The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (19 page)

Helgi shook his head. “That never happened that I know of,” he said. “Who are these Russians?” We found out later that the Gardariki folk were meant. “Unless,” Helgi said,

“the old warlocks...”

“He means the Irish monks,” I explained. “A few dwelt here when the Norsemen came, but they were driven out. That was, hm, somewhat over a hundred years ago. Did your kingdom once help the monks?”

“I never heard of them!” he said. The breath sobbed in his throat. “You... didn’t you Icelanders come from Norway?”

“Yes, about a hundred years ago,” I answered patiently. “After King Harald Fairhair laid the Norse lands under him and—”

“A hundred years ago!”
he whispered. I saw whiteness creep up beneath his skin.

“What year is this?”

We gaped at him. “Well, it’s the second year after the great salmon catch,” I tried.

“What year after Christ, I mean,” he prayed hoarsely.

“Oh, so you are a Christian? Hm, let me think... I talked with a bishop in England once, we were holding him for ransom, and he said... let me see... I think he said this Christ man lived a thousand years ago, or maybe a little less.”

“A thousand—” Something went out of him. He stood with glassy eyes—yes, I have seen glass, I told you I am a traveled man—he stood thus, and when we led him toward the garth he went like a small child.

You can see for yourself, priest, that my wife Ragnhild is still good to look upon even in eld, and Thorgunna took after her. She was—is—tall and slim, with a dragon’s hoard of golden hair. She being a maiden then, the locks flowed loose over her shoulders. She had great blue eyes and a heart-shaped face and very red lips. Withal she was a merry one, and kindhearted, so that she was widely loved. Sverri Snorrason went in viking when she refused him, and was slain, but no one had the wit to see that she was unlucky.

We led this Gerald Samsson—when I asked, he said his father was named Sam—we led him home, leaving Sigurd and Grim to finish gathering the driftwood. Some folks would not have a Christian in their house, for fear of witchcraft, but I am a broad-minded man, and Helgi, at his age, was wild for anything new. Our guest stumbled over the fields as if blind, but seemed to rouse when we entered the yard. His gaze went around the buildings that enclose it, from the stables and sheds to the smokehouse, the brewery, the kitchen, the bathhouse, the god shrine, and thence to the hall. And Thorgunna was standing in the doorway.

Their gazes locked for a little, and I saw her color but thought nothing of it then. Our shoes rang on the flagging as we crossed the yard and kicked the dogs aside. My two thralls halted in cleaning the stables to gawp, until I got them back to work with the remark that a man good for naught else was always a pleasing sacrifice. That’s one useful practice you Christians lack; I’ve never made a human offering myself, but you know not how helpful is the fact that I could do so.

We entered the hall, and I told the folk Gerald’s name and how we had found him.

Ragnhild set her maids hopping, to stoke up the fire in the middle trench and fetch beer, while I led Gerald to the high seat and sat down by him. Thorgunna brought us the filled horns. His standing was not like yours, for whom we use our outland cups.

Gerald tasted the brew and made a face. I felt somewhat offended, for my beer is reckoned good, and asked him if aught was wrong. He laughed with a harsh note and said no, but he was used to beer that foamed and was not sour.

“And where might they make such?” I wondered testily.

“Everywhere,” he said. “Iceland, too—no....” He stared before him in an empty wise.

“Let’s say... in Vinland.”

“Where is Vinland?” I asked.

“The country to the west whence I came. I thought you knew.... Wait a bit.” He frowned. “Maybe I can find out something. Have you heard of Leif Eiriksson?”

“No,” I said. Since then it has struck me that this was one proof of his tale, for Leif Eiriksson is now a well-known chief; and I also take more seriously those yarns of land seen by Bjarni Herjulfsson.

“His father, Erik the Red?” went on Gerald.

“Oh yes,” I said. “If you mean the Norseman who came hither because of a manslaughter, and left Iceland in turn for the same reason, and has now settled with his friends in Greenland.”

“Then this is... a little before Leif’s voyage,” he muttered. “The late tenth century.”

“See here,” broke in Helgi, “we’ve been forbearing with you, but now is no time for riddles. We save those for feasts and drinking bouts. Can you not say plainly whence you come and how you got here?”

