The Greenlanders (62 page)

One man, named Thorvald, a friend of Bengt, who had once sat in Vigdis’ place at the church, and thereafter was subjected to a humiliating scolding, pulled the woman from her bedcloset, so that she fell upon the floor, screaming and cursing. She slept naked, wrapped in furs for warmth, and the sight of her bare flesh was startling to Thorvald and Bengt and everyone present, for it glowed with fat. More than one man was inflamed by the contrast of this flesh with that of the wife he had just been with or the bones of the child he had recently buried, so that it was easy to land a kick upon the old woman, or slap her across her fat cheeks, or pinch her pendulous breasts until red circles stood out on the skin like burns. “Lord!” shouted Vigdis. “They bite me, they bite me to the bone. Their evil devours me!” And she screeched in pain even when no one was touching her. To stop the screeching, Ofeig kicked her hard in the jaw, and after this, she could not form words, but the screaming did not cease, and the men were stirred by it to actions they had not thought of before, and the joints of beef and reindeer meat that hung about the walls became weapons in their hands. Mar Marsson tipped over a small dish of honey, and the liquid seeped into the table, and he took the soapstone dish and brought it down on the head of one of Vigdis’ servingmen, so that his skull was cracked and blood and brains spilled forth.

Ofeig and another man pulled Vigdis out from under the table, where she had rolled, and kicked and beat her with their fists until she fell silent. Now the other man stepped back, but Ofeig, seeing Vigdis’ crescent-shaped knife upon the table, snatched it up, saying, “Let us gut this old bear and see what Christian children she has been feasting on,” and he slit her from throat to belly, and opened the stomach, as a hunter would a reindeer, and those present saw that his eyes glowed with pleasure, and were not dull and dead as usual. It was not known, in the melee, just when Vigdis gave up her last breath, whether during the beating or not until she was disemboweled, for the wind makes noises leaving the corpus that are the noises of death, not life.

Now that Vigdis and two of her servants were dead and the other servants subdued, Ofeig’s band fell to a great eating frenzy that lasted until daylight, and then, after retching, they fell about the steading and went to sleep. What greeted them when they woke up in the afternoon light was such a scene as they did not recognize or remember, and the events of the night before came back to them partially, if at all, as the fragments of dreams, or tales of other times. When Einar Marsson went out in the yard to retch again, he found Jon Andres Erlendsson and a band of some thirty men standing in a circle about the steading, and they were fully armed. Now Ofeig came out and saw the same thing, and he said, “Better we had killed all the servants, and that’s a fact.”

Ofeig turned and got inside the steading again, but Einar was dizzy from retching, and only stood looking at the band of avengers, until Jon Andres raised his hand, and another man, named Axel Josteinsson, who had a crossbow, let his arrow fly, and it lodged itself in Einar’s breast, and he fell to the snow, gasping. The men inside the steading were without weapons, while Jon Andres’ men had an assortment of weapons such as the Greenlanders could muster at this time, mainly axes and clubs and bows and arrows, including three old crossbows from the time of King Sverri, but no noble weapons such as men carried in former times, namely swords. Jon Andres shouted to the men inside the steading that they must send Ofeig forth to receive his punishment, but the only sign that these words were heard was this, that the door opened and the corpus of Vigdis’ servant, Karl, was thrown out into the snow.

The inside of the steading was a great mess of blood and grease and vomit, and some of the men there thought that they would surely die of the stench, and they saw by the light of clear day that it was the stench of Hell placed before them. Some fell to praying and others to whimpering, and Ofeig did not mind these activities, but if any went near the door, Ofeig grabbed his arms and broke them or cast him back into the rear of the steading like so much whale meat, for Ofeig seemed to draw strength from the scene of his debauch, and new life, as well. He looked about himself with a pleased glow in his face. Once he picked up the corpus of Vigdis and rolled it into the bedcloset, and thereafter he threatened those who displeased him with being “locked in the old she-bear’s embrace.” And so it went on for some time, with only this change, that men’s bowels tormented them increasingly, from the effects of the rich meats they had eaten in the night, and so they were forced to relieve themselves on the floor of the steading, since they were barred from leaving to find the privy, or even from going to other chambers in the steading. Ofeig knew that there were other ways out of the steading, more ways than he could stand guard over. Only Ofeig himself was free of these pains, and as he continued to eat, he laughed aloud at the groaning of the others.

