The Greenlanders (77 page)

Now Jon Andres lifted his eyes from the door of the steading, and even the movement of his eyes seemed to him to make a noise. He looked past the church to the fjord, icebound, beyond, and the black bulk of the mountains beyond that. It seemed to him that if he were to turn his head, and look back toward Ketils Stead, he would see Helga there, that he would see her turn her serious face toward him, as she did mornings, lifting her lids slowly and gazing candidly upon him. He had never thought of marrying before seeing Helga, and after seeing her, had never thought of marrying anyone else. This was another reason to kill Ofeig, for Ofeig hated him, and was clever enough to understand the most terrifying way to injure him. He did not turn his head, but he did lower his gaze again, just as Kollgrim made a sudden movement. The door to the steading was open, and Ofeig was lowering his head to step outside when he caught sight of the white figures in the white snow. He let out a great roar, and they were on their feet. Now all stood for a moment, gazing upon one another, except Karl, who let fly one of his arrows. It lodged in the turf beside the door.

Ofeig turned and began to run toward two Gunnars Stead servingmen who held the flank not far from Kollgrim. These fellows, Jon Andres knew, were little more than boys, although one of them had a good ax. Ofeig raised his arms, still roaring, and threw himself toward them. Kollgrim nocked one of his bird arrows. The boys stood their ground at first, then one of them stumbled backward, and Ofeig was upon him, felling him with one blow of his own ax. The arrow flew, and went short. Another of Karl’s arrows flew, and lodged in the snow. Jon Andres ran around Kollgrim, and it seemed to him that Ofeig was nearly in his grasp. If he were only to run a bit faster or reach out more readily, he would put his hands upon the fellow. But he could not, and he began to shout, “Ofeig! Ofeig! Ofeig!” a command, a plea, an echo of childhood games. Ofeig glanced around once, perhaps at the sound of his voice, and one of Kollgrim’s arrows lodged in his shoulder. Still running, Ofeig reached for it and ripped it out of the flesh and threw it down. Now he roared again, and raced ahead, toward the fjord, the river, and the mountains. They could not catch him, and by daylight he was gone. They went back to the church and gathered up the corpus of the Gunnars Stead boy and got their horses out of the church, and they were much cast down by these events.

A few days later, Helga returned to Ketils Stead from Gunnars Stead with the news that the wedding between Kollgrim and Sigrid had been put off until Easter for some reasons that both bride and groom agreed to, namely that Gunnars Stead was not ready to receive the bride (Elisabet Thorolfsdottir was still there) and Solar Fell was not ready to give her up. Such things were not unusual, and Helga thought nothing of the postponement, except that she was much angered with Elisabet Thorolfsdottir, and did not know what to do with her. Just before Yule, she gave birth to a boy child, but she showed little interest in it, and did not even care to give it suck, when her breasts were flowing with milk and soaking her robe to the waist. The child was named Egil.

At the Yuletide feasts, at Gardar and Solar Fell, as well as in Brattahlid and at Arni Magnusson’s steading in Vatna Hverfi, the Icelanders were much in evidence, for it was the case that they had a great deal of news to tell over and over. It was also the case that a few of them knew how to tell long tales such as was the fashion to tell in Iceland. These were in rollicking, rhyming verse, and sometimes they were spoken, but often they were sung, and the women—Steinunn, her sister, and the others—were fond of dancing to them. The Greenlanders thought this a great entertainment. One of these rhymers was a man named Thorstein Olafsson, and he was a cousin of Snorri the ship’s master, from the southeast of Iceland, and he was said to have a large steading there, with fifty cows and hundreds of sheep, which he shared with his brother. He was about twenty-five winters of age, and he had a great, rolling voice which he used to good effect when telling his rhymes. He also had this faculty, that he could make up verses at the moment, about such things as the evening meat or the look of the clouds above the fjord, and he could make these verses either in the old style or the new style, tight, as folk said, or slack. The Greenlanders thought well of him, and he stayed with the priests at Gardar, although there was much going back and forth between Gardar and Solar Fell all winter long.

