Avalon (37 page)

Ketil grumbled every time he caught a glimpse ^f Thorstein's party and once said to Sigurd, "That man — thinks himself so grand because he's rich — through no doing of his own. I'm glad I brought "Bloodletter."

"I trust, Ketil," said Sigurd in the deferential yet firm tone he often used with his father-in-law, "that there could never be a use for your sword here at the Althing. We have no feuds with anyone, and we are not barbarians."

Merewyn heard these speeches and was struck by Sigurd's answer, "We are not barbarians." Yet they had plundered, raped, murdered, both of them, and back in England she with all the nuns had prayed to God that He deliver them from the fury of the Norsemen. That was during the terrible night at Romsey Abbey ^vhen Southampton was attacked. Yet, she

thought, trying to puzzle it out, these people have a code, a system of honor, and they live up to their code which concerns only themselves. It was respect for their laws which brought them to the Althing each year to listen while the Law-speaker recited what had been decreed, and made them arbitrate quarrels and apportion punishment according to Icelandic rule.

And I am one of them, she thought. My father, my husband, my son they are Icelanders — so am I. "Not entirely," said an unwelcome voice in her head, "and aren't you Christian?''''

Sigurd turned suddenly in his saddle and cried triumphantly, "There is the Logberg, now we're almost in Thingvellir. Come here, wife, and look!"

Merewyn gladly turned her horse. The "Logberg" or Law-speaker's rock was not particularly impressive, but the view beyond it was. Below the basalt cliff, Thingvellir's grassy plain stretched out for miles on either side of the shimmering river Oxara. There was a big lake to the south. The placid lake, the largest in Iceland, combined with the mountain-girdled valley to make a tranquil scene, unusual in this rugged land of fire and ice. The tranquility was scarcely disturbed by the distant bustle of many little figures, all erecting temporary shelters far below.

"We must hurry," said Ketil, also looking down at Thingvellir, "or there'll be no decent place to build our booth. That Thorstein," he added angrily, "of course has his own booths which are kept from year to year, and in the very best site."

"We are not great folk, Ketil," said Sigurd quietly. "We'll have to make do with what we can."

Actually, when they had descended to Thingvellir, they found a pleasant location on the brink of the river, because they were early; many from the north and east fjords, a seventeen-day journey away, had not yet arrived. Sigurd and Grim built a shelter of birch saplings, and covered it with a huge canvas which was always carefully stored for the annual trip. The canvas, made of hemp and picked up years ago on some raid, had

been repaired and well oiled by Merewyn and Brigid. It would keep out the rain, should any come. But the sky was blue above the white clouds.

Orm, wild with excitement, raced up and down to other booths, where he was made welcome. Merewyn followed, smiling; though a trifle daunted by the gold bracelets, brooches, and hair dangles exhibited by many women, she refused to let anything discourage the holiday mood.

Sigurd went off to Thorstein's permanent turf and stone encampment, to pay the traditional respect to Borg's chief, but Ketil did not go. He had a more important matter in mind.

He did not even dismount, but trotted here and there along the valley, greeting old friends, accepting drinks, and inquiring at all the booths if anyone knew whether Erik the Red had arrived. Nobody knew.

It was evening before Ketil spied Erik, riding down the trail off the cliff, followed by a score of men and women, which included Erik's sedate wife, Thiodild, and his three young sons, Thorwald, Thorstein, and Leif. The slanting sun rays picked out Erik's beard and hair, which were as fiery as Ketil's once had been. The latter let out a war whoop, and galloped to meet Erik. "Glad to see you, kinsman!" he bellowed., "Glad you're back, and none the worse I see from your time as oudaw."

Erik grinned, and recognized Ketil by a hearty arm clasp. "So you still go a-viking?" he asked, noting the sea king's war helmet, the chain-mail shirt, the sword.

"Nay!" said Ketil. "Tcha! But I still have my ship."

