The Saga of Colm the Slave (35 page)

Other than the picture there were some
psalms and a few prayers in Gwyneth’s book. Sometimes she got Ljot
or one of the other priests to read a section and tell her, in
Norse, what it said. She had them repeat a passage several times
until she remembered it. Later, she would run her fingers over the
page and recite the priest’s words as she recalled them.

Every Sunday, Gwyneth would travel to
the church where Ljot was preaching. Gunnora attended these
services, too, proud to see her son behind the pulpit. Women still
whispered about Gunnora but most people thought that she was past
the age to cause difficulties to anyone’s marriage.

Stein-Unn also attended these services.
She had a number of children with Thrain and that farm was doing
well. Gunnora still treated her with contempt and laughed at her
hare-lip.

One day, Ljot took Gunnora aside. “You
shouldn’t mock that woman in the Lord’s house, Mother.”

“Why shouldn’t I? God made her to be
mocked.”

“No, she was born a pagan and her gods
did not protect her from affliction. But now she is a Christian and
God may punish you for your mockery.”

Gunnora made no reply to this but smiled
in a sneering way. A few days later she suffered a stroke and one
side of her face was paralyzed. People said that her sneer had
frozen on her face. Behind her back they called her Gunnora
Twist-Face. They said that it was God’s justice and were
well-satisfied.

35. The Robber Gang

After Skeggi, the cow herd who had lost
Mikla-Tit, was sent away by Ketil, he wandered about Iceland,
taking work here and there. The older he got, the less he got along
with his employers. Finally, he could not find work at all. He had
some trouble and was outlawed in the East Quarter. He fled to the
North Quarter and began robbing people’s houses there. Other men
joined him and the gang became quite a nuisance. Some of the godis
in the North sent men after the robbers, but couldn’t catch up to
them. After a while, though, they made things so difficult for
Skeggi that he left and moved into the West. He made a place for
himself across the bay on a little spit of land and built a turf
wall across it spiked with sharpened posts. So, when people came
after him, if Skeggi saw that he was outnumbered, he had his men go
out the back and take to the boats. They would row away to another
place and wait for the force to leave, then row back and repair the
wall and go on as before.

Gunnar had a friend named Alf who lived
near the bay. He had foreshore rights on the beach below his farm,
though his godi, Snorri, had a claim on a certain amount of the
driftage. One day a whale was stranded on Alf’s beach and he sent
for his friend Gunnar to come share in the butchering.

Alf’s men made a good start on the whale
and had cut away a large amount of meat when one of them looked up
and saw boats rowing toward them from across the bay. They knew
that it was Skeggi and his gang. One or two of them took fright and
Gunnar yelled to them, “Come on, we’ll fight them together!” But
they ran away.

Skeggi landed on the beach. “I see
you’ve butchered a whale for us.”

“Not for you,” growled Gunnar. He was
unarmed but picked up a stone and threw it hard. One of Skeggi’s
men ducked and the stone struck the man behind him, who dropped to
the ground. The first man raised his head and Gunnar said, “Don’t
worry. I’ve got your share right here!” and threw another
stone.

Skeggi rushed forward and struck Gunnar
with the hammer of his axe. Gunnar was stunned and fell to the
ground. When he came to his senses, Skeggi and his men were halfway
back to their place, boats full of whalemeat.

Gunnar said to Alf, “I thought you had
more courage than that.”

Alf said, “They outnumbered us two to
one. I’m going to report this to Snorri godi.” He grinned. “Snorri
does not take kindly to being robbed. I think we’ll be taking a
boat trip soon.”

“All right,” said Gunnar, “And I’ll tell
my godi, Hallvard, that I’ve been attacked. I’ll fetch my weapons,
too. Then we’ll all meet back here.”

When Hallvard heard what had happened
his expression turned grim. “I’ll send for all the men around and
we’ll teach this Skeggi a lesson!”

So Hallvard gathered the men in the
district. Colm, Thrain, Gunnar, Ketil, and some others all gathered
above the beach. The younger men -- Orm, Styr, Frosti --- were
there as well. Altogether about twenty men rode with Hallvard.

