Iceland's Bell (4 page)

But in this household there was no bag or box of rubbish, neither was there a storehouse loft. The assessor, however, did not look any more likely to leave because of this, and although the bishop was becoming slightly restless and wanted to finish bestowing his blessing, the friend of the king continued to smile sympathetically at the family.

“There’s nothing—unless you might want to try the bottom of my mother’s bed,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Oh yes, of course—the things our dear old ladies hoard!” said the assessor, and he took snuff from his pouch and offered some to all, including the idiot and both of the lepers.

When Jón Hreggviðsson had partaken of some of this excellent tobacco it dawned on him that something must surely have become of the old pieces of skin they’d given up on trying to use to patch his breeches a few years ago.

Dust and poison gushed up from the old and moldy hay within the woman’s bed as they began their search. Mixed up in the hay was all kinds of garbage, such as bottomless shoe-tatters, shoe-patches, old stocking legs, rotten rags of wadmal, pieces of cord, fibers, fragments of horseshoes, horns, bones, gills, fishtails hard as glass, broken wooden bolts and other scraps of wood, loom-weights, shells both flat and whorled, and starfish. The bedstead was even roomy enough to accommodate several useful and extraordinary things, including girth buckles, sea beans, whipstocks, and age-old coppers.

Jón Hreggviðsson himself had crept over to help the Professor Antiquitatum* rummage in the old woman’s bed. The two elegant women had gone outside but the two lepers remained behind with the bishop. The old woman stood off to one side. As they began their search a blush appeared on her shriveled cheeks and her pupils widened, and the longer they searched the more startled she became as another nerve was touched with each new item they uncovered, until finally she started to tremble. In the end she lifted her skirt up to her eyes and sobbed quietly. The bishop of Skálholt had been standing nearby, watching the assessor’s methods with a skeptical eye, and when he saw the old woman begin to cry he stroked her soft, wet cheeks with Christlike mercy and tried to assure her that they would not take away anything that was of value to her.

After a long and thorough search through the old hay the noble visitor dragged out some wadded and hole-riddled parchment scraps that were so shriveled, shrunken, and hardened by age that it was impossible to smooth them out.

While he was searching through the rubbish, the quiet nobleman’s eyes had reflected a modest and apologetic amusement, but this suddenly gave way to an impersonal, dutiful earnestness as he held his find up to the soft light coming through the window screen. He blew on the parchment and scrutinized it, then took a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and dusted it.

“Membranum,”* he said finally, glancing momentarily at his friend the bishop, and they both examined it: several sheets of calfskin gathered and threaded at the spine, the thread having long since torn or gone rotten. The surface of the parchment was black and grimy, but one could easily discern a text there, written in a Gothic script. They became eager and reverential at once, handling these shriveled rags as carefully as if they were holding a skinless embryo, and muttering Latin words such as “pretiosissima,” “thesaurus,” and “cimelium.”*

“The script can be dated to circa 1300,” said Arnas Arnæus. “It would be my guess, from the evidence, that this is a page from the Skálda* itself.”

Then he turned to the old woman, said that here were six pages from an ancient manuscript, and asked how many pages she might have had originally.

The old woman stopped crying when she saw that they didn’t want to take anything more valuable from the bottom of her bed, and answered that she wouldn’t have ever had more than one other page. She could dream back to having once, a long time ago, softened up this tangled mess of skin and torn a page from it to use as a patch for her dear Jón’s breeches, but the piece had turned out to be completely useless because it wouldn’t hold a thread. When the visitor asked what had become of this particular page, the woman answered that she’d never been in the habit of throwing away anything that might be useful, least of all scraps of skin—she’d had enough trouble throughout her entire life trying to scrape together enough material to make shoes for all the feet in her house. It was a poor patch of parchment that wasn’t useful for something during a hard year, when so many were forced to eat their shoes—even if it were nothing but a shoestring, it could still be stuck into the children’s mouths for them to cut their teeth on. Her lords shouldn’t consider it providential that she’d gotten nothing out of this scrap.

They both looked at the old woman as she stood there, drying her tears and sniffing. Then Arnas Arnæus said quietly to the bishop:

“I have been searching for seven years now, and have inquired of folk throughout the entire country whether they knew of a place where a fragment, even minutissima particula,* of the fourteen pages that I am missing from the
Skálda
might be found. The most beautiful poems in the northern hemisphere have been collected in this one single manuscript. Here we have six pages, crumpled up and nearly illegible, of course, and yet, sine exemplo.”*

The bishop congratulated his friend with a handshake.

Arnas Arnæus raised his voice and turned back to the old woman. “I will take these misfortunate shreds with me,” he said. “They cannot be used to patch breeches or mend shoes, anyway, and there is little chance that such a famine will come over Iceland that you would consider using them for food. But you shall have a silver coin from me for your inconvenience, good woman.”

