B0046ZREEU EBOK (7 page)

In the spring my father gave his grandest feast yet. People came the whole length of Snaefelsnes, and from beyond Breidafjord. Factions seemed to be forgotten: the Breidavik men were there, naturally, and Steinthor of Eyr, but so was Snorri the Priest and even one or two of Eirik Raudi’s worst enemies, the Thorbrandssons. I had no idea what was in my father’s mind until he came to give his speech. The hall was fuller than I’d ever seen it. It was raining hard outside and was stuffy inside, the kind of day that makes you want to sleep, even if you haven’t eaten and drunk too much. My head felt heavy, and I longed to close my eyes. But as soon as my father began to speak, I was awake at once. I felt that same excitement I’d known when Einar came to Arnarstapi: a fluttering in the stomach and a dryness in the mouth. I’d half hoped Einar might appear at the feast, risking my father’s anger.
But this was a different adventure that was being offered. Einar and his fine clothes and rich goods vanished for ever into the mists of memory.

‘I’ve lived here a long time,’ Thorbjorn said. ‘I’ve enjoyed your friendship and support, and I’mhappy to say that I’ve always got on well with most of my neighbours here.’ If any faction realised that my father was being ironic, it showed no sign. ‘I shall look back on my years at Laugarbrekka and remember that they were good.

‘It may not be news to most of you that things haven’t gone very well for me financially. I’ve always kept a generous household. We’ve lived well here, and our guests have always been given the best of welcomes. It would be a disgrace to me to do things any other way. I’d rather leave the farm, leave Iceland, than live here meanly.

‘Twelve years ago my dearest friend invited me to join him in a great undertaking. I turned back very reluctantly, when I saw my friend Eirik Raudi set his sail for the Green Land that he discovered to the west beyond Gunnbjorn’s skerries. Every time a ship has come back with news of him, I’ve felt the old temptation. I’m not an old man yet; I’m younger than Eirik. Why should a great adventure not come just as well to me?

‘So there it is. This is my last feast here, and I’ve invited you all here so that I could tell you that this summer I shall go west in search of the Green Land, and so to all of you farewell.’

He didn’t mention me, but I never doubted for one moment that this was my adventure too. Everyone was so astonished that they had nothing to say; certainly no one asked what my father planned to do about me. I expect they gossiped about that feast for years afterwards though. My father sent them all away with rich gifts, which left us with virtually nothing. Thorbjorn didn’t care. The grandness of the gesture was worth far more than wealth to him.

Don’t days like this remind you of Iceland? When I woke this morning and heard the rain on the roof and courtyard, and saw the thin light creeping in, it took me a moment to remember where I was. In Iceland the animals will be out, and the pastures will be green with hay. Do you ever miss those things?

You nodded. You actually nodded. You do understand what I mean. Here we are, two people from one country. It’s so far away from here that sometimes it seems like a dream. The way the people here see it, Iceland might just as well be outside the world. It’s good to be with a fellow countryman sometimes. Have they told you not to talk to me?

You shouldn’t be afraid of me. I’m old enough to be your grandmother. Perhaps you’re withdrawn because I talk about the place you came from, and it reminds you of too much. Yes, that’s it. I can tell by the way you don’t answer me. Was it a hard decision to become a monk? Did they send you away from home when you were very young?

Ten. Yes, that is young. Did you mind? Little boys usually think about becoming warriors, seamen, explorers of strange lands. I never met a child that longed to sit in a cloister bent over a parchment. Where did they send you?

So far away. Were you happy there?

All right, I won’t ask any more. It was kind of you to speak to me. I haven’t heard Icelandic spoken since I got here, except inside my own head. You’ve no idea what you gave me, saying a word or two in my own language. I’m grateful. We’d better get on with our work.

I’m putting it off, you see, because the next part is hard to tell. I blame myself even now. Look out of the window now. It’s raining still, but those finches are out there again. I think they’re building a nest near the wall. This courtyard must be a haven even for the birds. They have enough to fear in the forests, and so do we. Did the journey to Rome frighten you when you first came? It’s men that I’m afraid of now, not the weather or the sea. When the men – and I believe that they were men – came to Hop, that’s when I was frightened, that was when I knew that our settlement was doomed. I’m not afraid of emptiness. The land here has been inhabited so long that men have forgotten when they first came. It’s full of ghosts, but I’m old and I don’t mind that. I mind the bandits more. The forests of Europe are so thick. Even at Hop they were not as thick as that. Anyone could hide in the wilderness, and everywhere we stayed along the road they talked of ambush, and murder. Even after all I’ve been through, I prefer the sea to that.

You’re not writing all this down? There’s no need, I’m just avoiding the point. Young man, will you look up, just for a moment?

