Norseman Chief (18 page)

I saw him die on the bank of a river.  His blade had been knocked free when a long spear was shoved under his arm by a wild-eyed Pohomoosh.  After killing his attacker, I collected the sword and put the hilt into his immediately weak, pale hand.  He panted some last words about seeing my second father, Erik, in the mead hall that very day.  He made me promise, and I did promise him as he gurgled on his own blood, that I would not show our new allies anything I knew of the art of making iron or steel.  He died then.

What was left of his men eventually abandoned their small homestead in the wilderness and came to live among the people.  It was the Huntsman who desired the peace and quiet away from others, so they had no more reason to stay.  They were welcomed as friends, having shed blood from their own veins as a result of strikes from the Mi’kmaq’s knives, in the name of Kesegowaase, the chief.  All of them took wives, some replacing Algonkin husbands who had died in the war.  Even Halfdanr, the man whose fingers I separated from his left hand years earlier, found a young woman to lie beside.  Several babies came to these men and their families, a little fairer in complexion and slightly larger than the other newborns of the tribe.  Now, some years later, all the children and men blended in together fighting and playing like any family.  Only occasionally did the people of Kesegowaase slip into old habits and call us tall strangers.  Just as we sometimes called them skraelings when well-worn routines took precedence over more recent practices.

Among the low-hanging clouds which sat dark over the darker sea, some of our scouts materialized paddling distinctly decorated birch bark canoes.  They were very close already as they bobbed up and down over the broad rolling swells.  Six young, strong men sliced into the water with their lightweight pine paddles which pushed them home from their weeks-long journey over to Vinland.  Once or twice a year Kesegowaase’s men would return to the wet lands around my old home to bring back some of the large moose or deer which inhabited its woods.  When they saw us on the beach enjoying the food, they changed course from heading up river to the village and struck out directly toward us.

Etleloo’s pace of eating picked up rapidly as the clams cooled so he did not notice the return of his people.  I tapped his arm, pointing at the travelers, “They’re early.”

He looked then returned to his food, mumbling through a full mouth, “They may have smelled the food.”  I gave him a good natured chuckle as the canoes slid into shore next to the longest of the clambake pits.

After pulling the boats up to safety, the scouts scanned the throng of villagers until they laid eyes on Kesegowaase who laughed at something with Hassun looking on.  Nootau was there as well, but he had not been in good health for over a year.  The old shaman would greet you with great pleasure and begin a bright conversation only to greet you again moments later.  At first this was all very funny to the younger men, who more than a little cruelly counted how many times they could get him to say his salutations in a single talk.  The day of the clambake Nootau wore a blank, specter-like face as if he stared at an empty world which was reflected in his own countenance.

To a man all six of the scouts walked to Kesegowaase, none hurrying, but with purpose nonetheless.  “There is news.”

“Huh?” said Etleloo.

“Come,” I said, leaving my bowl behind me.  Hurit was right in that my belly was already full despite eating only half of the portion I had taken.  Etleloo sighed but quickly came after me.

“How many?” Kesegowaase asked when we came near.

“Ah, Halldorr, how nice to see you today.  It has been so long.  Where have you been hiding?” asked Nootau.  The group allowed me to answer the man respectfully for the third time today before Hassun, falling into a shadowed world of frustration about his station, ushered his father away.

Nootau no longer sat on the council.  At first his random musings were tolerated out of respect for his many years of contribution to the people, but even the old men only have so much patience.  Quietly, and on a more frequent basis, Kesegowaase decided to begin the talks without informing Nootau.  In his addled state, Nootau would only occasionally ask why there had been no council for so long.  The men would tell him that perhaps one would be called tomorrow, a time so far beyond Nootau’s ability to recall the conversation that never was there a fear of injured feelings.  Hassun would now sit in his place around the chief’s fire when council was called, though his opinions never carried the weight of his father’s.

“Not many.  We do not know for certain, but it cannot be too many.  The large canoe came – only one – and left the same day.  We saw it coming from a distance, but by the time we hid ourselves where we could observe any landing, the countless oars were back into the water.  Men teemed aboard her while she sped away toward the icy north.”

“Then why do you think anyone stays behind?” the chief asked.

“We heard singing coming from the old camp of Halldorr.  Since we remembered the will of our chief we came directly back here without first making contact with the strangers.”

So the people of my fathers had returned.  I had nearly forgotten about them.  What, I wondered, could make them return after over ten years when they had clearly forgotten about Vinland?  And why come, then immediately leave with only a few men left behind?  But I didn’t need to ask myself all these questions.  Kesegowaase and I had made plans for this very event in his first years as chief.

“I’ll prepare my pack and
Sjor Batr
,” I said.

“That is good.  You’ll take Etleloo, Rowtag, and any six of the young warriors you choose.”  Kesegowaase gestured to Etleloo.  “His grey hair will help whoever it is feel at ease with our people.”

Etleloo bristled at the chief’s humor, but I diffused my friend’s temper by saying, “And his axe will slice them from their groins to their skulls if they make a wrong move.”

Surprisingly, Etleloo calmed himself rapidly.  “I will go and serve my purpose, but I do not think it wise to go to sea in this leaky
Sjor Batr
of Enkoodabooaoo’s.”  My canoe was quite old now, patched many times from rock, spear, or arrow punctures.  But since I first sailed the seas as a child, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for any old boat and all the tales it could tell should it ever wish to share.  I kept
Charging Boar
for many years after I could have afforded a new vessel ten times over.  I marveled at the grand old specimen of Helgi’s boat called
Leidarstjarna
.  It had been his father’s boat, likely carrying millions of merkur of goods across many thousands of vika across the sea.  Kesegowaase ignored Etleloo.  I did not.