Snorri the ship’s master and Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker became good friends in this winter, and it was agreed between them that Bolli Bjornsson would go off with the Icelanders when they should depart, although when this might be, Snorri was not especially ready to decide. He was happy enough in Greenland, he said, especially as he knew not what he would find when he should return to his steading. The tales of the Great Death in Iceland were grim ones, that was a fact. He supposed that it was to be expected that the Greenlanders would be eager for news of elsewhere, but such news as Snorri brought with him he would not be eager to hear, if he were the Greenlanders, for it was all bad. For Snorri this winter, it was sufficient to go from bedcloset to table to the southern slope that lay before the steading and back to the bed-closet, where he lay under the furs and called out to such folk as were about to come and talk to him. The Greenlanders considered this peculiar behavior for such a well-thought-of ship’s master, but Thorstein Olafsson only laughed and said that this was Snorri’s nature—he didn’t know what to do with himself on land, which was why he left his steading to his wife. Thorstein said that she was glad to have him off, since he never turned a hand to a lick of work. But indeed, he was a good ship’s master, and had never lost any cargo, much less any folk, or a ship itself. On a ship he was as light and active as a goat, running here and there, seeing trouble before it appeared. Folk were glad to travel with him, if they must travel.

Bjorn Bollason did not seem to care that Snorri had supplanted him as the center of the household at Solar Fell. He spent enough time sitting in the doorway of the bedcloset himself, asking about this and that—what folk did in Norway and Iceland mostly. Snorri was especially fond of Sigrid, for the sake of her jests and merriment, and she got into the habit of sitting nearby every day, and he would tease her in this wise:

“It seems to me that you will make a poor enough wife.”

“Nay, indeed, I will make a good wife, a wife such as many men want but not all men deserve.”

“And what sort of wives do most men deserve?”

“Little meek things, who serve up the sourmilk with a spoon and a wince.”

“It is true that a wife must cast her eyes down before her husband.”

“As men cast their eyes down before the face of God. Yes, folk say this, but wives who cast their eyes on the floor see nothing but their own feet.”

“And what sort of wives do most men want?”

“Someone who will tell them what they might do, but not what they must do.”

“And what sort of husbands do most women want?”

“Someone to tell them what they must do, but let them do as they please anyway.”

“Indeed, you will make a poor wife.”

“Nay, my betrothed is a great hunter and a bold man. He will have pleasure upon coming home to me, and I will have pleasure arranging his affairs for him.”

“What else is there to know about him?”

“He is a handsome fellow. He is the brother’s son of Margret Asgeirsdottir, whom you know.”

“This old woman who speaks little?”

“She speaks when she has something of worth to say, or someone of worth to say it to.”

“You are marrying the brother’s son of a servingmaid?”

Now Sigrid colored, and fell silent, and Snorri could see that she was annoyed with him. She said, “Strangers bring news from afar, but they know nothing of the news at home. You have been to Vatna Hverfi district, so you must know that it is the richest of all the districts, and my Kollgrim has possession of one of the greatest steadings there, and his sister is married to the man with the greatest steading and the most other holdings. Margret Asgeirsdottir’s tale is her own, and you would be a lucky man if she told it to you, for she has never told it to anyone.” She paused, and then said, “She goes as a servingmaid of her own accord, but my father and mother consider her a guest, and the weaving she does for us in the nature of gifts to us.”

Snorri smiled teasingly, and said, “There is no place for anger in a good wife.”

“Then indeed, there is no place for honor or virtue, it seems to me. I am tired of this talk, and have many things to do.” And so she got up, but the next day she came back, for Snorri was not an ill-tempered man, and his teasing was pleasant to her. After this talk, though, Snorri endeavored to have talk with Margret Asgeirsdottir, but she had nothing to say to him, no matter what he might say to her.

Another one who liked to talk to Sigrid Bjornsdottir was Thorstein Olafsson, and whenever he came over from Gardar, he made it a point to waylay her and amuse her with new verses that he had made, and it happened that one day when he appeared on skis with some other folk from Gardar, she went up to him and said as follows:

Folk who pay for meat with song
Must chew for a moment, and sing all evening long
.

Thorstein was much pleased with this, and said as follows:

But they may look while they sing
Across the room, at smiles blossoming
.

From time to time Kollgrim came to Solar Fell on his skis, bringing game for meat or furs, and he, too, was much drawn to the Icelanders. Although he said little to them, he watched them so that he made them uncomfortable. One day Snorri said to Sigrid, “Your betrothed has more eyes than tongue.”

