Runestone (5 page)

Restless, he rose and went back to the area near the fires, where the thinning crowd still laughed and sang, and wine still flowed. He did not see the girl, and the revelry was not the
same. Even the wine had lost its savor. Disappointed, he turned away.

Back in his blankets, he was almost asleep when an odd thought struck him. He did not even know her name, the name of the blue-eyed goddess who had offered to share his bed.

“W
hat about the Skraelings?” Helge asked. Ericson and Karlsefni nodded and exchanged serious glances.

“Yes, they can be a problem,” admitted the colonist. “We have been attacked.”

Thorwald Ericson was more direct.

“You have to fight them!” he stated positively. “Show them a taste of steel! Any Norseman is worth a dozen of these barbarians.”

“But there are different kinds of Skraelings, different tribes,” protested Karlsefni. “Some are timid, and they run and hide. Some fight. Fierce fighters. You can’t lump them all together, Thorwald.”

“They all bleed and die,” Thorwald retorted. “They must be taught that.”

Karlsefni appeared to have doubts about this approach. He diplomatically changed the subject.

“Where will you go from here?” he asked Ericson.

“South, I think, along the coast. And you, Helge?”

“We had not decided,” Landsverk answered. “What do you think, Nils?”

Nils was looking at a rough map on the table.

“Is this a bay or gulf?” he asked, pointing with a finger.

“Yes,” Karlsefni told him. “The headland across the channel runs southwest. We do not know how far. It may be a large island, but it goes on for as far as we have explored. Odin says it leads to freshwater.”

“Odin?” asked Nils, puzzled.

Karlsefni chuckled.

“Yes, an old Skraeling. He came crawling in last year, half-starved. It seems the other Skraelings were after him. Different tribe, or something. He’s helpful. Has a fair use of our tongue.”

“He speaks Norse?”

“Yes, some. Probably understands more.”

“Why is he called Odin?” Helge wanted to know.

“Oh. Someone called him that because he has only one eye. Like the god Odin, you know? The name stuck.”

“But what is this about freshwater?” Thorwald asked.

“Oh, that. Yes, Odin says this gulf leads to freshwater. A big river, apparently.”

“You see?” exclaimed Thorwald. “A new continent!”

“Have you been to this river, Thorwald?” Helge asked.

“No. I’ve sailed down the west coast of this land, where we are now. But I think that’s the continent, over there. I’m going to see.”

“Then you’ll go south?”

“Yes. And then, west. You might want to look at this river the Skraeling tells about.”

“Perhaps we will,” Helge pondered. “What do you think, Nils?”

“It would help finish this map,” Nils agreed, pointing to vast white areas of unexplored territory on the chart. “Karlsefni, may we take this Skraeling, Odin, with us?”

“No!” snapped the colonist. “I may need him as an interpreter.”

They quickly abandoned that idea. There was some further discussion, of routine sailing plans, supplies, and water. Thorwald Ericson stated his intention to depart on tomorrow’s high tide.

As the meeting broke up, an idea occurred to Nils.

“Karlsefni,” he asked, “who is the tall woman with blue eyes and blond hair?”

The colonist chuckled.

“Ah, you have met Ingrid!”

“Ingrid?”

“Yes. You can take her with you, instead of Odin.”

The others laughed, and Nils felt himself beginning to redden. He wished he had not inquired. The woman was apparently well known. But, he decided, since he had begun this, he might as well play it out to the end.

“But who is she? Does she have a husband?”

“Of course. Olaf, the cooper, poor bastard. A good, hardworking lad, to be treated so.”

“Treated how?”

“Like she treats him. Like dirt. She’s like a bitch in heat. Wanted you to take her away? I thought so. The woman is constant trouble. After a man like a dog on a bone.”

Nils was embarrassed and a bit angry that he had been taken in by this wench. But no, there were two sides to any story. He thought of the tears, the pleading, and the warmth and feeling of those kisses. The girl really did have a problem, and he had promised to help her. He would do so, when the time came. On their return, when they sailed for Norway again, he would keep that promise. He would like to see her again, to talk to her and assure her that he planned to take her away. He would attempt to contact her before their departure. But meanwhile, he must think of other things.

Thorwald and Helge were discussing navigation as Nils turned his attention back toward them. Helge was examining a small object that Thorwald had just handed him.

“It can find north even in an overcast,” Thorwald insisted.

“But how? How does it work?” asked the puzzled Helge.

The object, which Thorwald had just taken from a soft leather pouch, was a flat stone, oval in shape and very thin. Its color was a dull gray, but it was almost translucent as Helge held it up to the light between thumb and forefinger.

“What is it? I do not understand,” Nils asked, puzzled.

“A
solarstein
,” Thorwald explained. “It sees the sun when we cannot. Come, I will show you.”

The four men trooped outside.

“Now,” announced Ericson, “it is easier to show with clouds overhead, but watch the sun-stone.”

He held the stone above his face at arm’s length, the flat surface exposed to the sun’s rays. There was nothing special in evidence, except that it was apparent that the translucent stone allowed some of those rays to pass through. Then Thorwald began to rotate the disc slowly, the flat surface still facing upward. As the long axis of the oval began to approach the north-south position, Thorwald spoke again, his voice eager with excitement.

“Now watch!”

There was a subtle change in the color of the stone, a bluish tint that seemed to grow in intensity as he continued to rotate it, ever so slowly. When the stone pointed due north, the blue color had actually become a glow, an exciting, living thing that caused Nils to gasp in astonishment. Karlsefni crossed himself.