“I have known you to be brave in battle.  Think of the journey in my canoe as a return to the trials of manhood.”  I gave the man a wink.

As we moved to assemble our party of men, the chief, whose daughter now tugged at his leggings, gave us advice.  “I’ll not have my village in battle against these people.  They are good as we can see from Halldorr and the others.  But if battle comes, see that they do not know about our village so that our women and children may be safe from harm.”  I merely nodded, not saying anything about the directions to this very village I left on the parchment stuck in the cooking chain of one of the longhouses in Leifsbudir all those years ago.

. . .

Right Ear, my old friend, was still living but he had to stay in our mamateek with Hurit and little Skjoldmo while I was gone to Vinland.  I don’t know how old the dog was when he began living with me in Leifsbudir during Freydis’s reign of terror.  He was, however, most definitely fourteen years or older by now.  Right Ear had a hollowed out space where his right eye used to be after a fight with a wolf pack.  I was afraid that I would lose him after that battle, but he lived and thrived, only changing the carriage of his head so that it tilted to the right when he ran.  Now, in his advanced age he ambled slowly around the village, whining when his joints ached, and known by everyone in order to get the occasional scrap from someone’s dinner plate.  He would spend the better part of the rest of the day chewing deliberately with the four or five teeth he had left in his mouth.  I missed taking him on my trips, but we could not have a lumbering dog with us in case we met with trouble.

We put to shore some distance south of Leifsbudir, near Tyrkr’s grape vines.  I smiled silently when we snuck past the rocks and lake remembering that was where the former thrall had spent much time swimming with his white ass bare for all to see.  I became a little melancholy as I wondered if he still walked the earth.  I had not thought of him for years, but being so close to those memories made me think.  Thinking, being dangerous when battle may be near, was quickly banished from my mind and I walked on concentrating on the sounds filling the forest around me as dusk began to settle its weight onto the landscape.

It would do no good at ensuring a lasting peace to barge into Leifsbudir in the middle of night when the dark and shadows played tricks on men.  No matter who sat in the camp that night, we would be viewed as invaders and so Etleloo and I and the rest of our party slept without a fire atop a sandstone ridge near my former village, planning on making ourselves known when the sun was high and the Norsemen’s confidence in their eyesight lofty.

We ate a simple meal of dried, smoked fish then silently threaded our way to the longhouses.  It looked like my old house by the lake was deserted and so we snaked along the brook to the other homes.  One of these, in particular, was beginning to show signs of recent use and minor repair.  But the tell-tale sign was, of course, the smoke that sifted through cracks in the roof and the smoke hole in the gable.

In the years since Leifsbudir had been abandoned, scrub brush and pine trees began to fill in the protective gaps we had cleared in the forest.  No longer was there a clear field of vision from the longhouse across a soggy plain.  Instead we were now able to come so close that even Alsoomse could hit the houses with a well-aimed pebble.  Etleloo had us spread ourselves out around the single, occupied home.  I lay on my belly underneath a briar, using one of its thorns to scratch a recent set of flea bites around my waist.  Hurit and I should move to a new mamateek, I thought, which was about the only way to temporarily reduce any such infestation.  The thought passed and now we waited.

We waited a long time.  The sun had passed its zenith and still we neither saw nor heard any movement within.  Perhaps we missed whoever lived there and they had left for an early morning hunt?

Then, from inside the longhouse I heard a priest start a hymn.  I knew it was a priest because he sang in Latin and none of Greenland’s residents other than a priest would have known the language.  Rowtag and I exchanged glances when he did not recognize any of the words from the man.  I assured him that all was well by showing my palm as if patting a baby.

Still I waited.  I waited to hear the other voices join in the song.  They would likely be as all the other church services I had witnessed.  Men would mumble and hum as if they actually understood the Latin words they used in order to pacify the priest.  None came.

The first hymn ended and after a short pause where I heard some pots and pans bump one another, the same voice began a new hymn in earnest.  I could take no more of this so I stood.  “Priest in the house!  I am one of your people.  I am Halldorr.  I come to visit you in peace with some of the local peoples who are allies.”  It felt strange to use my native tongue.  The words came naturally, but I had to think a step ahead to make them form correctly.

At the first sound of my voice, the singing cut off.  All was still as the man inside was likely feeling panic or fear or was thinking he was insane for hearing voices.  I would probably have to shout again to reassure the man.  But I was wrong.

The door to the longhouse burst open and an old man, Norse to be sure, burst out with much joy on his face.  By Glooskap, I thought.  He was likely my age and appeared old to me.  How old did I appear to the village and this man?  His pale, wrinkled hands were outstretched to either show he had no weapons or as if he intended to give me a hug.

“Latine loquor vobis. Respondere similiter si sunt vere Halldorr,” called the priest, his voice strong, unwavering despite his age.

So I answered while Kesegowaase’s people knelt unseen among the bushes, “Est ego, sacerdos. Ego sum frater ad Leif, jarl de Greenlandia.”  Upon finishing my response, the priest’s joy vanished.  He looked older, sadder, weathered in the blink of an eye.

“What is it, Father?”

He stood looking at the ground for a few moments then raised his eyes to the heavens.  “He’ll know,” he said.  “But why am I here when I’ve got my own people to look after?”  He didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone.  After staring upward for many more heartbeats, the priest turned on his heels, his drab robes twirling about him.  He ducked back into the door while calling behind him, “You must bring your friends in with you.  Get out of the rain.  We must eat.  I hope you brought some provisions.”  Just as I looked up to the sky to find the rain of which he spoke, the first large droplets splashed into my face.  I shrugged and called my friends to join me inside.