The Greenlanders (98 page)

Ashild asked how this might be done, and Larus sat up hungrily, and looked into her face, and said, “Skeggi Thorkelsson must be burned at the stake as Kollgrim Gunnarsson was, and these two intransigent witches in Brattahlid must also be burned at the stake, and the folk of Vatna Hverfi in general must give up their pride and much of their wealth to Gardar, for their wealth is the fruit of sinful waywardness. All households, no matter how far off they are, must send pilgrims on foot to Gardar and to Solar Fell, to kneel before the relics of St. Olaf. And in addition to these things, all the Greenlanders must accept the will of the Lord, as it comes through Lazarus, the saint, to Larus the Prophet. And those who don’t must be killed. And the church services, as well, are to be modified, for the pope of Jerusalem is at hand.” These words poured out of Larus in a torrent, and Ashild felt herself much uplifted by them, and after they had talked a while longer, she went back to her steading, and she published these tales all about the district, as busily as she could. And though Larus had told her these things in confidence, and there were among them things he had never told anyone before, he did not mind so much that they were out, for as Lazarus was pressing hard upon him, so it was time for him to press hard upon the Greenlanders.

All winter, folk in Brattahlid district talked of these things, and compared them to other things Larus had said. Toward the end of Lent it happened that some men broke into the steading of that man and that woman who had been accused of bringing disease to the livestock of their neighbors, and clubbed them to death where they stood, and the peculiar thing about this was that the men who did the killing never announced it, as is customary in Greenland, and, as with Jon Andres Erlendsson and Gunnar Asgeirsson, these men were never punished or outlawed. Indeed, the Thing no longer met, and no one knew the laws, so it was not possible to outlaw them. When this news became general at the spring seal hunt, folk from other districts did not know what to make of it, except to say that the Brattahlid folk had always done things in their own way, since the time of Erik the Red. When Skeggi Thorkelsson heard that Larus the Prophet prescribed burning at the stake for his case, he could not be made to stop laughing.

But the seal hunt went ill. Two boats were lost, and three men, and few seals were taken, and men fell to blaming each other and all looked forward to a hungry summer. One of the men lost was Skeggi Thorkelsson. Afterward, Larus called the wave that swamped the Hestur Stead boat the Corrective Wave of the Righteous Lord. And after the seal hunt, many folk in many districts were afraid, and no longer spoke to one another as Greenlanders once had, in open jest about many things. During that summer, Sira Eindridi allowed Larus the Prophet to change the mass slightly, in accordance with the formulas that Lazarus had dictated to him, and Larus taught these formulas to Sira Eindridi himself and to Sira Andres.

One day in the summer, after all these events had taken place, Gunnar Asgeirsson went on horseback to Hestur Stead, to see Thorkel Gellison, for it seemed to him that the old man would soon die. Gunnar was also much cast down by the death of Skeggi Thorkelsson, and by the tales that attached themselves to it. When he got to Hestur Stead, he saw that Thorkel was indeed a dying man, and that his life might stretch to a matter of days, but no longer than that, and for a while he sat beside Thorkel’s bedcloset while Thorkel slept. Then Thorkel woke up, and Gunnar said, “It is I, Gunnar Asgeirsson, come to seek your counsel for the last time.” And Thorkel said nothing, so Gunnar thought that perhaps he could not hear him, but he went on talking anyway, about sheep and cows and the hunt and the weather, and such other matters as Greenlanders like to speak of, but suddenly, Thorkel spoke up and said in a clear voice, “Gunnar Asgeirsson, you have spread your bad luck over the whole of Greenland,” and he fell silent again. Now Gunnar did not know what to say, for what Thorkel said seemed to him to be true, and so he sat silently for a while. And then Thorkel spoke again, and said, “Even so, you are always welcome at Hestur Stead, for men do not choose their friends for their good luck, nor do they betray them for their ill luck. In this as in all things, men are foolish enough.” And he was much weakened by these speeches, and soon fell asleep again. Gunnar stayed for two days, and talked to Thorkel twice more, and then returned to Gunnars Stead, and some days later he had the news of Thorkel’s death.