Gerald looked down at the floor, shaking.

“Let the man alone, Helgi,” said Thorgunna. “Can you not see he’s troubled?”

He raised his head and gave her the look of a hurt dog that someone has patted. The hall was dim; enough light seeped in the loft windows that no candles were lit, but not enough to see well by. Nevertheless, I marked a reddening in both their faces.

Gerald drew a long breath and fumbled about. His clothes were made with pockets.

He brought out a small parchment box and from it took a little white stick that he put in his mouth. Then he took out another box, and a wooden stick there from which burst into flame when he scratched. With the fire he kindled the stick in his mouth, and sucked in the smoke.

We stared. “Is that a Christian rite?” asked Helgi.

“No... not just so.” A wry, disappointed smile twisted his lips. “I thought you’d be more surprised, even terrified.”

“It’s something new,” I admitted, “but we’re a sober folk on Iceland. Those fire sticks could be useful. Did you come to trade in them?”

“Hardly.” He sighed. The smoke he breathed in seemed to steady him, which was odd, because the smoke in the hall had made him cough and water at the eyes. “The truth is, well, something you will not believe. I can hardly believe it myself.”

We waited. Thorgunna stood leaning forward, her lips parted. 

“That lightning bolt—” Gerald nodded wearily. “I was out in the storm, and somehow the lightning must have smitten me in just the right way, a way that happens only once in many thousands of times. It threw me back into the past.”

Those were his words, priest. I did not understand, and told him so.

“It’s hard to grasp,” he agreed. “God give that I’m merely dreaming. But if this is a dream I must endure till I awaken.... Well, look. I was born one thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-three years after Christ, in a land to the west which you have not yet found. In the twenty-fourth year of my life, I was in Iceland with my country’s war host. The lightning struck me, and now, now it is less than one thousand years after Christ, and yet I am here—almost a thousand years before I was born, I am here!”

We sat very still. I signed myself with the Hammer and took a long pull from my horn. One of the maids whimpered, and Ragnhild whispered so fiercely I could hear:

“Be still. The poor fellow’s out of his head. There’s no harm in him.”

I thought she was right, unless maybe in the last part. The gods can speak through a madman, and the gods are not always to be trusted. Or he could turn berserker, or he could be under a heavy curse that would also touch us.

He slumped, gazing before him. I caught a few fleas and cracked them while I pondered. Gerald noticed and asked with some horror if we had many fleas here.

“Why, of course,” said Thorgunna. “Have you none?”

“No.” He smiled crookedly. “Not yet.”

“Ah,” she sighed, “then you
must
be sick.”

She was a level-headed girl. I saw her thought, and so did Ragnhild and Helgi.

Clearly, a man so sick that he had no fleas could be expected to rave. We might still fret about whether we could catch the illness, but I deemed this unlikely; his woe was in the head, maybe from a blow he had taken. In any case, the matter was come down to earth now, something we could deal with.

I being a godi, a chief who holds sacrifices, it behooved me not to turn a stranger out.

Moreover, if he could fetch in many of those fire-kindling sticks, a profitable trade might be built up. So I said Gerald should go to rest. He protested, but we manhandled him into the shut-bed, and there he lay tired and was soon asleep. Thorgunna said she would take care of him.

The next eventide I meant to sacrifice a horse, both because of the timber we had found and to take away any curse that might be on Gerald. Furthermore, the beast I picked was old and useless, and we were short of fresh meat. Gerald had spent the morning lounging moodily around the garth, but when I came in at noon to eat I found him and my daughter laughing.

“You seem to be on the road to health,” I said.

“Oh yes. It... could be worse for me.” He sat down at my side as the carles set up the trestle table and the maids brought in the food. “I was ever much taken with the age of the vikings, and I have some skills.”

“Well,” I said, “if you have no home, we can keep you here for a while.”

“I can work,” he said eagerly. “I’ll be worth my pay.”

Now I knew he was from afar, because what chief would work on any land but his own, and for hire at that? Yet he had the easy manner of the high-born, and had clearly eaten well throughout his life. I overlooked that he had made me no gifts; after all, he was shipwrecked.

“Maybe you can get passage back to your United States,” said Helgi. “We could hire a ship. I’m fain to see that realm.”