He wrapped the pieces of parchment in the silken handkerchief and thrust it under his cloak, then turned to Reverend Þorsteinn and addressed him in the kind of glad and carefree tone a man uses when he engages in lighthearted banter with a companion to whom he is bound by no other duty than the pursuit of pleasure:

“It has now come down to this, my dear Reverend Þorsteinn: these people, who have since antiqui* possessed the most distinguished litteras* in the northern part of the world, choose now to walk upon calfskin or to eat calfskin rather than to read the old words written upon calfskin.”

The bishop finished granting the inhabitants his blessing.

The noblewomen who had been awaiting their cavaliers outside in the red glow of evening approached them now with smiles. More than a dozen horses on the loose, vigorous and whinnying, gnawed at the grass at the outskirts of the homefield. The grooms led four of the horses into the yard. The eminent folk mounted, and the horses galloped off along the stony path, fire flying from under their hooves.

4

A few days later Jón Hreggviðsson rode out to Skagi to collect the foxhunting fee that he received for destroying fox lairs for the inhabitants in the district. The fee was customarily paid to him in fish, but, as usual, there was a shortage of cord, so he thought he’d ride out to the bailiff’s farm to borrow a small piece of cord to bind the fish. The bailiff was standing out in front of his door, along with several other farmers from Skagi, when Jón Hreggviðsson rode into the yard with his fish.

“Good day,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

The men received his greeting stolidly.

“I was thinking of asking your authority to loan me a tiny piece of cord,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“You shall indeed have a piece of cord, Jón Hreggviðsson,” said the bailiff, and turning to his men, he said: “Seize him now, in Jesus’ name!”

There were three others there besides the bailiff, all close acquaintances of Jón. Two of them grabbed him, but one stood by and watched. Jón fought back immediately. He flew at the farmers alternately, punching them and jostling with them and tumbling them into the mud, giving them all they were worth, until the bailiff, who was a strong man, joined forces with them. In a short time they finally got the better of the farmer, whose fish had been trampled down into the mud beneath their feet during the encounter. The bailiff then fetched chains and shackled the farmer, telling him at the same time that he would never again rest his head beneath his own roof. The prisoner was taken to the vestibule between the servants’ quarters and the main house at the bailiff’s residence, where people came and went all day long, and there he was confined, fettered, and placed under guard for two weeks. He was made to tease horsehair or grind grain, and the servants were ordered to take turns guarding him. At night he had to sleep on a storage chest. The knaves and wenches made fun of him as they passed through the vestibule and one old woman ladled refuse over him from the chamber pot because he sang the
Ballad of Pontus
at night and prevented people from sleeping. A poor widow and her two children, however, took pity on him and gave him warm grease and greaves.

Finally they rode out with the farmer to Kjalardalur and an assembly was held to discuss his case. The bailiff there decreed that he had been lawfully arrested on the charge of murdering the hangman Sigurður Snorrason, and stipulated that his abjurement of the charges would require twelve compurgators, whom he himself would have to provide. The six churchgoers from Saurbær swore that when they had reached Sigurður Snorrason’s corpse in the stream, they had found its eyes, nostrils, and mouth closed. Monsieur Sívert Magnússen, who had been dragged up from the peat-pit, swore that they, the hangman and Jón Hreggviðsson, had ridden away from the other men out into the darkness of the night. Not a single oath worked in Jón Hreggviðsson’s favor. After a two-day trial he was sentenced to execution for the murder of Sigurður Snorrason. He would be allowed to appeal the district court’s judgment before the magistrate at the Alþingi.

It was well into fall and travel was good due to the hard-frozen snow, and everyone had come on foot except for the bailiff and his secretary. On the way home to Skagi the bailiff rode out to Rein and left the prisoner standing shackled and guarded outside his own homefield wall while he went into the house.

When the inhabitants got wind of who had arrived, Jón Hreggviðsson’s mother milked the cow and brought a bowl of its lukewarm milk to the farmer. When he finished drinking she stroked the hair back from his eyes. The girl, his daughter, came out to the wall and stood near the man and looked at him.

The bailiff walked straight into the sitting room at Rein without knocking upon the door.

“Your husband has been convicted of murder,” said the bailiff.

“Yes, he’s the worst sort of man,” said the wife. “I’ve always said that.”

“Where’s his gun?” said the bailiff. “You can do without implements of death in this household.”

“Yes—it’s a wonder that he shouldn’t have already killed us all with this gun,” said the wife, and she brought him the gun.

