The Saga of Colm the Slave (4 page)

Colm broke free his gaze and examined
the other idols in the shrine. Each of the three great stone slabs
bore some sign of the deity it represented. Thor held a carved
hammer, Njord’s idol was decorated with a ship, and Freya bore
breasts of stone. Smaller figures of carved stone or bone or wood
stood up from the earth around the large idols. Lesser gods? Great
kings? Ancestors? Perhaps no one but the godi knew.

Colm drew Ingveld’s necklace from his
shirt and examined Freya’s statue. He had thought the Goddess might
have her arms extended to drive her cart, as they were on the
pendants women wore around their necks. But the only protrusions on
this slab of granite were the two hard breasts. Probably they were
formed by wind or water on this stone, and, being noticed, caused
it to be selected as an idol. Two sets of carved concentric circles
were Freya’s eyes and below them, a great semi-circle meant to be
her woman’s smile. But now Freya’s mouth was full of clotted blood
that ran down her breasts toward a bowl at the idol’s base.

Colm shuddered. He thought of pitching
the necklace into the bowl but was afraid it might not be seen. If
only this thing had a neck! Finally, Colm set the necklace on top
the idol so that the big red stone hung on Freya’s forehead. “Be
satisfied with that,” he whispered, “You heathen creature!” Freya
grinned at him but did not answer, something for which Colm was
very grateful.

Colm let several of the other slaves get
up and wander out before he rose. People were buzzing about in the
new day like bees on urgent missions. Their eyes were bright and
excited as they chattered about Freya having Ingveld’s necklace!
Oh, yes, thought Colm, that greedy goddess! He smiled.

A hand clutched his arm and drew him to
one side. Colm’s belly plunged in fear and then he found himself
looking into Gwyneth’s face and he felt his spirit rise and fill
his chest. She was smiling, then her face dropped and her eyes
widened in horror and Colm was afraid again. “Here,” said Gwyneth.
She pulled him into the shadow of the cow-shed and rubbed at his
forehead. She spat on her thumb and rubbed again. “That’s better.”
Gwyneth looked at her reddened thumb and made a face. “Pah! Horse
blood!” She looked Colm over, head to toe, but found no other
traces of blood.

“Can’t have people thinking I took part
in the ceremony,” said Colm.

“No,” said Gwyneth seriously, “They
shouldn’t think you put on the airs of a free man. Or that you were
mocking them somehow.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to do,” said
Colm, “As I suppose you know.”

Gwyneth smiled. “You did well.
Everything should be all right now. Ingveld has presented the
necklace to Gerda as a gift.”

“So Gerda has everything she wants.”

Gwyneth shrugged. “For the moment. I
suppose she wishes for a different husband, but Gunnlaug has little
to offer.”

“It was you who told me how to do it,
you know,” Colm told her, “When you said that about any woman
wanting the thing – well, there was only one that could have it
without blame.” Colm started in then with some tongue-honey about
her being intelligent as well as beautiful but stopped when he
realized Gwyneth was not listening but looking past him. She gave
him a quick smile, then slipped away, and Colm turned to find
Bjorn, his master, bearing down on him.

“Well, that turned out not so bad,” said
Bjorn. He was in a cheery mood. Probably he expected to win some
credit with Thorolf for this turn of events, Colm thought. “Now I
promised you a reward if things went well, didn’t I?” Oh, yes, you
did, thought Colm, but do I want it or dread it? One never knew
what the master had in mind.

Bjorn was interrupted as Thorolf walked
up. The two men greeted one another and Thorolf echoed Bjorn, “That
turned out as well as it could.” He took Bjorn’s hands in his. “You
have my thanks. And I have a gift for you as well as thanks.”

Bjorn smiled and ducked his head. So he
won favor, thought Colm. That would be to his own benefit as well:
a well-fed slave has a prosperous master. Thorolf turned his way.
“Don’t I know this slave?”

“He was present when we found Hastein’s
body.”

“Ah. Yes. Another situation that could
have gone wrong.”

“Yes,” said Bjorn. “In fact, I was about
to reward this man. For, ah, his excellent service and so on.”

“I see,” said Thorolf. “What reward were
you planning to give him?”

“I thought a sheep, one of the new
lambs. I might let him choose the one he wants.”