“That is a virtue in most folk, to look about but to keep foolishness to oneself. You may see the results of his ways in the furs he brings me and the broth you are supping so eagerly.”

“This fellow seems to me the perfect Greenlander, half man and half bear.”

“I see nothing of that in him.”

“He looks at folk as if he were about to eat them up.”

“And others look at folk as if they wished them to do their business for them. My Kollgrim will eat no one up, but other folk will succeed in having their work done for them.”

“This sharpness ill behooves a good wife.”

“As you have not seen your own wife in five winters, it may be that you have forgotten what behooves a good wife. But surely she has not, as she has carried on your business without you.” And so their conversations went on, and Snorri spoke highly of Sigrid to Bjorn Bollason, but never to Sigrid herself, and Sigrid went to Snorri’s bedcloset every day, but only as if she could not avoid it. Even so, the Icelanders continued to make little of Kollgrim, and said among themselves that the merry maiden was thrown away on such a sour fellow. And seeing Kollgrim, and his quiet ways, Thorstein Olafsson felt emboldened to talk with Sigrid more and more and beguile her with rhymes, many of which were about herself, and all of which made her laugh.

It was also the case that Kollgrim befriended his father’s sister, and sometimes sat near her while she was weaving and spun bits of wool for her, for he, like Gunnar, had this knack, but they hardly ever exchanged words, and never spoke of Gunnar. It seemed to Margret Asgeirsdottir from time to time that it was Gunnar himself sitting beside her, but most times it did not seem like this. One day it happened that she was sitting at her weaving when Kollgrim appeared with a dozen hares, and then he sat down near Margret and looked at her work without speaking. Sigrid was away from the steading. Margret threw her shuttle quickly and rhythmically, hardly pausing to count her threads. She was weaving wadmal for one of Sigrid’s shifts, and it was the purplish color that folk from Gunnars Stead were known by. A little time passed, then Margret said, “It seems to me, my Kollgrim, that we are dead sticks among this chattering flock at Solar Fell.”

“These Icelanders make a great deal of noise.”

Now they sat silently again, listening to the click of the shuttle. Then Margret said, “But those who chatter are always apprehensive of those who say nothing.”

“They may be. I have thought little of this.”

“Asgeir Gunnarsson used to say of Hauk, his brother, that he could make killing the fiercest bear sound like a day at the butter churn.”

“Some don’t have the trick of storytelling.”

Now Margret turned from the loom and looked Kollgrim straight in the eye, and she saw that he saw her and was listening to her, and she said in a low voice, “But some do.” And they were silent again for a space. Then she said, “It is not such a good usage to seek the waste places all the time.”

“There must be meat on the table.”

“And herbs and greens. But there must be folk in the steading as well. My father’s brother took no wife, and no wife brought him sorrow and he brought sorrow to no wife.”

“It is hard for a man with fixed habits to hear such things. I am accustomed to my sister Helga, and now she has been stolen from me, and all that folk do about it is to shrug their shoulders and say that that is the purpose of sisters, to go elsewhere.”

“She has not gone far.”

“Far enough. She thinks little of me anymore. Her heart is full of him.”

“You speak like a child, my Kollgrim.” But she said this in such a kindly, low voice that he did not take offense, and only sat quietly as she turned back to the shuttle. Just after this, Sigrid came into the steading, and her eyes fell upon the two sitting together, and she was much pleased. Toward Kollgrim, she was never sharp, for she was a little afraid of him. Now she came up to him and said, “My Kollgrim, you look in need of refreshment,” and he put his hand lightly on her sleeve, for truly she was a pretty bird, and it raised his spirits somewhat to gaze upon her. She turned away, and bustled about the steading, and soon there was food before him, and she gazed upon him while he ate it.

One day when Helga was at Gunnars Stead with Elisabet Thorolfsdottir and the child Egil, Kollgrim came into the steading, although he was not expected for two or three more days. He laid down his weapons and threw off his furs and sat without speaking at the table. Elisabet Thorolfsdottir was also sitting at the table, holding the child far too loosely in her arms, it seemed to Helga. Egil was not crying. He had his mother’s listless way about him. “Welcome back, my Kollgrim,” said Helga. “You have cut short your trip.” She set a bowl in front of him, full of the sourmilk she had been dishing up for herself.