Next she took a new, tidily folded wadmal shirt and extended it to the bailiff, saying:

“I am, as all can see, well into my pregnancy, and besides that, am a weak individual—I’m not much of a sight to behold; at any rate he certainly doesn’t like to look at me much. But I’d like to ask the bailiff to bring this clothing to him; it’s warm, in case he’s going to be gone for a while.”

The bailiff grabbed the shirt, struck the woman with it, and said as he flung it away:

“I’m not your servant, Rein-rabble.”

The boy laughed uncontrollably since he always found it horribly funny when his mother was treated badly, no matter by whom. The two lepers, the one nodous, the other ulcerous, sat together upon the bed, holding tremblingly on to each other’s fingerbones and praising God.

Because winter had set in and there would be no further litigation in Jón Hreggviðsson’s case prior to the Alþingi, it was decided that the prisoner should be transferred to Bessastaðir, which was better equipped than other places to house prisoners for long periods of time. Some men were sent by boat south to Álftanes, with the prisoner in the stern. The weather was cold and the waves sprayed over the boat, but the men kept themselves warm by rowing and bailing. Jón Hreggviðsson sang the
Elder Ballad of Pontus.
When they looked at him he stopped for a moment, and a gleam appeared in his eyes as he laughed at them defiantly, his white teeth flashing in his black beard—then he started singing again.

At Bessastaðir the regent’s steward, a secretary, and two Danish servants took charge of the prisoner. This time the farmer wasn’t lodged in the Þrælakista, but instead was taken directly to the dungeon. Bolted to the top of a heap of stones shaped like a well-shed were heavy shutters, barred and set with unbreakable locks; below these was a deep and vast opening with limed brick walls. A rope ladder was run down this hole and Jón was forced to climb down to the bottom, then the regent’s servants climbed down to shackle him. There were no conveniences in this dungeon other than a narrow plank covered with a sheepskin, a chamber pot, and a chopping block. A hefty ax lay on the chopping block and next to it was an earthen jug of water. The steward’s lantern momentarily illuminated the scene: chopping block, ax, and jug—and then the men turned to leave. They climbed out of the hole, dragged the ladder up behind them, closed the shutters and drove home the bars, then turned the keys in the locks. Afterward everything was quiet. It was pitch-black; not a thing could be seen. Jón Hreggviðsson sang:

“The soldier entreated and got his way
A maid to lie in sport and play
Increased our love as there we lay
Increased our love as there we lay:
—Though at first she answered ‘nay.’ ”

Jón Hreggviðsson sat in this prison and sang the
Elder Ballad of
Pontus
throughout the whole winter and on into summer.

Time did not pass by in the usual three-hour intervals in this place, so the days could not be counted; there was in fact no way to distinguish day and night, and the prisoner had nothing to do to while away the hours. A basket of food was lowered down to him once a day, sometimes twice, but beyond this he had little contact with the outside world.

In all actuality he had almost completely forgotten what humans were when the first guests were sent to join him, so he was overjoyed to greet them. There were two of them, melancholy-looking fellows, and they received his greeting coldly. He asked them who they were and where they lived but they were reluctant to answer. When he finally managed to get them to talk he found out that one of them was called Ásbjörn Jóakimsson, from Seltjarnarnes, and the other, Hólmfastur Guðmundsson, from Hraun.

“Well now,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “The men of Hraun have always been damned criminals. But I always thought that folk from Seltjarnarnes were good-natured.”

Both men had been sentenced to flogging. It was apparent, not only from their reluctance to answer and their haughty way of speaking, but also from the earnest way in which each pondered his own lot, that these were well-to-do men. Jón Hreggviðsson continued to interrogate them and to prattle. It turned out that this Ásbjörn Jóakimsson had refused to row one of the regent’s messengers over Skerjafjörður. Hólmfastur Guðmundsson, for his part, had been sentenced to lose his skin for having traded four fish for some pieces of cord in Hafnarfjörður, instead of having delivered the fish to the merchant in Keflavík—his farm belonged to the Keflavík trade district according to the king’s new regulations relegating control of the trade monopoly to district authorities.

“What was your excuse for not delivering the fish to the merchant in the district where my Most Gracious Sire commanded you to do business?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

The man said that he couldn’t get any cord from the king’s merchant in Keflavík—nor, for that matter, from the merchant in Hafnarfjörður, though a most considerate man at the trading booth had let him have a tiny piece. “And to think that this should have happened to me, Hólmfastur Guðmundsson,” said the man in conclusion.

“You’d have done better to use the cord to hang yourself,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

Ásbjörn Jóakimsson was less of a talker than his brother-to-beflogged.

“I’m tired,” he said. “Isn’t there any place here for a man to sit down?”