“No,” said Gerald bleakly. “There is no such place. Not yet.”

“So you still hold to that idea you came from tomorrow?” grunted Sigurd. “Crazy notion. Pass the pork.”

“I do,” said Gerald. Calm had come upon him. “And I can prove it.”

“I don’t see how you speak our tongue, if you hail from so far away,” I said. I would not call a man a liar to his face, unless we were swapping friendly brags, but—

“They speak otherwise in my land and time,” he said, “but it happens that in Iceland the tongue changed little since the old days, and because my work had me often talking with the folk, I learned it when I came here.”

“If you are a Christian,” I said, “you must bear with us while we sacrifice tonight.”

“I’ve naught against that,” he said. “I fear I never was a very good Christian. I’d like to watch. How is it done?”

I told him how I would smite the horse with a hammer before the god, and cut its throat, and sprinkle the blood about with willow twigs; thereafter we would butcher the carcass and feast. He said hastily:

“Here’s my chance to prove what I am. I have a weapon that will kill the horse with, with a flash of lightning.”

“What is it?” I wondered. We crowded around while he took the metal club out of its sheath and showed it to us. I had my doubts; it looked well enough for hitting a man, I reckoned, but had no edge, though a wondrously skillful smith had forged it. “Well, we can try,” I said. You have seen how on Iceland we are less concerned to follow the rites exactly than they are in the older countries.

Gerald showed us what else he had in his pockets. There were some coins of remarkable roundness and sharpness, though neither gold nor true silver; a tiny key; a stick with lead in it for writing; a flat purse holding many bits of marked paper. When he told us gravely that some of this paper was money, Thorgunna herself had to laugh. Best was a knife whose blade folded into the handle. When he saw me admiring that, he gave it to me, which was well done for a shipwrecked man. I said I would give him clothes and a good ax, as well as lodging for as long as needful.

No, I don’t have the knife now. You shall hear why. It’s a pity, for that was a good knife, though rather small.

“What were you ere the war arrow went out in your land?” asked Helgi. “A merchant?”

“No,” said Gerald. “I was an...
endjinur...
that is, I was learning how to be one. A man who builds things, bridges and roads and tools... more than just an artisan. So I think my knowledge could be of great value here.” I saw a fever in his eyes. “Yes, give me time and I’ll be a king.”

“We have no king on Iceland,” I grunted. “Our forefathers came hither to get away from kings. Now we meet at the Things to try suits and pass new laws, but each man must get his own redress as best he can.”

“But suppose the one in the wrong won’t yield?” he asked.

“Then there can be a fine feud,” said Helgi, and went on to relate some of the killings in past years. Gerald looked unhappy and fingered his
gun.
That is what he called his fire-spitting club. He tried to rally himself with a joke about now, at last, being free to call it a gun instead of something else. That disquieted me, smacked of witchcraft, so to change the talk I told Helgi to stop his chattering of manslaughter as if it were sport.

With law shall the land be built.

“Your clothing is rich,” said Thorgunna softly. “Your folk must own broad acres at home.”

“No,” he said, “our... our king gives each man in the host clothes like these. As for my family, we owned no farm, we rented our home in a building where many other families also dwelt.”

I am not purse-proud, but it seemed to me he had not been honest, a landless man sharing my high seat like a chief. Thorgunna covered my huffiness by saying, “You will gain a farm later.”

After sunset we went out to the shrine. The carles had built a fire before it, and as I opened the door the wooden Odin appeared to leap forth. My house has long invoked him above the others. Gerald muttered to my daughter that it was a clumsy bit of carving, and since my father had made it I was still more angry with him. Some folks have no understanding of the fine arts.

Nevertheless, I let him help me lead the horse forth to the altar stone. I took the blood bowl in my hands and said he could now slay the beast if he would. He drew his gun, put the end behind the horse’s ear, and squeezed. We heard a crack, and the beast jerked and dropped with a hole blown through its skull, wasting the brains. A clumsy weapon. I caught a whiff, sharp and bitter like that around a volcano. We all jumped, one of the women screamed, and Gerald looked happy. I gathered my wits and finished the rest of the sacrifice as was right. Gerald did not like having blood sprinkled over him, but then he was a Christian. Nor would he take more than a little of the soup and flesh.