“Well, he seems a lucky slave to me. It
is always a good thing to have lucky men about and one should
encourage them. Would you allow me to give this man a sheep of his
choosing as well?”

“Of course,” said Bjorn. “Luck must be
encouraged.” And the two men smiled and dissembled and blathered at
each other, but Colm paid no attention. Two sheep! He would choose
ewes, of course, and this time next year he would have four! And
eight the year after! Six sheep was an acceptable price for a
slave, but… No! He would wait another year, until he had sixteen
sheep. Then he would offer Bjorn ten of them for his freedom. No!
He would offer him twelve! So that Bjorn would recognize what a man
of worth he was!

3.The Trollfarm Killing

Colm was not very pleased that Bjorn
wanted him to go along to Althing that summer; he would rather tend
his sheep. But no slave could ignore his master’s bidding. And the
fact that Bjorn wanted him along hinted that the man might be
weighing him as a potential retainer, a free man who would support
Bjorn and help him to become more important. “Free” being the
operative word here. So it wasn’t all bad. Even so, Colm would
rather stay with his sheep. He wished his two lambs to increase to
a flock and the flock increase to the point where he could buy his
freedom.

The day before riding out to Althing,
Colm went up to the shieling to take Edgar some provisions – a bowl
of skyr for now and a lump of cheese and strip of dried mutton for
the next week or so. Edgar had no teeth left but he could gum at
the meat and it would last all the longer. The old man sat with his
face raised to the sun, warming himself like a toad on a rock. He
grinned at Colm, his wide toothless mouth spread in pleasure. Colm
smiled back and was glad to see the old man’s joy at being in the
sun and having a useful task to do. Edgar, too, was a slave. He
owned no sheep though, owned nothing, not even his own body, which
might be sacrificed to some pagan god whenever it had no other
use.

Colm caught sight of the flock grazing
twenty yards or so downslope from a patch of snow. They would work
up the mountainside as it thawed. Colm didn’t have to check the
earmarks to know which were his and which belonged to others; he
knew his lambs by sight even at a distance. The sheep cropped at
the bright green new grass and Colm imagined it all going to fat
and wool and meat as he watched and willed his two small animals to
put on weight.

A great old wether, guardian of the
flock, raised its head and studied Colm. Deciding he was no danger,
the wether lowered his head back into the grass. Colm relished the
peaceful scene and wished with all his heart that he could stay and
be part of it. But, he thought, his heart was so full of wishes
already, he could never live long enough to see them all granted.
Colm bid old Edgar good day and went back down to Bjorn’s farm to
do chores for his master.

In the morning, Bjorn told Colm to take
a horse for himself. That was something! Saddle or no, it was
better to ride to Althing than run along behind the mounted
freemen.

Then Bjorn surprised him further. “It
might be useful if you could find a weapon,” he said. It was not a
usual practice to allow a slave to be armed. Of course Colm had a
weapon hidden away, a single-edged scramasax that he had taken from
the belongings of an English slave that died. That one, too, had
kept his weapon hidden. “There might be lawsuits that end in
trouble,” said Bjorn. He looked keenly into Colm’s face. “We may
need every man.”

So Bjorn considered him a man did he?
Man enough to ride and fight! Colm scented freedom in his future,
closer now, like a prey he was hunting. The scramasax blade was
sharp and Colm wrapped a piece of leather around it before putting
the knife in his waistband under his shirt where it was not so
obvious – though any searching glance would discover it through the
threadbare material.

Packs of provisions were slung over the
horses and wagons were loaded with the cloth and poles that would
be used to construct the tent pavilions that would house Bjorn’s
contingent. Some women rode on the wagons, like Aud, Bjorn’s wife –
she was visibly ill, losing weight daily, her eyes sinking into her
skull. Some women walked, like Aud’s slave Gwyneth, attentive to
her mistress, who kept pace with the wagon. Seeing Gwyneth lifted
Colm’s heart and when she flashed a bright smile his way, it filled
with song like a tree full of birds.

