farmers of the settlement were keeping away.

But it was the case that Birgitta would not be capable of making the trip, and Gunnar did not care to go away from her. These days she was much afflicted by the joint ill, in her fingers, and her shoulders, and her hips, so that there was little she could bear to do for the pain of it. The dampness of the winter helped her not, but instead increased her pain and the red swelling of her finger joints so that Gunnar had to take her hands in his and rub them gently for long periods of time, and also to feed her, and carry her about, for it was the case that he was hardly afflicted with the joint ill at all, and stood as straight as a young man. It was also the case that as he stayed with her and carried her about, he tried to convince her to remove with him to Gunnars Stead, where she could be with Kollgrim and the girl, Elisabet, who certainly needed guidance, and also near Helga, and also out of the dampness of Hvalsey Fjord, but she was unaccountably stubborn in her opposition to this notion. Her only argument against it was her age—she was too old and close to death for a new life, she would miss the scenes of her childhood, Gunnars Stead had always been too grand for her. She even told Gunnar that her reasons were paltry ones in her own eyes, but her disinclination was firm for all that. It could not be done.

And so it became a game between them. If he beat her at chess in the evening, then they would go off to Gunnars Stead the next day. If a spoon dropped to the floor, and landed bowl upward, they would stay at Lavrans Stead, but if it landed bowl downward, they would go off to Gunnars Stead. If a black lamb was born, they would go, a white lamb kept them where they were. If Birgitta could guess the answer to a riddle Gunnar made up, then they would stay, if not, they would go. One day Gunnar said to Birgitta, “It did not seem to me before that the world was so full of signs.”

“It seems to me the case that all these signs point in one direction only.”

“What is that?”

“That Gunnar and Birgitta are elderly, doting folk, who must fill up their time in some wise.” But she smiled, then, and said, “Here is a fellow coming on skis. My eyes are still sharp enough to see whoever comes before he knows he is coming. If it is a stranger, then we will stay here, and if it is a friend, we will go off to Gunnars Stead.”

“Agreed, then.” And they watched the skier for a long while, and then Gunnar got up from where he was sitting, and went to greet the fellow, and saw that it was Jon Andres Erlendsson, and he knew that the news would be ill.

Jon Andres greeted his wife’s mother with a great smile, and an affectionate embrace, and then sat down beside her and spoke at length of the child Gunnhild, how large and active she was, and how fondly Helga cared for her, and how plentiful Helga’s milk was, so that she had enough for two, if there had been twins, and indeed, such a case might turn out, for she was with child again, she had felt it quicken some days hence, and expected the birth in the autumn again, a good time for another birth, and she thought herself much stronger for this one, and everyone about Ketils Stead was sanguine. Now Birgitta said to him, “Even so, Jon Andres, I see in your countenance that this good news is not the news you are bringing to us.”

“Indeed, there is a matter that I might consult Gunnar upon.”

Birgitta looked at him sharply. “This is not so small a matter as you are making it out to be.”

“I know not what to make of it, myself.” And now Jon Andres sat silently, for he knew not how to speak of Kollgrim to his mother, and he hoped that Gunnar would take her off. But it did not appear to occur to Gunnar to do such a thing, for Gunnar was staring off toward the ice in the fjord. Birgitta followed his gaze for a moment, down the slope to the strand and the foggy blankness of the ice sheet, and then she said, “My boy, I have seen all of these things long before this. When Johanna was within me, I looked across the strand, just at the place where we are looking now, and I saw all of my five children vanish before my eyes, and now I see from your coming that the fate I thought to avert will come to pass.”