The Greenlanders (97 page)

Now Sira Eindridi was greatly exercised with wrath, for he detected in Skeggi’s message an undertone of contempt, and he sent back another message that the woman must indeed come, at peril of her soul, and Skeggi himself must bring her. Skeggi received this message, and sent the messenger back without a reply, and so Sira Eindridi expected him any day, but the winter passed, and he never came, and Sira Eindridi was deeply angered at this, for he saw that all of those folk, all of the Vatna Hverfi folk, but especially those allied with Gunnar of Gunnars Stead and Jon Andres Erlendsson of Ketils Stead, were not a little wayward and in great peril of their souls. And it is well known to all men that the soul must be saved, even through the destruction of the flesh, for the soul belongs to the Lord above, and He is jealous of His belongings.

It happened that Larus the Prophet entertained the visitations of the saint, Lazarus, two more times in the course of this winter, and each time it was borne in upon him more clearly and with greater pain that an enormous darkness loomed over the Greenlanders, and their fate could not be averted, except through the sternest measures, and in the spring after these visions, which now numbered four, he began speaking of them privily to some of the women and men who came to Gardar to see him, and whereas his visions of Jesus, and the Virgin, and the Angel Gabriel had been freely spoken of in years past, folk were somewhat afraid to talk of what they now heard from him, and it could not be said that they did not hear of the Thorkelssons and Borghild Finnkelsdottir. They heard of her in confidence, it is true, but as the Greenlanders say, as men breathe, so they speak what they are thinking of.

At the end of the winter, toward the feast of St. Joseph, the woman died, and Skeggi sent this in a message to Sira Eindridi with the further message that it was his conviction that this should be the end of the matter. At this, Sira Eindridi sent a message back to Skeggi saying that the man was taking a very high-handed position with the Lord, and it was possible that he, and others, would come to regret it. And Skeggi sent the messenger back with word that there were plenty of weapons at Hestur Stead, and plenty of men to wield them. And so relations were very bad between Hestur Stead and Gardar.

At Ketils Stead, Helga Gunnarsdottir was preparing herself for another confinement, for indeed, the fight at the Thing three years before had borne in upon her that wives must give up the pride of their enmity, and consign their wills to their husbands, for it is always the case in Greenland that the husband may return to the steading a dead man. For Jon Andres, as well, there was the relief of giving up his secret to the breezes, and when Helga turned her slow gaze once more upon him, he turned his quick one upon her, and for three years they were very content with one another. The pregnancy went no more ill, although no better, than any of the others, and Margret Asgeirsdottir came to the steading every day with strengthening food and drinks, and Johanna cared for the work about the place and for Gunnhild, and little Unn. It seemed to Helga that the child would be a boy, and she was very happy.

One day when Helga was lying in her bedcloset and the others were outside, or in other chambers of the steading, she heard a man’s footstep in the chamber outside the bedcloset. Knowing that this would be Jon Andres, of whom she had just been thinking, she sat up, and looked out of the opening. And indeed, there was a male figure inside the steading, with his back turned to her, but he was not wearing Jon Andres’ sheepskin vest, but rich furs of blue fox. When he turned to face her, she saw that it was Kollgrim, and that he was beaming upon her with the same melancholy smile as he had always had for her, in the old days, when they lived together at Gunnars Stead, before she went away as a married woman. And it seemed to her that she was his after all, entirely his, only lent for a brief while to the others. And when Margret Asgeirsdottir came in sometime later to speak with her, Helga told her of this dream, and Margret said nothing, but they both knew how to interpret it, and so it came to pass that Helga Gunnarsdottir died in childbirth, and the child, whose name was Kollgrim, died as well, some little while after his mother. And it was the case that Helga was buried near the north wall of Undir Hofdi church, near the grave of Helga Ingvadottir and not far from the graves of Hauk Gunnarsson and Asgeir Gunnarsson, and all of the other folk of their lineage. She was thirty-eight winters of age. After Helga’s death, Johanna stayed on at Ketils Stead and cared for Gunnhild and Unn, and though her ways with them were always brisk rather than gentle, the two girls grew accustomed to her.