Hallvard was grinning and Colm said,
“You seem cheery enough.”

“This is the kind of event you hope for.
You can’t make it happen; you just have to be ready when it occurs.
Grandfather taught me that.”

“Why would you hope for robbers to
invade our district?”

Hallvard said, “Because driving them out
will give us a task that will draw people together. We need
something like this to make every man value his neighbor a little
more.”

“Doesn’t the thought of facing these
ruffians bother you?”

“No. I think they are no match for us.
And this is just what we need to get all the prople to pull
together. We will defeat these thieves and then men will be able to
talk about it after; they will tell tales over their beer. It will
be a good thing for the community.”

“If all goes well for us,” said
Colm.

“Of course it will,” laughed Hallvard.
“Don’t I have the best fighting man in the area riding beside me
right now?”

“I would never call myself that.” Colm
never thought of himself as a fighter. Now he had developed a belly
that hung over his saddle. It came upon him without warning; one
day he woke up and realized that he was no longer lean and
hard.

“You are a modest man,” said
Hallvard.

“No. I have seen great fighters and I do
not want to be numbered among them. They were good for little
else.”

“All right,” said Hallvard. “Then let me
say, great fighter or no, I would not prefer any other man beside
me and I know Grandfather felt the same way.”

Colm said nothing but he worried about
the fight ahead. He would never welcome an event like this. He
would never lead men into violence and say that it was a good
thing. Colm realized he was not a leader. I have found my place, he
thought, free and with some status, but only so much. For a moment
his thoughts were tinged with bitterness but he stifled that line
of thinking. Long ago he had learned to discipline the emotions
that might doom him. Geirrid! He thought, Geirrid had a mind like
Hallvard, seeing men from a distance, measuring them, using them.
But Geirrid could never be a leader here. He was only a slave's
son.This was the way of things and there was no possibility of
shifting Fate.

Snorri had also brought forces up to the
whale carcass. There were only about ten riders, but more than
twenty more were rowing up from the west. Snorri and Hallvard made
plans. The boatmen would cross the bay and keep Skeggi’s forces
from escaping that way. They would wreck the boats on the beach and
attack any vessel that pushed away from shore. They would not rush
the thieves’ house but let the horsemen ride around to the
palisaded wall and attack it.

“I told my men to bring many arrows,”
said Snorri.

“That was smart,” said Hallvard. “We can
sit back and pick them off.”

Gunnar snorted to hear this. He was
determined to return Skeggi’s blow, only he meant to use the edged
side of his axe.

Hallvard told Snorri, “Skeggi used to
work for Ketil Tree-Foot. Ketil let him go when Skeggi was still
young. Colm said then that Skeggi would be a problem in the
future.”

Snorri looked at Colm. “So you can
forsee the future?”

Colm shrugged. “It doesn’t take much
foresight to understand that unemployed young men may become a
problem. Skeggi wasn’t a bad man then. We should have taken better
care of him in this area. I blame myself for not speaking up
sooner.”

Hallvard said, “It wasn’t your fault.
These things happen.”

“Yes, but we should try to avoid
them.”

Snorri said, “I’ll think about this for
a while but I think Colm has a point.”

The boats drew up to the beach then and
Snorri explained the plan to the oarsmen. It was late at night in
mid-summer. The sun set for only a few hours at that time of year.
They agreed to wait until first light, about two hours away. The
oarsmen sat on the beach, talking and joking, waiting for dawn. The
horsemen rode around to the palisade, but stayed well back.

Colm could make out the wall ahead in
the gray dawn. It looked like a good site to defend. The sky began
to lighten and Snorri told his men to make a lot of noise. He
wanted the bandits to all come to the palisade, leaving the boats
unguarded. When he judged that most of them had run up to the wall,
he told those with bows to start shooting. Arrows flew at the
palisade, some going between the sharpened stakes. A man screamed
as an arrow found him. The bandits pulled back from the wall and
the archers lifted their shots over it. Skeggi’s men began running
back into the house. He turned and yelled at them to stand fast and
hold the wall, but they were determined to run through the house
and row away in the boats.