“Magic!” he muttered.

“No,” insisted Thorwald Ericson, “not magic. The stone is aligned to the north, just as the Polestar is. The sun tells when it is right. When it is not, the stone is gray.”

“But it works even in cloudy weather?” Helge asked.

“Yes. It is better then, because there are no shadows. It takes only enough daylight to light the stone.”

Thorwald was elated at the success of his demonstration.

“See how this will aid navigation?”

Helge, too, was becoming enthusiastic.

“Where can I get one?” he demanded.

Thorwald chuckled.

“Helge, I give you this one, in honor of your first voyage to the continent of Vinland. Use it well!”

Helge was overcome by the generosity of the gift.

“But, I…you…” he stammered.

Thorwald waved him aside.

“No, no, this is yours. I have another.”

Nils, too, was impressed by the gift. He resolved that on his return to Stadt he would investigate the possibilities of acquiring such a sun-stone for his own use.

Helge carefully replaced the stone in its leather pouch, and the four men parted to attend to various tasks. Nils called after Karlsefni.

“Could I talk to this Odin of yours?” he asked.

The colonist looked at him suspiciously for a moment, and then smiled.

“Of course. Come.”

He led the way around and between the longhouses, and pointed to a rude hut, not large enough for a man to stand upright. It huddled against the outside wall of a sheepfold. Nils did not see how a man could survive the winter there.

“Go ahead, talk to him,” Karlsefni offered. “But you can’t take him.”

Nils walked over, to find the Skraeling sitting on the sunny side of the structure with his back to the wall. He was carving on a piece of bone or ivory with a small pointed knife. He looked up.

Odin was not really old, Nils saw in a moment. He was leathery and wrinkled from a hard life of exposure to the elements. But his one eye held a gleam, an interest in his surroundings, and a curiosity. More than that, the gaze of the Skraeling bored right into his very soul. Nils was caught off guard, not expecting so powerful a spirit in this beggarly fugitive. Here was a man of some intelligence and insight, despite his ragged appearance and strange garments of ill-fitted skins.

“You are Odin?” Nils asked.

There was a long silence, and finally the barbarian nodded.

“So they call me. How are you called?”

“I am Nils Thorsson. I would ask you about the bay, the other end.”

“Yes?” the one-eyed man asked, rather patiently.

“Well, I…you have been there?”

“Of course. That is my home.”

“Not here?”

“No. I was captured and brought here, many winters ago. I escaped.”

“These Skraelings, here, are your enemies?”

Odin spread his palms in unresolved question.

“What is an enemy? Maybe a friend you have never met. There are many tribes.”

“But, they held you captive?”

“Yes, and gouged out my eye. But sometimes they were good to me, too.”

Nils was finding the easygoing philosophy hard to understand, so he changed the subject.

“I am told that there is freshwater, a river, maybe, at the head of this inlet.”

“Yes.”

“How many days there, to the river’s mouth?”

“How fast do you travel?”

Nils’s anger flared at the impertinent remark. Then he cooled a bit, realizing that the other man had asked a legitimate question. He smiled.

“I do not know how to tell you. Faster than some boats.”

The Skraeling nodded, understanding.

“Maybe this many sleeps,” he said, holding up his hands with fingers extended.

Ten days, thought Nils. A very deep gulf.

“Is it a big river?” he asked.

The man nodded slowly, seemingly in deep thought. Finally he spoke.

“It flows out of the freshwater sea.”

Nils was startled. Karlsefni had said nothing about such a sea. Surely he had misunderstood the meaning of the man’s remark. A large body of freshwater? Big enough to be called a sea? A lake, maybe? Interested, he asked more questions, but gained little information. The Skraeling persisted in referring to an inland sea, and repeatedly insisted that it was freshwater. Nils disregarded as a language problem the distinction between lake and sea, and as exaggeration one statement that this inland sea was only one of several.

“You go there?” Odin asked, his one eye bright with interest.

Nils shrugged.

“Maybe. Who knows?”

He had seated himself during the conversation, but now he rose to depart.

“Thank you,” he said uncertainly.

Odin only nodded.

Nils turned away, uncomfortable over the conversation. He had been seeking information, and had learned much. Or had he? A crazy legend about two seas, one fresh and one salt, connected by a river? Probably a native myth, he decided.

But the encounter with the Skraeling had affected him deeply. He had been so impressed by the spirit of this man, and the uneasy feeling that Odin could tell what he was thinking. The feeling became stronger the more he thought about it. Before long he was convinced that of the two, the Skraeling had learned far more from the conversation than he had.

N
ils had met Olaf Knutson, the cooper, on their second day in Straumfjord. The
Snowbird
needed another cask or two for water, and he had gone to make the purchase. Partly, he had to admit, he was curious about the girl’s husband. His first impression was one of wonder that such a man could ever have acquired such a woman as the blue-eyed Ingrid. The man’s nondescript reddish hair and beard stood out in all directions, brushy and matted, like the hair of an un-groomed horse in winter. Somehow, his thin body, his clothing, all reflected the same impression. There were even flecks and chips of sawdust in his hair and beard, as well as on his tunic and trousers. Of course, the man was working at his trade. Yet, Nils had the strong feeling that some of the larger chips in his hair and beard had resided there for some time. It was doubtful if there had ever been a time when Olaf the cooper had not appeared disheveled. Again, the jealous resentment surfaced, resentment that such a man would be permitted to share the bed of such a woman of quality.