Runestone (32 page)

The Mad Moon is a recognized phenomenon. It is at this time that the creatures of field and forest are stricken with irrational behavior. Squirrels scamper frantically, storing large
quantities of nuts, only to forget many of their hiding places. Grouse fly senselessly, often colliding with trees, rocks, or brush and falling crippled or dead.

Deer, elk, and moose travel widely, searching for something. Possibly they are troubled by the remnants of a migratory urge that still moves some species of their kind. The same urge, maybe, causes man to watch the long lines of geese high above him and feel the longing to follow them. Males of the deer family are also stricken at this time with the mating urge. Bull elk have been bugling their searching challenge across mountain and meadow, causing the hair on human necks to bristle in a primitive emotion felt by our ancestors a thousand lifetimes ago. Usually shy and retreating from potential danger, at this time the male deer become aggressive and dangerous. They will fight all comers for the females, for territory, or merely for supremacy. For a while, they become almost as irrational as man himself.

For man, the Moon of Madness is aptly named. There is something, maybe, about the obvious shortening of the length of the days that fills us with dread at this season. It is apparent that the Moon of Long Nights is near at hand. The sun itself is dimming, and there is an unspoken fear in us all as the longest night of the year approaches.
What if this time, the sun is really going out, like an untended lodge fire? What if it does not come back?
It is no coincidence that even modern man, with his brightly lit environment, feels this dread. Madness in men still reaches its peak in the waning yellow sunlight of late autumn and early winter.

So, the good-natured jokes of the People, tossed at the reunited couple, revolved around this seasonal phenomenon. Were they reacting to the mating urge of the deer, it was asked? Someone pretended to examine the head of Odin for sprouting antlers. This joke became even more hilarious when Svenson mentioned that in the country of the Norsemen, men sometimes wore headdresses with horns or antlers.

“As part of the marriage?” a woman asked in amazement.

“No, usually to fight,” Sven answered.

“Ah, Fire Man, your ways are strange!” laughed a little girl.

Svenson had been called by several names since their arrival. Fire Keeper, Fire Carrier, Fire Hair … It was a matter of finding one of the variants that fit well. All were equally appropriate. To some extent they would be used interchangeably, as formal names and nicknames or pet names are used in all cultures. In the end, it was the name chosen by the children that seemed to stick to the fire-haired Svenson. “Fire Man.”

Nils Thorsson, by contrast, was White Wolf from the first day. There was a certain quality about his demeanor, a dignity that implied special qualities. From the time of their arrival among the People, Odin had continually capitalized on this situation. It had been quite effective among their enemies, and now lent an air of mysticism and magic. The People were impressed. It was an honor that a holy man of such great prestige would spend a season with them. White Wolf was feared a little at first, because of his great and unknown powers. He was said to be a bit crazy, but are not many holy men slightly mad? They dwell on a different level of the spirit than everyone else. Odin, of course, did nothing to discourage such attitudes. In a short time, the People had begun to see that the holy man, while he possessed qualities of the spirit, was predictable, quite human, and not particularly threatening, a man to be respected and treated with honor rather than fear.

White Wolf himself was slightly unnerved at the distraction caused by the marriage of Odin. He was pleased for his friend, of course, but it was apparent that Odin had better things to do than to act as a social advisor for the romantically inclined Norseman. He decided to postpone his questions for the present, to learn as much of the language as he could, and to observe the ceremonial aspects of the marriage as best he could. He was still receiving a covert glance and occasionally a warm smile from Calling Dove.
She is interested
, he thought. But what to do next? In his own Norse culture he would have found occasion to draw her aside and make a romantic advance or two, to see what might develop. Here, he was unsure. Well, he would return the smiles, watch, and wait. Meanwhile, he would observe the customs of his friend’s marriage.

The actual ceremony was quite simple. The couple, assisted by family and friends, constructed one of the skin cubicles
that furnished sleeping quarters around the outside wall of the lodge. There were brief prayers and ritual chants that White Wolf did not understand. The parents of the two spread a sleeping robe over the backs of Odin and Hawk Woman as they knelt in front of the sleeping cubicle. Hawk Woman had moved her few belongings into the lodge shared by Odin’s family.

The imagination of White Wolf became a great nuisance to him as he saw the couple enter into their newlywed marital bliss. It seemed unfair to him somehow, that Odin and Hawk Woman, yes, and the noisy young couple across the big lodge, were sharing their respective sleeping cubicles in ecstatic romance. He, Nils Thorsson, shared his with Svenson. Sven seemed mildly amused by his frustration, but aside from an occasional ribald remark, showed only good-natured recognition of the activity in the curtained cubicle. Nils wondered if, at Svenson’s age, such things were forgotten. Surely, Sven could not be much past forty. Was that too old for such activity? Of course, there had been that old lecher who had lived down the street from Nils’s parents when he was a boy in Stadt. What was his name? No matter. The old scoundrel had seemed ancient to the neighborhood boys, who joked and laughed about his exploits. There seemed to be a constant assortment of young women coming and going around the house of that old goat. He seemed to have no family but plenty of companionship. What did he have, Nils had often wondered, to attract such a parade of femininity? Money? Maybe, but there had to be more to it than that.

