B0046ZREEU EBOK (25 page)

So there was no magic in the luck that brought us a brief spell of fine weather, so that the men were able to drag the boats across the ice, and harpoon two seals in open water. It wasn’t magic that brought a wakeful bear snuffling round our middens, where it could
be trapped and killed with a spear. It wasn’t magic that made men risk their lives fishing off the edge of the ice in a freezing sea that grudgingly yielded a few dogfish. It certainly wasn’t magic that made us kill our pitifully skinny sheep, who should have given us the next year’s lambs. Long before Easter the winter closed in again, and we endured it until June. And then the spring came with a rush, and the pent up anger of all the hungry months erupted with it.

I did appreciate the things you sent, my dear. The wine is so good – smooth and rich, the best I’ve yet tasted. Did it come from your monastery vineyards? It was kind of you, and I enjoyed the grapes too, they were much bigger and juicier than I’d expected. Were they really grapes, I wonder, those fruits we picked in Vinland? If they were, then hundreds of years of cultivation must have changed the ones in Italy out of all recognition. How long have people eaten grapes and drunk wine in this country, Agnar?

Since the flood, you think? And what about before that? Were there grapes in Eden? You can’t answer that, can you? Rome is so old I’m not at home in it. So old and so cultivated; the past weighs it down. When I was ill I thought at first I didn’t want to die here. I watched the sun move across the wall in my cell, showing up the cracks in the plaster, and lighting up clouds of dust that the shadows never show us. Dust from the past, dust of people, maybe, or whatever they once made here that’s fallen and forgotten. I lay in my bed, feeling too weak to raise my hand or turn my head, and I watched the dust. It floated and floated in the heat and never seemed to settle. Why do we stir up the past, Agnar? Why not let it lie? The sun moved across the wall, I lay under my sheet and I felt as dry and light as vellum, after all these months of heat and stickiness. When the sun left, the night swept in like velvet and wrapped me softly round, and I thought then I wouldn’t be afraid to go quietly onwards
into the dark. I thought of my love, as if I were young again and close to him, and it seemed that I might stretch out my hand into the sweet night and his hand would be there, waiting for mine. He was there, I could tell, in his body, just as he was a long time ago when we were young. I remembered how his weight pressed down on me, and how he moved inside me, as if it were his body not his soul that was waiting for me now. I thought then that perhaps there had been times, when we were together, when body and soul were truly one, and that it would somehow be in the image of our mortal love that my soul would find his. Age is only the husk that grows around us, Agnar; I am still myself inside this shell, and when I die I think I shall be just as he remembered me.

When I knew he was there it didn’t matter any more that I was a long way from home. I thought about what it must be like for him, and wondered how he found his way into this place which is so unlike anything he ever knew. Did the throng of alien ghosts trouble him? Was he afraid to come so far, when his own resting place is half the world away? I don’t think he was frightened; perhaps the thread that binds me to him is short and straight, and he didn’t have to make the long journey that we make in life to get from there to here. We once meant to find a new country, he and I, and maybe we did, in our own way. I don’t think it was as new as we thought, though. Perhaps there were more before us, and more after, than we could ever have dreamed of.

Anyway, Agnar, I’m tougher than I look, and I didn’t die this time. Don’t look so solemn, my dear. Your gifts pleased me very much. I don’t think I’m fated to die in this place. It’s getting cooler every day, thank God, and even though the air is so old and tired and dry, I can smell the freshness of autumn in it. Are you worried that when my mind should have been on the last things it was the spirit of a mortal man that comforted me?

You’re right, and more sensible than I’d given you credit for. What are sacraments for, if not to do for us what our own minds can’t do? Yes, the priest did come, and committed me to the mercy of a God whom I still can’t apprehend. I think he’ll have mercy on me even for
that. I have more hope now that he is merciful enough to give us a heaven inhabited by the people we loved, because that’s the nearest to divine love most of us are going to get.

I know. No marriage nor giving in marriage. Just as well, because after all I had two husbands, and have had more than one mass sung for each of them, so heaven is where they both should be. No, no, I’m not worrying about the logic of it. But I’ve had to make some journeys on my own, and some with a man who loved me, and though I’m quite able to take care of myself, I have to admit, having experienced both, I prefer to travel with someone I love. Yes, even on the last journey of all. Go on, then, cross yourself. I can still shock you, then, even though you should know me quite well by now.