Gunnar kicked his horse into a gallop
and rode straight at the wall where Skeggi was standing. The
archers stopped shooting and watched. Gunnar reached up with his
axe and hooked it on a stake. He pulled himself up with the axe and
climbed onto the wall. Skeggi saw him coming and charged forward.
Gunnar grasped a stake with his left hand and pulled it straight
up, out of the wall, then he hurled it at Skeggi. The point struck
him in the shoulder, although it didn’t pierce him very deeply.
Skeggi stumbled and clutched at his shoulder. Gunnar jumped down on
the ground. He brought his axe overhead in a mighty arc and split
Skeggi open from shoulder to waist.

Meanwhile, Skeggi’s men had run out the
back of the house to discover that their boats had been wrecked.
Then the archers in boats began shooting at them. Two men fell and
the others rushed back into the house and out toward the wall
again. Skeggi’s body was still pouring blood and they halted,
horrified, when they saw it. Gunnar went back over the palisade and
ran to his horse. The archers let loose a volley that struck into
the men swarming from the house. They milled in confusion for a few
moments, then took cover inside.

“All right,” said Snorri, “Let’s clean
out this rat’s nest.”

They took their time dismantling a
section of the wall. Then they rode into the yard and readied their
weapons. Snorri gave the men inside the house a good long look at
the force lined up against them, then called on them to surrender.
There were only eight or so and they soon walked out into the
morning, their hands empty. One or two men started forward to kill
them but Snorri stopped them. “I think we’ve shed enough blood,” he
said. He looked over at Alf and Gunnar.

“There’s plenty of meat still on that
whale,” said Alf.

“I’ve got what I came for.” Gunnar
grinned and held up his bloody axe.

“All right,” said Snorri. He turned to
Hallvard. “Do you agree?”

“Of course, so long as no harm comes to
us from this. After all they haven’t killed anyone yet.” He
gestured at the thieves huddled in the yard. “Let’s see what kind
of men we have here and then decide what to do with them.”

Three men, including Skeggi, were dead.
Four others were wounded, two seriously enough so that it was
thought they would not survive. Colm walked over to one of them, a
man who had taken an arrow in his guts. He recognized him
immediately. “Adals!”

“Hello, Colm.” Adals grinned. “I’d get
up and embrace you but I’m a little indisposed right now. Do you
think you could give me a hand with this arrow?” Colm knelt beside
the man and examined his wound. He smelt the blood on his fingers.
“No need for that,” said Adals. “I know already that I will die,
but it is bleeding that will kill me and it won’t be very
long.”

Colm broke the arrow off so that only an
inch or so protruded from the wound. Frosti dropped beside him.
“Adals!”

“Well, Frosti, have you some magic herbs
that will cure this wound or do you only treat horses?”

Frosti shook his head. “Nothing will
cure this,” he said.

“No, I think not.” Adals grasped
Frosti’s hand. “How are you? And how is my daughter?”

“We are well. I am married to Thurid
Three-mothers and Freydis to Styr Egilsson. I have four children
and Freydis has a daughter.”

“Ah, well, tell her not to name any of
her children after me. I have not done well by this name.” He began
to shake a little. “It is so cold. Is there a blanket?” Neither
Frosti nor Colm moved. It was warm in the summer sun. “Listen,
Frosti,” said Adals, “Tell Braga I am sorry to have left her that
way. The truth is, I lacked the courage to face people and tell
them what a failure I was at farming.” Adals’ voice was becoming
weaker.

“Oh, no one is born a farmer.” Frosti
was weeping.

“No. Well, once I had a success; I
killed a man who had come here to do damage and that was something
that won me praise. So I thought, perhaps I could be a fighter;
Skeggi might get us a ship and we could all go raiding. But all we
did was steal food from people’s plates. Whalemeat!” Adals groaned.
Then he said, “Tell your mother...” But his voice had fallen so low
that Colm could not make out the words. Then Adals was dead.

“What was it he said?” asked Frosti.

Colm shook his head. “Just tell Braga
that his last thought was of her. Perhaps she will be pleased at
that.”

Frosti looked down at the corpse of his
step-father. “I suppose she had little enough pleasure of him
otherwise.” He grimaced. “This might have been my end.”