In this year, once again, no Thing was held, although there was some talk during the spring seal hunt of reinstituting it, but the Greenlanders would have to make up a whole new set of laws for a new lawspeaker to learn, and this seemed both an impossible task and an unnecessary one, since almost everyone agreed on what actions were the proper ones and what were the improper ones. And there were always Sira Eindridi and Larus the Prophet to speak to, and Gardar was a more convenient place to go than Brattahlid, and folk had to go there anyway, to breed their sheep to the Gardar rams, or to breed their cows to the Gardar bulls. On this seal hunt, there was some talk of Skeggi Thorkelsson and of the trouble Sira Eindridi was having with him, and some folk considered that Skeggi was much provoked, and some folk considered that he had always been a stiff-necked fellow, proud of his father’s rich steading and complacent in his relations to other farmers in the district.

In the summer after this seal hunt, shortly before the feast of St. Margaret, Larus received the saint, Lazarus, again, and was insensible for a whole day and a whole night, and could on no account be roused. He fell down in the kitchen, as he was talking to the cook, and stayed there the whole time, for the servingfolk, and Sira Eindridi, were afraid to move him. He lay as if dead, and from time to time the cook wet her finger and put it under his nose, to see if he still breathed. When he finally roused himself, folk saw that he was much weakened by this spell, more so than he had been in the past, and for a day afterward, he could hardly shuffle from place to place, and his face was white as a newly washed fleece. When Sira Eindridi questioned him about these matters, he could hardly speak of them so as to be understood, and finally Sira Eindridi said to him, “Larus, my friend, I see that this Lazarus bears down hard upon you, but that is the sign that you and only you have the strength to bear up underneath his weight.” And Larus nodded, for he had considered this as well.

Now, on the very next day after Sira Eindridi said these words, a woman from Brattahlid came to Gardar, and her name was Gunndis, and she had been one of Larus’ first women. She had sewed garments for him and been many times to his table, and she knew many of his visions as well as he did, and in almost the very same words. He received her with pleasure, and she spoke to him for a long time, and the result was that he saw that the prophecy of the day before, that “the north will be as the south, the east as the west, and evil will rise up on all sides as the waves rise around a tiny boat” was fulfilled.

In Brattahlid, said Gunndis, there were a man and a woman casting spells over their neighbors, so that cattle and sheep all about their farm were falling ill, but theirs were not, and the reason for these spells was this—this man and this woman were in conflict with neighbors on two sides over the size of their holdings, and had tried through other means to gain more pasturage, and now they were trying by this means. Gunndis herself lived far from the couple, but her cousin’s daughter lived at one of the afflicted farms, and could not see her way out of the affliction, except through the intercession, which Gunndis had suggested, of Larus the Prophet. Larus told her he had expected something of this kind, and then, privily, of the visitation of Lazarus, the saint, and he sent her off, and it could not be said that she kept these matters to herself when she got back to Brattahlid, but everyone she told, she also asked to keep these things in their breasts as secrets.

Also in this summer, the news came to Larus the Prophet that a great storm had spread over the southern part of Vatna Hverfi district, and that in this storm, the Hestur Stead bull, who had been standing in his field, was struck by lightning. It seemed to Larus that this event spoke for itself, and that he need not speak for it, except to Skeggi Thorkelsson, and so he sent him the following message: “Thy pride shall be thy abasement, and the tongue in thy mouth shall speak against itself.” Skeggi returned no reply to this message, and things went on quietly for the rest of the summer, except that the man and woman from Brattahlid who had brought disease to their neighbors’ sheep and cows were called to Gardar, where they humbled themselves, and were sent home again, but indeed, they were intransigent in their evil, for the deaths of neighboring cows continued unabated. Larus and Sira Eindridi had some discussion about what their next course of action should be, and they remained undecided. These things were much discussed at the autumn seal hunt.