Now in this summer, which was according to most calendars the summer of 1415, another thing happened that was worth talking about, and that was that some men who had a large boat, large enough for twenty rowers, declared that they intended to leave Greenland and seek Markland and Vinland. These were Brattahlid men and Dyrnes men for the most part, and one of them was the fellow Harald Magnusson, who had carried Margret across Einars Fjord when she was on her way to Gunnars Stead. The boat would carry, it was said, fifteen men and five women, and necessary household furnishings and lambs and calves past the weaning stage, and it was not intended that these folk would return to Greenland, and that was the unaccountable thing about it. Folk speculated for a long time as to whether Harald and his friends would carry out their boast, and it happened that they did, and after they were gone, folk looked for them to return all through the summer, or for the pieces of their boat to be washed up on some strand or another, but such a thing never happened, and so folk did not ever learn of the fate of Harald Magnusson and his little boat, except through such dreams as they had from time to time. Such tales as folk remembered of Erik the Red and his son Leif the Lucky, and the bishop Erik, and Thorleif the Magnificent, and Hauk Gunnarsson, and others who had made the Markland journey through the years were brought out and renewed, and folk were disquieted by them, for indeed, Vinland is a great paradise of forests and vines and self-sown wheat, where men may rest from their labors from time to time, and all folk long for such a place if they are brought to think of it.

It may be said that things went on quietly now for some years. Larus the Prophet was the lord at Gardar, and Sira Eindridi and Sira Andres were his servants, no more than that, and though these two continued going out to the churches in the winter, as priests had always done, folk were less inclined to attend the services, so changed were they from what had been. Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay on the steading and mind the cows and be content with such days as are left to one and cease to wonder about life everlasting. If disputes arose, then men must settle them or fight about them, and if men are killed in these fights, then the disputes are settled in that way. Some folk even stayed away from the seal hunts, if they felt like it, because it could not be said whether the seal hunts were profitable or not. The Brattahlid folk nowadays always brought the ill luck of their witchcraft controversies with them, and it seemed to many that they bewitched the seals, or the boats, or the other men, so that something was always lost. It was better to keep one’s boat at home. There were few enough of them, after all. But it was true that every farmstead was the hungrier for not going to the seal hunt, and every Lent the longer, and every family the more hard put.

The folk at Gunnars Stead grew older. Jon Andres Erlendsson married Johanna Gunnarsdottir, and she gave birth to two children. It seemed to Gunnar that folk were thinly scattered over the ground these days, and he began to think that Birgitta Lavransdottir had been right, that the end of the world was upon the Greenlanders, at least. Perhaps it was upon every nation and people, but indeed, there was no way of finding out, except through such dreams as came to folk. In Brattahlid, folk were embroiled in conflicts and killings, and this was true to a degree in Dyrnes, also. Vatna Hverfi folk shunned contact with these others.

In Vatna Hverfi all was peace. The sun rose each morning, and shone upon the riot of flowers that grew around the middens, and blanketed the homefield. It turned the fjord green and the lakes blue, and a man could stand at the edge of these and see the shimmering copper of their bottoms glowing up through the depths. The grass grew thick and long, and bent this way and that in the breeze, for there is always a breeze in Greenland. The black mountains with their sparkling summits changed shape in the light, but were changeless. Each summer, the angelica sprouted overnight, and unfolded its branches like the palms of men open in supplication. Among its roots, the low rushing sound of water was unceasing. Men and women arose, went in and out of their steadings, looked about themselves, and lay down again for sleep.

It seemed to Gunnar, perhaps because he was an old man now, that these years passed as in a spell. Margret grew very old, he saw, but she went every day as far as she could into the hills. She did not look for anything, or bring anything back. She simply could not abide spending the day in the steading. One of these days she came back smiling a little, and he asked her her news, and she said, “Indeed, there were skraelings upon Einars Fjord, numbers of them in their skin boats, and they were fat and prosperous, and it seems to me that I saw Sigurd Kolsson among them, and he was tall and sturdy and had two wives.” Gunnar himself sat beside his parchment. His eyes were good, and his hands were unafflicted with the joint ill, and sometimes he wrote a sentence or two. News came: Sira Eindridi died of a stomach ill. Other news came: two ships had been sighted entering Einars Fjord. They were much unlike any ships that the Greenlanders had ever seen before. Folk went down to the strand, curious. The ships moved slowly up the fjord. They were wide and heavy-looking, with many sails. Ungraceful, but exceedingly large, as if carrying a great cargo. The faces of men, oddly deformed and silvery, stared over the gunwales.