"So . . .?" Erik's hazel eyes sharpened. "The Bylgja? Well, ride along with me until we set up our booths. We've many things to talk of."

Erik Thorvaldson, nicknamed "The Red," was a shrewd man, and had often been a violent one, for which he had suffered in both Norway and Iceland, because he had slain Norsemen, not foreigners. But the slayings had been deemed affairs of honor, and in Iceland had incurred only the punishment of three years

exile. He was now in his forties, younger than Ketil, and was overpowered by a new enthusiasm.

During his outlawry Erik had sailed west to a land once sighted by Gunnbjorn Krakuson and had reached it in summer, when there had been a green border around a towering central ice cap. The landscape seemed not unlike Iceland, or even the west coast of Norway — his birthplace — for which Erik retained a nostalgic memory. The best thing about this new land was that there was nobody on it. Here a man could be free from autocratic kings in Norway, or from code and law and jealousy in Iceland. The discoverer of this new land might make his OTon laws. Erik, during the summers of saihng up and down various fjords, and exploring the terrain, had become enchanted with the idea of settling the unknown country with a picked bunch of men and their famihes.

There were certainly some in Iceland now who were as discontented as their forebears had been with Norway when Ingolf Arnarson first came to Reykjavik over a hundred years ago. And in Iceland now, the habitable land was all taken up. So in Greenland (as Erik slyly named it, determinedly ignoring the perpetual icecap and the long white winters) there would be room — on the southwestern coast — for all those who might join his kingdom.

In Ketil, Erik found a very willing ear. They talked long together that night, which was no night since the glow remained in the western sky, and there was singing, and the plucking of harps all around them from the other booths.

Ketil was completely won when he found that he might have a whole fjord and its surrounding country to himself, and name it Ketilsf jord. Miles of land as well as the water — which would give him twice as much property as Thorstein Egilson owned, more than twice, said Erik, jar more — and that then he, and Ketil, and the others who came would be chieftains on a scale never thought of in Iceland. Ketil was dazzled.

The Althing, once convened, plodded along its usual way.

The Law-speaker stood on the Logberg, and recited the law through a horn megaphone every day. The people gathered on the plain below and listened. The principal chiefs of Iceland constituted a legislature. Important quarrels were judged; disputed property lines examined; there were two duels held on Oxara's island. A hotly contested divorce between a beautiful young woman and a stingy old bondi was ratified in favor of the girl. A new-made heir from the distant East Coast was exiled because there were grave suspicions that he had hastened his father's end.

When business was over, there was gaiety — the people sang and danced and drank and went visiting.

Merewyn enjoyed herself. She made friends amongst the women in nearby booths. They sat together, cooking, sewing, and watching their babies, while no rain fell, and the guardian mountains all around reinforced the scene of peaceful order.

After the customary two weeks, everyone left Thingvellir, and Merewyn had not ridden two miles up the cliff before she heard the words which altered her life again. "So now I have decided, Sigurd," boomed Ketil, "and we will leave early next summer, as soon as the ice breaks up."

Merewyn listened tensely for Sigurd's hesitating answer. "I'm not sure — can it be wise .. .?"

Ketil snorted. ^^Wise! What a question to ask of me! Have you forgotten our voyages on the Bylgja? You never questioned my commands then. Have you forgotten that you are not only my foster-son but my son-in-law, and I am head of the fam-Uy?"

"I've not forgotten," said Sigurd, "but I talked with Erik myself, you know, and am not altogether satisfied with his descriptions of Greenland. He is not precise as to the amount of arable land, or even grazing land, and when I asked him what sort of trees grew there, he waved that paw of his airily and said, 'Oh, all kinds ...' which I think astonishing if the place is as far north as he says."