That’s true too, but it’s a long time ago. Grief passes, and one heals so well in the end that one almost feels guilty about it. I can’t remember grief now. The worst pain I can recollect is toothache. Sadness comes and goes, sometimes it’s in your head and sometimes it isn’t, but toothache just stays there with a vengeance, and there’s no melancholy satisfaction in indulging in it either. I lost my first adult tooth when I was pregnant with Snorri – a tooth for every child they say – and then I was lucky for a long time. The year Karlsefni died my back teeth began to rot, and one by one they fell out. It was agony. Losing him was agony too, but I remember the toothache better. It made me want to die. I could think about life without Karlsefni, when it came down to it, but not without my teeth. Losing my teeth felt more like the end of me. But I have some still, as you see, and that’s an achievement at my age, and what’s more they don’t bother me any more, and I don’t cry for the dead any more either.

I know, I know. We have to go on with the story. What else are we here for, after all? But I’m tired today, Agnar. Couldn’t we have a cup of your wine, and sit out in the shade? There are ripe figs on the tree out there, and bunches of little green grapes on the vine that grows over the cloister roof, and the leaves are just beginning to go yellow. We don’t have much time, Agnar, and we can’t afford to waste it all writing things down. Think about where we are now! You want me to talk about Karlsefni. He would think us mad to bury ourselves in shadows. He wouldn’t dream of wasting his days telling you a story about his life. He’d be thinking about the present. He’d have talked to me about you, about Rome, about the significance of this strange new world we’re living in. He seemed a quiet man in public, but he was usually very self-possessed; he didn’t give much away. He was always observant. Even at the very end, when his body let him down at last, he was still wanting to know, still trying to find out. Even when he couldn’t leave his own hearth, he still wanted the news, he still insisted on speaking to every passing stranger.

Maybe you don’t know – you were so young when you left – and of course you’re a Southerner anyway – but Karlsefni made the chieftain of Glaumbaer one of the most important men in Iceland. Snorri has inherited what his father made, and he holds it well. But though Karlsefni was of good family himself, he had to make his own place in the world. He bought Glaum when we got back from Norway. He paid a good price for it, but Vinland had made us rich, and Karlsefni never minded spending money on what he’d set his heart on. He never left Iceland again, which you may think strange for a man who spent the first half of his life travelling nearly all the time. He’d found what he wanted, you see.

It was easier by then to avoid being involved in feuds. Karlsefni managed it, anyway. Apart from one outlaw, whose name I can’t tell you, to whom he secretly gave food and shelter when he was hiding on the island called Drangey at the mouth of our bay, Karlsefni avoided taking sides. We went to the Thing every year – at least, Karlsefni always went, and once the boys were big enough I went with him – and Karlsefni gained a reputation for being impartial. Cold- hearted, some said. But men often appealed to him to arbitrate in
quarrels, and in fact a substantial part of our income came from fees he earned that way. We needed the money. Our house was always open; Karlsefni was always mindful of his prestige, and I liked to give good feasts and gifts to our guests, though I was far more provident than my father. Karlsefni and I were both good managers, and our farm became one of the best in Iceland. Glaum is a wide flat valley between two lines of hills, with the river winding through it, and so we had plenty of room to expand. Over the years we bought up several small holdings along the length of the valley, until now it’s all ours.

He liked beautiful things, especially metalwork: there was a smith he knew in Norway from whom he’d order goods nearly every year – jewelled cups, platters, brooches, amulets, that sort of thing. If he hadn’t been a chieftain he might have been a smith himself, though God knows trying to get ore out of that bog iron in Vinland was enough to put anyone off for life. He liked to give me jewels and dyed cloth, and it pleased him when I did him credit. Any longings I’d had for fine things as a child were amply fulfilled, and yet human nature is perverse. Sometimes I’d think of Halldis, in her undyed tunic, driving the cattle in from our muddy fields, or harvesting yarrow or thyme from the fields and hanging it up in bunches over the hearth at Arnarstapi, and I’d feel trapped, as if I’d been dressed up as someone else who wasn’t me. I’d want to get out and run into the empty hills. Sometimes during those years I thought too of Thorstein, and our farm at Stokkanes, and the days we’d spent clearing the scrub, or driving ponies loaded with dung and seaweed, and spreading muck across next year’s hayfields. I’d think about the times we waited up at night, just the two of us, for a cow about to calf, or winter evenings when we went out to the byre in a blizzard to fill the hayracks, or days when we forced our way through drifts digging sheep out of last night’s snow. Sometimes I could hardly remember what Thorstein looked like, and then I would dream of him again and see his face, never older, of course, but unlined as it had been when I saw him last, freckled like a boy’s, his hair still fair and thick, falling over his forehead.