The group made its way down the valley
alongside a stream that, here, was easily crossed. Farther along,
the stream joined with others to become a river. Thorolf’s farm lay
near the river floodplain and his followers, like Bjorn, tended to
live on the upland tributaries. Behind him, in the distance, Colm
could see the mountain slope where his sheep were grazing. They had
come to the end of Bjorn’s holding. There was good land a mile or
so across the stream but no one farmed it. Years past, before Bjorn
came to Iceland, someone had lived there but, one winter, the
farmer and his family had disappeared. Some thought they had gotten
lost out in a snowstorm, first one, then those who had gone
searching. But others said that evil beings – trolls or
water-striders – had taken them. People avoided the place but
sooner or later someone would move in. Good land was scarce.

It was late in the afternoon when they
finally reached Thorolf’s farm. Slaves unpacked the horses and
drove them into the near field to graze. The women went into the
longhall to prepare a meal for the travellers. Colm threw some
harness and horse-gear across his shoulders and carried it into a
turf out-building.

It was a moment before Colm’s eyes
adjusted to the darkness inside and he caught only the motion of
the two white faces at the other end of the building. Two people,
trying to duck out of sight, but there was nowhere to hide. One was
Gerda, Thorolf’s daughter, and Colm recognized the other as
Gunnlaug, the young farmer who had shoved Halldor at the Spring
Sacrifice. The way that they jumped apart was evidence that they
did not want to be seen together.

Colm turned to the wall and hung up the
harness. Then he turned away to the door without looking back
toward Gerda and Gunnlaug. Some things were better for a slave not
to see.

Outside, a group of men were gathered in
the sunlight. Magnus, Thorolf, and Bjorn were at its center. Colm
edged up to hear what was going on. Magnus was an excitable man and
he shouted and waved his arms about. Thorolf listened gravely,
nodding from time to time. Bjorn stood behind Thorolf, nodding when
his chieftain did. It took a moment for Colm to understand why
Magnus was so worked up: his son, Halldor, had been killed by
Gunnlaug. There was no fighting when the two quarrelled at the
Sacrifice, but after letting the matter fester for a few weeks,
Halldor had gone over to Gunnlaug’s farm to settle things. Instead,
Halldor’s body lay near Gunnlaug’s doorway and Gunnlaug had
disappeared.

Colm caught a movement from the corner
of his eye. Gerda was slipping past the crowd of men. She threw one
beseeching glance at Colm, then joined the women at the longhall.
Colm thought of Gunnlaug in the out-building, waiting for a chance
to get away. One word and this crowd would be on him like wolves on
a deer. Colm caught sight of Gwyneth among the other women and
smiled to himself. Right now he felt a softness toward young love.
He kept his mouth shut.

After a time, Magnus calmed a little.
Thorolf began speaking of the lawsuit they would bring at Althing.
He spoke of procedures and he spoke of allies, for even the
best-argued suit needed swords to back it. Bjorn spoke from time to
time, echoing his chieftain and backing his argument. Occasionally
Magnus would flare up and then the other two men would soothe him
with words of vengeance. This went on all evening, right through
the meal and into the night, the three plotting their actions at
Althing.

Ingveld, Magnus’ wife, sat with the
women, silent and staring straight ahead. Once, Gerda spoke to her
and Ingveld, lips pressed tightly, turned stony eyes her way. It
was obvious that she felt Gerda held some responsibility for the
death of her son. Bright-eyed Gerda tried to look solemn and
bereaved but soon she was chattering with the other young women,
all caught up in the excitement. At least, thought Colm, she had
enough sense not to wear the necklace of glass that Ingveld had
given her as a betrothal gift, a gift that Ingveld meant to buy her
son’s happiness.

Colm rose before sun-up to pack for the
day’s ride across the lava-fields to Althing. He fetched harness
from the turf out-building. He didn’t look into the building’s far
end nor search any of the chests and barrels that lay about nor
look under or behind any large object. He was careful not to notice
anything and was glad not to see any sign of Gunnlaug.

It was getting dark by the time
Thorolf’s caravan reached Thingvelleir. The open plains and lava
fields had been given to all as a meeting-place by the chieftain
Ingolf some years before. Hundreds of people had already arrived.
Some families had well-established areas where they returned, year
after year. Thorolf had his own set of roofless turf walls. Colm
helped raise a great canopy of cloth over the walls, then went to
set up Bjorn’s tents and shelters. The women bustled about, seeing
to food and drink and bedding. Thorolf, Bjorn, and Magnus grabbed
up torches and went about the encampment, seeking allies for their
cause. It was a long day and, when Colm finally lay down, he fell
asleep instantly.