The ships sailed on, past the staring Greenlanders, and this is what happened when they got to Gardar. The men upon them disembarked in a great rush, and ran through the water, and up the strand, and they were wearing plate metal armor and helmets, and carrying various iron weapons, not only swords, but shields and pikes and halberds, and they at once set about slaughtering all of the animals that they could see about the cathedral compound, and when the steward, whose name was Odd, came to them and told them that they were on Church land, they killed him. Now other servingfolk came out, and were standing about, and of course, Larus the Prophet, and Sira Andres as well. And these sailors at once set about preparing to cook and eat the animals that they had killed, for it is always the case that folk who travel to Greenland arrive hungry. But there was little or no wood to be had, except some driftage and some small stocks in the kitchen at Gardar, and these men were so enraged by this that they set about killing the servingfolk, at random, or beating them, or, in the case of women, raping them and then beating them.

Now Larus the Prophet approached them with his hands out in front of him, to show that he had no weapons, and he began to expostulate with them in his usual way, namely by calling on the saints and other holy folk who were his friends to witness that these things being done were great evils, and that the Lord would exact his due punishment against these devils. It happened that one of these sailors spoke a bit of Norse, from travels to Norway and Denmark, and he understood some of what Larus was saying, so in the midst of the turmoil, he shouted, “What is your name, then?” in the Norse tongue, and Larus shouted, “I am Larus the Prophet!” and when the sailor heard this, he began to laugh, and to relay this information to his fellows, who also laughed, and Larus was much put out, and repeated his words about the Lord’s punishment. The sailor said, “The Lord may find us if he can, then!”

Now Larus said, “What manner of men are these, O Lord, that they plunder us without mercy?”

“We are Bristol men!” shouted the sailor. “And we are unpleased to find ourselves in Greenland so late in the year, you may be sure of that!”

Larus did not know what Bristol men were, but it was evident to everyone that they must be such marauders as folk had never known before, for after they had slaughtered all of the cattle and horses they could find, they pursued the Greenlanders into the cathedral, where they had taken refuge, and they stole whatever was to be had there, and beat or killed anyone who tried to prevent them, and one of the folk that they killed was Larus himself, and this is what happened. Larus ran as fast as he could into the cathedral, to put away the altar furnishings. Some of these sailors ran after him and found him taking down the crucifix that hung above the altar. He was standing on the altar to do it. As he took it down, it broke into two pieces, and one of these dropped on the floor, causing Larus to let out a great moan, and then the sailors were about him, teasing him where he stood upon the altar, and he clasped the larger part of the crucifix to his bosom, and began to yell. He yelled, “Lord! Lord! Rain thy fire and darkness upon these devils! Crush them and rend them with sharp wheels, wheels of iron spikes, for they have come upon us as a horde of marauders, and they undo us and outrage Thee in Thy consecrated house!” and one of the sailors reached out and poked him with his pike, enough to draw blood, and Larus raised the broken crucifix above him as a weapon, and brought it down with no little force on that man’s helmeted head, so that in spite of his helmet he fell down on the stones beside the altar. Now Larus began to shout that the Lord’s victory was his, and just then he was pushed off the altar, and stabbed and hacked and poked to death by the others who were standing around. And that was the death of Larus the Prophet.

It seemed that these Bristol men were seized with a frenzy, for they rampaged through all the buildings in Gardar, stealing everything that was fine, and breaking up everything that did not interest them. From the cathedral they got the wooden benches, and carried them outside, and built some fires with them, and began to cook their meat over these fires, and with this meat, they drank such wine and ale and other intoxicating beverages as they had with them, and after this feast, they tore through the buildings again, carrying torches, looking for the Lord Himself knew not what. Those Greenlanders who escaped scattered in every direction with this news, but many did not. Eight men and four women were killed outright, and four more men and two more women, including the Gardar cook, died after some days of their injuries. And it must be said that during the days when these injured folk lay about with their injuries, the Bristol men heeded not their cries for water or mercy or aid, but only ate their meat and drank their drink and slept the stupefied sleep of the intoxicated.