Outside, the day drew on and Jon Andres began to feel impatient, and he and some of his friends spoke of burning Ofeig out of the steading, but the turf was fresh from the previous summer, and largely covered with snow. The steading itself was built more of stone than of wood, and the stones were set as tightly as any in Greenland, offering no entrance for a flaming arrow. A man could run to the door and pitch a torch dipped in seal oil into the steading, but Ofeig would see that and put it out before any damage was done. And so it seemed that the only course was to wait Ofeig out, but such a course angered Jon Andres so that he had great difficulty containing himself, and paced furiously back and forth before his men. His one consolation was that the light of the moon on the snow would prevent escape from any entrance to the steading, if his men were alert enough. Night drew on. Ten men went to sleep in the byre, where the cows, the last cows in Vatna Hverfi district, lowed in the peaceful darkness.

Inside the steading, night drew on as well, and men struggled against sleep so that they might watch Ofeig and escape when sleep overtook him, for indeed, Ofeig had found some ancient mead locked away in a deep cupboard and was partaking of it. Though he took it in great drafts, its only effect was to raise his spirits higher, so that he began looking about the room and shouting jests to the others, and once he lifted up a sturdy bench that was sitting against the wall and broke it over his leg. Such a devil seemed to be in him as was stronger than five men, or even ten.

And this is what some priests say that Satan is, a great mouth that sucks down all matter of beasts and men and carries them inside himself to the depths of Hell, where he shits them out, and it was the great sin of the Greenlanders that in the face of God’s test of their faith, some of them made a lord of such a devil as Ofeig and were led by him into this Hellish steading, and Ofeig, like his master, stood by unsleeping to guard the door, and to prevent the escape of any of his hirdmen. Also like souls in Hell, these Greenlanders groaned at the agony of their guts, and dirtied themselves and repelled their fellows, so that no two of them could make a pact together and overthrow their master. They were sunk in fear.

Outside, the night grew lighter, and those who had been sleeping in the serene warmth of the byre roused themselves and came forth into the dawn. Jon Andres invited them to partake of the stores in the storehouse, and they did so with moderation, for great appetite is a ruse and a snare that betrays men into agony. After the men were fortified, they walked about the yard of the steading. They could hear the muffled shouts of those inside, as men can sometimes hear the muffled screams of demons imprisoned in stones. Jon Andres said, “Before long now they will come forth to their punishment,” and he smiled a grim and angry smile, for indeed, his anger had not diminished since the day before. The sun rose over the snowy meadows and frozen lakes of Vatna Hverfi district.

Now toward noon the door to the steading opened and men began coming forth, staggering and shamefaced. Some fell in the snow and rolled about, while others only lay there as if swooning. Ofeig was not among them, and after all had come out, Jon Andres and three of his men ran into the steading, but indeed, Ofeig was nowhere to be found, in none of the many chambers, and the snow had been so beaten down by the tramping of Jon Andres’ men that no tracks revealed the direction of his escape, if indeed, muttered some of the men, that direction had not been straight down, for it is well known that Satan cannot wait for some men, those whom he especially prizes, but he snatches them away in the midst of life.