Ketil swiveled so abruptly in his saddle that his horse jumped. "Do you suggest, Sigurd Hrutson, that my kinsman is a fool? Or that I am? That the hundred men who have akeady agreed to go with Erik are fools? Oh, very well — you may stay at Langarfoss slaving for that Thorstein Egilson, you may keep my poor daughter in a miserable state where she has not even a bracelet or second brooch to wear — you may raise my grandson like a pauper — but I shall ready the Bylgja and shall find plenty of brave adventurous men to go with me. And you may rot at Langarfoss, for all I care!"

"Father . .." whispered Merewyn. She had never before seen her two men really angry at each other, and Sigurd was also angry, she could tell by the outjutting of his golden beard.

They all rode for many miles in silence, then Sigurd spoke in a harsh voice. "I shall consider the matter of our going to Greenland very carefully, Ketil. I assure you I don't ejijoy slaving on another man's land."

Whereupon Merewyn's heart sank. Intuition told her that they would all go to Greenland, a place of which she knew nothing except from gossip amongst the rich bondi wives she had met at Thingvellir.

Erik the Red, they said scoffing, a troublemaker always, unsettling folk with harebrained schemes. Well, if he wanted to live in some other place, let him, and good riddance. Iceland could do without him. Then some one of the ladies would remember that Merewyn was kin to Erik through her father, and would tactfully change the subject. They had all been kind and a bit patronizing to Merewyn, but they liked her, and she had liked the companionship of other women, which was denied her at Langarfoss. You could hardly count Brigid.

If we do go to this Greenland, she thought, it'll be because the Norns have decided our fate. Nor did it occur to her that once she would have put the same concept in very different words. "It is God's Will."

The Icelandic winter came early, and brought great hardship. A griping bowel sickness attacked everybody but Ketil, who remained healthy and even jaunty, as he continually talked of Greenland, and struggled often through snowdrifts and ice hummocks to tinker with the Bylgja. One of the horses died, and they ate it because provisions were low. Merewyn had only a momentary qualm as she ate the horsemeat, which was considered in England to be a revolting heathen practice.

By March the hay was gone, and Sigurd was forced to go to Borg and "borrow" hay from Thorstein Egilson, who compKed contemptuously. "You may take this as a gift," said Thorstein, "for you obviously have no means of paying, and I do not hke my tenants to suffer. But I must say that you seem unlucky as a farmer." He inclined his flaxen head and pursed his lips.

"Doubtless," said Sigurd, "you could find much better tenants for Langarfoss homestead?"

"Doubtless and easily," said Thorstein, while Jofrid, his wife, made a derisive noise from the background.

"Then you will be relieved of us in the spring," said Sigurd, who finally made up his mind at that moment. "We are going to Greenland with Erik Thorvaldson."

"Are you indeed?" said Thorstein, shrugging. ^'As you like — Sigurd. I've nothing against you, there is no bad blood between us, but I cannot regret your leaving, for I'm thinking that my son SkuH shall farm at Langarfoss, he is about old enough to marry, and this would keep another homestead in the family."

"So it would," said Sigurd, and he felt for his landlord, who sat there like a rich white complacent slug, some of the rage which Ketil so often expressed. Yet this was unreasonable. Thorstein had been generous in giving them hay and he returned a just part of the yearly rent which had been paid in advance last October as usual. This silver enabled Ketil and Sigurd to outfit the Bylgja properly, and there was scant difficulty in getting a crew. The Greenland fever had spread rapidly through Central Western Iceland. Erik saw to that. Even in winter he made

tireless recruiting trips from his homestead in Haukadale, down to the Borg district and around the shores of the Breidafjord.

By early June, twenty-five ships were ready to sail from the western fjords. Erik was to meet his flotilla of colonists off Snaefellsnes, and thereafter guide them to Greenland. A matter of four or five days' sail only, said Erik. Nothing to it. Why, Greenland was much nearer than Ireland, or the Orkneys, or Norway where they had almost all gone at one time or another. It was only Norse stubbornness which made them sail back east for years, said Erik, when all the time there was this rich wonderful country, just waiting there to make everyone's fortune. By spring, Erik had excited his colonists with such visions of lush grass, flowery meadows, forest, and dimpling fjords crammed with fish that he believed all this himself. And he excited them with the idea of importance, too. They would be like — yes — earls, rich and landed as Norwegian jarls had ever been in the old country.