He chuckled to himself at the memory, still somewhat confused.
Why
, he wondered,
are some men so attractive to women?
It seems to have little to do with mere physical appearance. That is part of it, of course. But beyond that, some men … In school, he had noticed, some of his fellow students as they matured…Jenson, and yes, Knudson, too, had nearly had to fight the women off. He had never understood that. Women were polite to him, but never aggressive in the way they were to the occasional man who had that special something.
But what is it?
he wondered.
Women sometimes have it, too
. Some women attract men like flies, and that, too,
is not entirely beauty. A way of moving? Maybe…the way she walks, the inviting way she stands…

Ingrid, the blue-eyed goddess, popped into his mind. Yes, she would be attractive to any man alive. He could become aroused merely by thinking of her. And he had kissed her only once. …She had kissed him, actually. Yes, she certainly had that special something, whatever it may be. He wondered what she was doing now. Had she found someone to take her back to Norway? Who now shared her bed? Again, his heart reached out in pity to her husband, Olaf the cooper. What was the problem in that marriage? Was it only that Ingrid was so attractive to men that someone was always trying for her? It was with a small feeling of guilt that Nils recalled that he would have happily bedded with her himself. In fact, he had virtually pledged to do so. But now…

He wondered when, if ever, he would be in a position to do so. He had nothing. No ship, no possessions, no way to get himself home, really, much less the ability to help anyone else. Maybe he could rely on the kindness of a shipmaster. …One of the Ericsons, possibly, on promise of payment when they got back to Stadt. But would such a promise obtain passage for Ingrid, too? She already had a reputation for trouble. Quite possibly she had already offered someone else the opportunity to share her bed in return for passage. What if he managed to return to the colony next spring, only to find that the lovely Ingrid had forgotten him and departed for home with someone else? It was possible, though something deep within him still wanted to deny it.

What am I thinking of?
he asked himself in irritation. It bothered him that he was worrying so much about who was sleeping with whom. But he understood why. He had seen, first, the happy young couple across the lodge, who were so blatantly noisy in their lovemaking. Then, the brief courtship and subsequently happy communion of Odin and his bride. And he, Nils, had nothing.

Calling Dove walked past, and glanced his way. She could certainly remove all thoughts of Ingrid, or any other woman, for that matter, with a glance or a smile. Still, he realized, he was not any closer to a real relationship than he had ever been.

From all indications this had the makings of an extremely frustrating winter.

Well, for now he would concentrate on learning the language. At least, he would try.

T
he Moon of Falling Leaves brought about, among other things, a late fall hunt in which the Norsemen participated. Both were familiar with the use of the bow, and two extra hunters were a welcome addition to the productivity of the village.

The newcomers had requested to be allowed to help in this manner. They had realized the effect that two extra mouths to feed would have during the lean moons of winter. This led to a discussion of weapons, and considerably broadened the knowledge of the Norsemen about their hosts.

“What use is the long knife?” asked a curious warrior, looking at the heavy sword, salvaged after the massacre and now in the possession of White Wolf.

With appropriate translation by Odin, Nils attempted to answer.

“It is used in fighting,” he explained.

“Ah! Nothing else?”

“Not much. Cutting meat, sometimes.”

The other nodded. The shiny blade of the sword seemed to be a matter of great curiosity to these people.

“It shines like a small fish in a clear stream,” one of the men said in awe, translated in turn by Odin. “He also asks what you use in hunting.”

“The bow, sometimes a spear. You have seen.”

“Yes,” Odin agreed. “But your bows are different, no?”

“Some. Longer, maybe.”

“So it seems to me. But I have watched your people use the bow, Thorsson. Do they not hold the string in a different way?”

There followed a morning of demonstration and experimentation. The Norsemen were accustomed to a grip that held the arrow between the index and the middle fingers. The third finger assisted in drawing the string. The Skraelings seemed to draw the string with four fingers, but pinched the arrow between the thumb and the index finger. Each tried the other’s method, shooting at grass-filled target skins, laughing at the ineptness of the others, and at their own clumsiness. The Norsemen found that it was easier to draw the short, heavy bow of the Skraelings if they used the grip on the string favored by the bow’s owner. They had more difficulty with the release, however. It was hard to let go with all fingers at exactly the same time. This affected accuracy considerably. Ah, well, it would take time.

Nils reflected for a long time on this. He had been quite proficient with a bow at one time, but had neglected it in recent years. Svenson, by contrast, was so completely oriented to the sea that he had little interest in the bow. It was simply not a practical weapon. If a conflict came to a battle, Sven much preferred an ax for hand-to-hand combat. He eventually decided that of the weapons available for hunting, a spear was more to his liking.

One of the factors involved in Nils’s ultimate choice of weapons was availability. There was no European longbow to be used. He was familiar with the differences in style and construction, but not to the extent that he would consider making a bow. No, it would be better, he decided, to adapt his skills to the use of the weapons available to him.

He began to practice. In the hunt they were planning, he must be considerably more proficient than he had shown himself at the target bags. Arrow after arrow he shot, gradually improving his accuracy.

As he was better able to control his aim, however, another problem arose. The tips of the fingers on his right hand were becoming sore and swollen. The unaccustomed friction on the bowstring was becoming a source of pain. At first he attributed
the discomfort to the fact that he had not used a bow for some time. After all, it is necessary to develop calluses at appropriate friction points in the use of any tool. Until then, skin protests against the insult of repeated irritation by blistering.

Gradually, Nils realized that the new grip itself was partially responsible. Areas of his fingertips that normally would not contact the taut rawhide thong were forced into friction on the release. Stubbornly, he kept on, gritting his teeth against the pain as he drew the arrow to his ear.

“It is enough, Thorsson,” Odin said finally. “If you tear the skin off your fingers you cannot shoot at all. Try only a little every day until the skin hardens some on your fingers.”