Don’t get me wrong; Karlsefni and I were farmers too, like
everyone else, and neither of us was afraid of a hard day’s work. But we had more thralls at Glaum than anyone had in the Green Land, or than my father had ever owned at Laugarbrekka, and quite a lot of our land was worked by tenants. It was never just us. I told you once that Eirik’s family lived their lives at Brattahlid with the world looking on, because they were at the centre of things and never alone. It was like that for us at Glaum. Karlsefni never understood why I sometimes felt withdrawn from it all. We talked about Vinland occasionally, but as far as he was concerned that was the past, and therefore over. The thread that tied our early lives to Glaum was spun out of gold, in his view. He liked to be rich, and he made sure that he was. He liked to play an influential part in men’s affairs, and he made sure that he did. In some ways he was much simpler in his wants than me. There were times when I wasn’t happy, and when that happened he always knew. He never understood, and he hated fuss. I never let him see me cry after we got back to Glaum, except when I lost a child, which happened twice after Thorbjorn was born. He was always as kind then as he was able to be, because he knew that these things affect women unduly. I didn’t inflict my vague discontents upon him, and as the years passed I didn’t bother about them so much myself any more. Don’t get me wrong, Agnar, I’m not complaining. It’s just that being ill these last weeks, I’ve had a lot of time to think about these things.

When I thought I would die here I admitted to myself for the first time how much I wanted to make this pilgrimage. This is my last adventure, you see, my last journey into the unknown. It was the first time I’d put to sea for nearly thirty years. I used to hate and fear the sea, but it’s the only road out of Iceland, and I’d been shut into my little world for too long. I always wanted to travel again, but Karlsefni was content. He’d seen all that he needed to of Europe before I ever met him, and he had no reason to go back. He had sons who were making their own way in the world. Snorri and Thorbjorn each went to the court in Norway, and Thorbjorn has gone far beyond. It’s young men who go out into the world, not their mothers; that’s how Karlsefni would have seen it. I loved him, Agnar. We were very happy together.

I told you when you and I met that after this winter I’d go home to Glaum, and so I will. I won’t go back to our house though. Snorri has a wife and grown children, and they don’t need me there any more. No, I’ll make a place for myself as much like this nunnery here as I can. I shall have my little cell, just as I do here, and the nuns will create their own little world, just as they do here, and it will be a haven and a sanctuary for those who need it, just as it is here. I’m not going to die in Rome. There is something more for me to do in Iceland, quite apart from my family.

Are you still writing all this down? It’s not the story I’m supposed to be telling you. I don’t know, I just can’t be bothered any more to get to the point. But you need me to, I realise that, and for your sake I’ll make more effort tomorrow. Come a little earlier, before the sun gets to my brain. Otherwise I won’t be any use to you; I just won’t be able to convince myself that this work of ours matters any more.

Vinland. Leif promised us a land that flowed with wine, but I had to come here, to the heart of the old world, to find that, and, what’s more, to acquire a taste for it. Vinland. Snorri’s son died there. Thorbrand. A young man in his teens. He died in a scuffle that should never have taken place. I hope to God neither of my children will die before I do. Snorri was as hard a man as any of them, and when the skraelings were gone he raised the body of his son and carried it into his hut without a word. But I saw his face, and I knew him well enough to read what was not written there. Vinland. My own Snorri was born there, and I looked after him alone. There were times when I longed for a family; that’s what a baby, and its mother, need most of all. When we went back to the world we came from he was three years old, very active and talking fluently. In Vinland he still fell asleep at my breast, and when his father came to bed he used to lift the baby out of the place that was his, and lay him in his basket and tuck the blanket round him. I’m the only person who ever saw Karlsefni do anything as tenderly as that.