On the appointed day, Merewyn looked her last at Langar-foss homestead and turned with her household down the road to Borg, where the ship was waiting. She listened for the sound of the waterfall, she looked north at the golden cone of Baula Mountain, and at the Hafnarfell range across the fjord. It was a beautiful, warm day. The marshy hillocks were dotted with tiny pink flowers, birds twittered. A flock of singing swans rushed northward overhead. 'Tarewell —" she said to them, and to the turf farmhouse where she had known happiness, very often. And lately a new happiness, for she was at last pregnant. Two months. This babe, she thought, would be born in Greenland, and she pictured herself suckling it in the shade of a great and leafy oak, like the ones in the forest near Romsey. And there would be more time for Orm to play outdoors in Greenland than he had so far had. One would not be forever huddled around a fire during nine months of dark winter. Nor would there be constant struggle to get enough food. They might even grow barley and wheat — Ketil said so, and Sigurd had bought

pecks of seed in Reykjavik, off a Norwegian trader. Good bread, she thought — and butter. They were taking the cow with them and knew that amongst the ships there was a fine young bull. No more begging Thorstein for the use of his bull. No more begging anyone for anything. Her enthusiasm for the move to Greenland had greatly increased after she discovered that Sigurd wished to go.

They arrived at the creek where the Bylgja was docked and already provisioned. Ketil supervised the boarding, shouting orders, cursing some of the young men who had enlisted as crew — a swaggering but efficient Ketil in his war helmet, a chieftain again — a sea-king.

Merewyn thought the Bylgja very large, when she went on board. There was room for the tethered cow, the three horses, four ewes, and all their possessions. Though the longship was narrow, having been built for war, she had a surprising capacity, and Ketil had only taken twelve men instead of the sixty he had once shipped.

Merewyn, Orm, and Brigid had straw pallets in the prow. The three men thralls would supplement the crew. They had to go wherever their master took them, but they were pleased with this venture and by the coming change in Sigurd's status, for they had often been Jeered at by other Borg thralls for belonging to such a lowly man that he did not even own the land he farmed.

The Bylgja sported her curly dragonheads at prow and stern. They were fearsome red-tongued beasts, repainted by Ketil. One never knew whether the land spirits of a country would be intimidated or annoyed by these monsters, and certainly when approaching places like Norway, it was wise to remove them — but Ketil had wanted his beloved ship to lack none of its former trimmings. Though the row of war shields along the gun-whales was not practicable. Easily make new shields, said Ketil, when they had settled in Greenland. And weapons of any kind were not of great importance, since there were no inhabitants.

He had of course brought "Bloodletter," sundry spears and knives, but he left the rusty battle-axes behind. During all the arrangements for their move he had been reasonable and fore-thinking. Sigurd admired his wisdom as much as he had in their old days of raiding.

The Bylgja had a great new striped canvas sail, ordered from Norway, and the canvas tent they used at the Althing could be fitted to cover the prow.

They rowed, then sailed out of the creek into Borgafjord, then along the south coast of Snaefellsnes. "Look, my heart—" said Merewyn to Orm — "there is the glacier which your Grandma Asgerd says has been guarding us while we lived at Langarfoss."

Orm obediently squinted at the high glistening ice peaks. "Ice too where we're going?" he inquired. He spoke plainly now.

"Oh, no," said Merewyn, "at least maybe only a little. There'll be lots of green — trees, bushes, grass, and you can make a garden! Oh, Orm, maybe we can grow roses. Yoti've no idea how wonderful they smell! We'll have more fun than you can think of — Orm! That bucket is for what you're doing. Remember that on shipboard. Your grandfather wishes everything kept very clean!"