Toward the end of the summer half year, Ashild came to Gardar with little Tota, who was some seventeen winters old now, but still known as little Tota. Ashild had been living on her farm, Larus Stead, between Brattahlid district and Solar Fell with a man, Gerd, to whom she was not married. Larus was not a little pleased to see her, and gave her a kiss on each cheek, which was, he said, the Kiss of Everlasting Virtue. He told her that although he never longed for her as flesh longs for flesh, there were times when he longed to be in the presence of her purified nature, and she said that this was the case for her as well, and they agreed that the early days on Larus Stead, after the first visions, when folk were just beginning to come to them, to eat with them, and to hear what Larus had to say, had been contented and peaceful times. Ashild suggested that she might come to Gardar as a pilgrim, and do the lowliest forms of labor there, and perhaps meet with Larus from time to time, but Larus said that she must not think of this. And so they got on to the real tale of her visit.

Ashild said of herself that she was much frightened, and often longed for the comfort of Larus’ presence, for there were malevolent powers abroad in the world, and these had been unleashed, perhaps, at the burning of Kollgrim Gunnarsson. One could not say, interrupted Larus, where the devils would lodge who had fled the burning man, and many had watched the burning. Ashild nodded. She herself had seen a portent that night, in the form of a glowing bubble in the water of Eriks Fjord, down toward Solar Fell, somewhat to the Brattahlid side of the shrine of St. Olaf the Greenlander, though she had not known what it was at the time, and had not thought much of it. But since then it came to her over and over, as if the meaning of it must press itself into her thoughts in spite of her ignorance. Larus nodded. Since that time, Ashild had kept her eyes open, and had noticed many things. And it was also true that because of her long association with Larus, people looked on her with favor, and often came to her for counsel, which she tried to give them as Larus himself might. Larus nodded. But indeed, went on Ashild, the Devil keeps himself well hidden, and it is only the sharpest eyes that can make out the tip of his horn, or the print of his cloven foot in the earth.

A servingmaid had fallen into a spell at the end of winter, and had spoken roughly in another tongue, and another voice, as well, and though the mistress had beaten her for this, she had sworn that she could not remember what she had said and done. Ashild had believed her. This was at the house of Ragnleif Isleifsson, where Margret Asgeirsdottir had once been a servingmaid, too. That was one thing. A boy at another steading had unaccountably awakened in the night, and climbed out of his bedcloset, although it was the dead of winter, and gone out of the steading, where he saw, he said, a cross of fiery stars in the sky, and blood pouring from it. And he could not be moved from the details of his story. He was some twelve winters old, Ashild guessed. Old enough to speak of what he saw. That was another thing. And the third thing was this. A certain woman named Asta Bjartsdottir had come to Ashild three times, and each time she had told her privily of a vision she had had. For, the old woman said, of all the folk in the district, Ashild had lived the longest with Larus the Prophet, and Larus had had the most visions, and if Ashild had learned nothing of this from their time together, she must be a fool. The first vision was of men on fine horses, such horses as are found only at Hestur Stead, trampling some children to death beneath the feet of their horses, and laughing all the while. The second vision was of Kollgrim Gunnarsson, whom the woman had seen at the time of the trial and the burning, and he was sitting with dark clothed men, laughing, too, and there was a red glow behind him. And the third vision was of Larus the Prophet himself, and he was standing on a hillside, in a white garment, and a herd of reindeer were galloping toward him, and as the woman watched, these deer changed first into a swell of water, then into an avalanche, and then into a raging fire, and the fire seemed to burn Larus up where he stood. And the woman was greatly afraid, and asked Ashild to be sure that Larus was warned of this vision.

Now Larus felt himself exalted by this news, and he took Ashild’s hands into his own, and he told her the whole tale of Lazarus, and everything that Lazarus had told him about the fate that awaited the Greenlanders through their sinful natures and their intransigent ways. And a dire fate it was, for steadings would be broken up, and houses and byres would fall down, and sheep and cows would be scattered into the wilds, and grass would grow everywhere, and sand would fly in and cover everything, and the people would vanish from the face of the earth, leaving behind themselves only bits of tools and broken toys and shards of bone, and the land would be so accursed that even the accursed skraelings would avoid the places of the Greenlanders. These visions that all were seeing in Brattahlid were intimations of this fate, and also the Lord’s warning to men to reform themselves, and allow themselves to be led out of the darkness. For Larus could save the Greenlanders, he told Ashild, if the Greenlanders would allow themselves to be saved.