“No,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “This is no parlor. This plank is for me alone and I won’t give it up. And don’t you be roving around there by the chopping block—you might knock down my jug, which is holding my water.”

There was a moment of silence, until someone sighed heavily in the darkness.

“But my name is Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”

“What about it?” said the other. “Don’t I also have a name? Doesn’t everyone have a name? I have the feeling that it doesn’t really matter what we’re named.”

“When has anyone ever read in the old books that the Danes sentenced a man with my name to the whip, in his very own land, Iceland?”

“The Danes beheaded Bishop Jón Arason* himself,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson.

“If someone here wants to start slandering my Hereditary King, just remember that I’m His hereditary servant,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

There was another long moment of silence. Finally the man from Hraun could be heard muttering his own name in the darkness.

“Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”

He repeated it, very quietly, as if it were some kind of obscure oracle: “Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”

Afterward, silence.

“Who said that the Danes beheaded Bishop Jón Arason?” asked Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.

“I did,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson. “And since they beheaded Jón Arason do you think it matters whether the king has farmers like ourselves flogged?”

“It’s an honor to be beheaded,” said Hólmfastur Guðmundsson. “Even a little churl becomes a man by being beheaded. A little churl can recite a verse as he’s being taken to the chopping block, like Þórir Jökull* who recited his verse and was beheaded—and his name will live on as long as the land is inhabited. On the contrary, the man who is flogged is belittled. There is no man so gallant who is not humiliated by the whip.”

He added in a low voice: “Hólmfastur Guðmundsson—has anyone ever heard a more Icelandic name? And the memory of this Icelandic name will be connected with a Danish whip throughout the centuries, in the hearts of a people who write down everything in books and forget nothing.”

“I wasn’t belittled in the least by being flogged,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “And nobody laughed at me. I was the only one who laughed.”

“It does nothing to a man, to the man himself, to be flogged,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson. “But you can’t deny that it must be slightly traumatic for the man’s children to learn, when they’ve grown up, that their father was once flogged. Other children point at them and say, ‘Your father was flogged!’ I have three little girls. But after three or four generations it’s forgotten—at least I don’t imagine that Ásbjörn Jóakimsson is such a remarkable name that it will be written in books and read throughout the centuries; quite the contrary—I’m like every other nameless man, healthy today, dead tomorrow. On the other hand, the Icelandic people will live throughout the ages if they don’t give in, no matter what happens. I refused to transport the king’s man over Skerjafjörður, that’s true. Neither living nor dead, said I. I’ll be flogged and that’s fine with me. But if I had given in, even in such an insignificant matter, and if everyone gives in always and everywhere, gives in to ghosts and fiends, gives in to the plague and the pox, gives in to the king and the hangman, then where would these folk have their home? Even Hell would be too good for such folk.”

Hólmfastur did not answer, but continued to repeat his name quietly. Jón Hreggviðsson was determined not to let them up on his plank. After some time his fetters stopped rattling and the first snores came, jerky exhalations at the threshold of the senses that gradually deepened and became steadier.

As winter passed thieves were occasionally cast down to join Jón Hreggviðsson, sometimes several at once, confined there the night before they were to be branded or have their hands cut off. Jón was horribly anxious that they might try to steal the jug or even the ax. Others had to wait for their punishment for longer periods of time, mainly people from the district of Gullbringa. A cotter who rented land from the regent had refused to lend the regent his horse; he’d told him that men who were too lazy to go anywhere without the help of ninety good saddle horses, but who had none themselves, might as well get used to sitting at home—Gunnar of Hlíðarendi had never asked anyone to loan him a horse. Another, Halldór Finnbogason from Mýrar, had refused to receive communion and had been arraigned on charges of public blasphemy and desecration of holy relics. Both of these men were sentenced to have their tongues cut. The second of the two cursed and swore the entire night before his tongue was cut, and amongst those he cursed were his father and mother. Jón Hreggviðsson couldn’t get any sleep and finally became so angry that he said that whoever didn’t go to the altar was a fool, and he started singing the
Ballad of Jesus,
which he unfortunately didn’t know very well. Apart from thieves, there were quite a few other visitors who had been sentenced for crimes against the royal trade monopoly. One had been caught with English tobacco. Another had added sand to his sacks of wool. Some had illegally purchased flour in Eyrarbakki, because the flour in Keflavík was rotten and swollen with maggots. One or two had called their merchants thieves. There were endless amounts of these petty criminals, and they were all flogged. The king’s whip continued to flicker voraciously over the prone bodies of naked and emaciated Icelanders. Last but not least there were several hardened criminals of Jón Hreggviðsson’s mettle who were brought to the dungeon for a night’s lodging, men who were either to be executed or sent south to Denmark, to Bremerholm,* the most familiar of all places known to Icelanders in that distant country.