LOVE

O
NE DAY IN THE LATE WINTER
, T
HORKEL
G
ELLISON AND TWO
of his servants came on skis to Hvalsey Fjord, and toward dark they banged on the doors of Lavrans Stead, but they had no answer. Thorkel and one of the servants looked through the sheep byre and saw that the sheep were in a poor state. Not only were they thin and weak, and a few dead, back in the corner, but they were also wandering at large around the byre and the steading, and could have, in a panic or in one of the strange notions that sheep take, wandered down to the fjord and drowned, or been lost in the rough hills above Hvalsey Fjord. It seemed to Thorkel that Gunnar and Birgitta must have abandoned the steading, and he was about to turn away and go off to some of their neighbors for news, when one of the servingmen put his shoulder to the door and it swung open. The inside of the steading was deeply cold, and Thorkel shrank from stepping through the doorway, but then he heard a low groan, and went in.

He found all of the Lavrans Stead folk except Finn lying in their bedclosets. Helga, Kollgrim, and two of the servingmaids lay in the bedcloset closest to the door, and it was Helga who had groaned. All of the four of these were able to open their eyes and speak. Kollgrim said, “Finn has returned,” in a low voice. In the rear of the room, Gunnar lay face down under his bearskin, and he was asleep, or insensible. Beneath him, deep in the straw, was Birgitta. Thorkel thought that she was surely dead. In another bedcloset lay the shepherd and his boy, and when Thorkel approached them, the boy sat up and asked for food. In the farthest bedcloset from the door, Olaf Finnbogason lay dead of hunger. Thorkel saw that he had died a slender man. Thorkel said nothing of Olaf for the moment, and went back to the shepherd boy, who was peering around the door of his bedcloset. “Indeed,” Thorkel told him, “I have cheese and dried meat, and Johannes here will cut some bits for you,” and at these words, the shepherd, too, was able to raise himself. The other servingman from Hestur Stead set himself to starting a fire and lighting some lamps.

When the fire was started on the hearth, the servingman found a vat and made some broth out of the dried meat, for broth is the best food that folk can eat when they are close to death from hunger, as it is not overly rich for their bellies. The smell of the food aroused everyone but Gunnar and Birgitta, and, of course, Olaf. The story that Kollgrim and the shepherd told was just like every story in Greenland—the food had run out, Finn had gone off to snare partridges or find something else and had not yet returned. He had left four days before, perhaps five or six, but he had not been strong himself, and was likely dead. Two days ago they had taken to their beds, for keeping the fire was beyond their strength, and if Thorkel had not come, Lavrans Stead would have quickly become their tomb. Thorkel let everyone eat and talk in peace for a while before again approaching Gunnar’s bedcloset, for he had some dread of this, and it seemed to him as he neared the moment of uncovering Gunnar’s death that his cousin had been a great friend and ally to him for many years, and Asgeir before him, from the time when Thorkel himself was a young man. And it also seemed to him that each friend buried in a hunger time or a sickness time comes to a man as a fresh and painful injury.

But it happened that Gunnar was able to rouse, though with difficulty, and Thorkel was able to get some broth between his lips. More than this, the corpus of Birgitta was no corpus, but warm and living, barely living. Her eyes flickered and her lips moved when Thorkel brought her up out of the straw, and she, too, was able to swallow some broth. And so it was that most of the Lavrans Stead folk were saved toward the end of the great hunger by the good luck of Thorkel Gellison, although Finn Thormodsson never returned and was never found, and he, like Olaf, was a great loss to the household. Olaf was buried in the little churchyard at St. Birgitta’s church.

By the third day, Gunnar was able to sit up and hear the news of Vatna Hverfi, and Thorkel told him of the two great events, the murder at Gunnars Stead and the death of Sira Audun between Petursvik and Herjolfsnes. Thorkel was extremely bitter about Ofeig, and wondered aloud how such a devil had come into his family, and said that he and his wife Jona had had many words about the parentage of the boy, so that things were sour between them. He had gone to Jon Andres Erlendsson himself and given the young man self-judgment, and Jon Andres had not demanded Hestur Stead, as in law he could have, but had only exacted the promise of a pair of good horses of his own choosing, not, he said, because he held Vigdis’ death to be a small matter, but because he wished to exact his payment from Ofeig himself, for he did not concur that Ofeig had been stolen away by his infernal master, and was certain that the fellow would be found soon enough.