Orm obeyed and used the bucket. Then he went to sleep on a pile of eiderdowns they had brought.

They rounded Snaefellsnes, and Brigid began to be sick into the bucket, but nobody else was, and there was an eager expectancy aboard. Particularly when they sighted other ships bound for Greenland, and saw Erik's big trader, waiting, the distinguishing little red pennant on the masthead.

Ketil steered close enough to exchange shouts and gestures with their leader, from which he gathered that they would wait for five more ships to appear, then sail west following Erik.

"And," said Ketil to Sigurd, "it'll be hard to stay behind that tub. Tcha! There isn't a decent ship here, except the Bylgja.'' Sigurd on the whole agreed. The other ships were traders and

cutters. Nobody else had a long sleek serpentine warship like the Bylgja. His desire to brave the open sea again almost equaled Ketil's.

It developed months later that the five ships they awaited had started out from Breidafjord, and had lost heart — at least the skippers and their famiHes did. They had turned back to home ports.

Sometime in the sunht evening Erik gave the signal which meant they would wait no longer, and must start out. So they did. On each ship a sail was raised, there were halfhearted cheers, and fluttering hands waved back towards Iceland.

At first all twenty of the fleet were in sight of each other, and the Bylgja — steered by either Ketil or Sigurd — continually, as Ketil prophesied, threatened to overtake Erik's ship; which would have been a breach of propriety.

By the third day it grew very cold, and they threaded their way amongst pack ice. Merewyn lay quiet with Orm in a nest of eiderdowns. Brigid retched dolefully into the bucket as the north wind raised sizable waves.

The next morning they saw agitation on Erik's ship — wav-ings, pointing gestures. They looked ahead and saw a great expanse of bluish ice high in the air.

"That couldn't be Greenland," said Sigurd in a flat tone.

"Erik told us," answered Ketil, unperturbed, "that the first landfall would be icy. I think he called that glacier Blausark. One must sail around the south and west to reach the green."

"I did not understand that there ivere glaciers," said Sigurd. "We have plenty of those in Iceland."

Ketil did not answer, because some trailing misty wisps suddenly coalesced into fog, and Erik's ship disappeared. So did the ships behind the Bylgja.

"The horn —" said Ketil calmly to Sigurd. "Blow it with all your strength. Break out the rowers. Get the sail down, and keep a sharp watch in the bow. I haven't —" added Ketil with

relish, "seen a fog as thick as this since we were off the Orkneys eight years ago, wasn't it?"

Sigurd, who was obeying orders, as he always used to, did not wait to hear this reminiscence. He blew the ram horn at intervals, and was relieved to hear answering horns ahead and behind him, though the blasts were distorted and it was hard to be sure where they came from.

Greenland — he thought. What has Ketil got us into? Or Erik? But he was too much occupied for speculation, especially as he heard wailing in the bow. At a moment between blowing the foghorn, and nudging aside the drifting ice with an oar, he stuck his head under the canvas tent. It was very cold. He noted that Brigid's teeth were chattering, though she was wrapped in an eiderdown, and she was making frightened noises as well. Merewyn, however, in a cocoon with Orm, turned up large inquiring eyes, and smiled a tremulous welcome.

"It's fog, of course," she said. "I can smell it, as I often did at Padstow, and then the horn."

"It's fog," he answered. "And should hft soon. Lie quiet there my wife, take care of Orm and the other one in your belly."

She nodded. "I will — but have we far to go?"

"Round a cape — the tip of this Greenland," said Sigurd with more assurance than he felt. "Try to sleep."

Merewyn would gladly have obeyed, but Orm began to whimper with hunger, and her breasts were completely dry since the new baby had started. She looked with resignation at Brigid who was crouched over the bucket. So Merewyn got up, clutching her cloak tight around her, and fumbled aft through the drifting fog to the tethered cow which was mooing in the same hopeless way that Brigid was. She took a bailing bucket and managed to extract a little milk from the cow. But the cow would soon be dry.

The crew, having nothing to do but rest their oars and push

off ice, had taken to chanting. They sang old Norse ballads and exchanged jokes. In the midst of the fog it was noisy on board, what with Sigurd blowing the horn, the singing, and moos from the cow, bleats from the sheep, and occasional barked commands from Ketil at the steering oar.

Nevertheless, after drinking the milk, Merewyn and Orm dozed. Brigid also became quiet, and at her mistress's invitation, lay down with them.

Then Merewyn had a dream. It began with a forest, a huge forest of elm, oak, beech, and bluebells growing beneath. There was holly too, scarlet berries on the glossy leaves, ready for the Christmas season. The bluebells changed to daffodils, thousands of cream and golden cups. Then there was a garden, like Romsey but not quite like it, for even Romsey had not had so many pink scented roses, nor jasmine. Then Elfled swam into the dream and looking at Merewyn with sorrow she said, "How very far you've gone, dear friend . . . why didn't you take Rumon?"

"How could I?" Merewyn retorted angrily, while the figure of Elfled wavered and became the Abbess Merwinna. "But I as much as told you to," said Merwinna. "Who would want Rumon when there is Sigurd?" Merewyn answered. "But he's a heathen^ said the Elfled-Merwinna — and Merewyn woke up as a calf iceberg grated against the Bylgja and the whole longship shuddered.

The fog lifted at what would have been dawn if the sun had ever really disappeared. Erik's ship was now visible ahead of them, and some others behind. Ketil raised his sail and followed Erik.

It was true that once they had passed the cape, and turned further to the west, the fierce north winds stopped blowing and they saw green. It was the green of long grasses near the shore, one could even see little flowers amongst the grass, but ??o trees — except a few birches even more dwarfed than they had been in Iceland.

"Where's the forest, Mother?" asked Orm. She had taught him this word, and what a forest was. She looked at the black-rocked fjords filled with pack ice, at the strip of green around the edges, at the great stark snow-threaded mountains, and the towering cap of ice over all the land.

"I don't know," she said. "I thought there would certainly be pine." Bleak, desolate, mountainous, cold. What sort of place had they come to? For this they had left at least an adequate living in Iceland, and here everything must be started fresh. How?

Sigurd shared her dismay, but Ketil's enthusiasm had not abated. He was pleased that they had brought the ship through fog and ice; he was pleased that at the entrance to a fjord, Erik veered his ship around for conference and shouted, "Well done, my kinsman — and you might like this fjord for your own." He gestured widely; " 'Ketilsfjord' it shall be, and one of the most desirable — being southward. But now we must all go up to my fjord, to Brattalid where I built a shelter last summer. It will be my home, and not far from you if you want this one. Barely a day's sail or ride. We shall be neighbors, and yet we shall each rejoice in our independence."

"Very good, Erik," said Ketil.

One by one the ships straggled into Erik's fjord, and anchored in the cove which Erik had selected for his homesite. His house had held up well during the past winter. Erik, having nothing else to do until he sailed back to Iceland, had piled many stones and cut much turf, and reinforced the roof with little birches. It was snug enough inside, and would — with crowding — hold a hundred people.

"Welcome!" Erik shouted as each boatload came ashore. "Welcome! You are now in Greenland, and must drink with me to our venture!"

There was httle response. Nobody had expected Greenland to look like this.

Erik's wife, Thiodild, went around pouring ale, her hps sternly compressed, her pale lank hair untidy under the ceremonial

gold-threaded coif she had immediately donned when they landed. She was the chief's wife, the queen, as it were, of this company, and would do her duty, come what might, but her disappointment could not be hidden. Her young sons, however, were in wild spirits. Leif and Thorstein romped through the grass, where all the cattle they had brought with them were soon grazing.