Your eyes are the colour of my son’s.

We set sail from Breidavik at the beginning of May.

Everything seemed to augur well. Several of my father’s tenants and freedmen chose to come with us, as well as the slaves he picked to remain with us. Three of the tenants brought their families. The slaves were mostly couples. One useful thing my father did teach me is that it’s a good idea to allow your dependants to marry and to bring up loyal families. It’s not only an insurance for the next generation, it’s also that marriage keeps men contented in your service. I wish the
same could be said of free men, but I never noticed a warrior being subdued by domestic influences. You must know a bull is safer in with the cows, not tethered away from the herd, but then you haven’t had to trouble yourself with livestock.

The best of it, as it seemed to me that blue May morning, was that Orm and Halldis were with us too. As soon as they heard the news that we were going, Halldis came to my father and begged the forgiveness for Orm that Orm would never have asked for himself, and asked that they might join the expedition. ‘Gudrid and I haven’t been separated until this winter, since she was five years old,’ she said. ‘You know you’ll need a woman to keep her company. You don’t want some young maid who’ll look out for nothing except a man for herself. You want a mother for her. Think of all those young men there must be by now in the Green Land who need wives. Eirik Raudi had three young sons when he went away. What wives can they have found among the seals and rocks? That’s what it’s like in a new country. You’ll have to watch out for her, and if you’re careful, you may marry her very well.’ Halldis knew my father; kinship with Eirik Raudi was a bait he wouldn’t fail to snap at. Halldis didn’t mention, of course, that I wasn’t much of a prize since my father had given away what would have been my dowry. The despised Einar was probably ten times as rich as my father now. But she did mention to me privately that I’d probably make a better match in Greenland, where women were scarce. Land was there for the taking; no need to marry into it out there, but a woman to run the estate once you’d got it … As Halldis said, I was healthy and knew about good husbandry. ‘Management and babies,’ she said to me, when we were allowed to meet again. ‘That’s what men will want out there. They won’t despise beauty either, in a wild country. I don’t think you need worry too much about that dowry.’

She persuaded my father, and maybe it was she who sowed the first seed of an idea about my future. Maybe he had thought of it already. I shall never know, but Eirik’s sons were certainly considered as a possibility in my family before ever I laid eyes on any of them. I wasn’t unwilling. I still had the memory of a fierce red man, telling us his dream of a new country, while he stood in our hall blocking off the
firelight, so that his shadow multiplied into huge shapes on the wall behind him.

I don’t think Orm wanted to go to Greenland. Naturally he was anxious about what would happen to his lands when Laugarbrekka was sold to an unknown buyer. Maybe he thought a journey to the Green Land was the lesser risk. He didn’t come for love of me as Halldis did, but I think he came for love of her.

Before I was baptised Thangbrand the missionary explained to us about judgement. Even now I have dreams about the end of the world. I suppose I should think of these things now more than ever – my own death can’t be far off – and yet, as I grow old, I come to hope more and more that God is merciful. In Iceland death is a small thing. Men must kill; it’s their nature. I think women are more haunted by the deaths that they inflict. For men, there’s still the dream of the last battle. They fear no judgement, only hope for the fight that will last until the end of the world. But when I dream of the summons from the grave, the ghosts of my foster parents, whom I loved, rise up and tower over me, always accusing. No battle, no feasting-hall, for them. In the dream the sea water streams away from their bodies, which are gaunt and livid after being dead for so many years. They tell me they have never rested all this time, for they have had no grave; they are outcast, lost in the waters that surround the world. And no one is to blame but I, who let them follow me, just because of my need for them.

So now you know what I must tell. We left under blue skies, with a favourable wind; the land already smelt of spring. The cattle were out in the newly uncovered pastures. We even had a couple of young lambs among the flock we took aboard with us. The ship was crammed: cattle, sheep and poultry amidships, the slaves and their families sheltering among them, or forward in front of the sail. We were aft, with an awning rigged to shelter us, for there was no need at first to have the deck clear. We had water and fodder for ten days, besides food for ourselves. It seemed plenty. In good weather, we would have been there within the week. When we came out of Breidavik there wasn’t a cloud over the glacier, and the ice shone in the bright sun.

You’ve maybe heard about that spring, although it was before you were born. It’s legend now. We weren’t the only ones to be caught out. You know what they say? The story is that it was the first year any Christian folk set out for the lands beyond the world, and the old gods were angry. They had been banished from Norway, then from Iceland. So they took ship with Eirik, or maybe flew before him, and found a place beyond the boundaries of that world which used to be theirs, but was now called Christian. There in the empty lands they found a place to rest. For all I know they haunt those mountains still.

But when they saw ships with Christians aboard following them to their new sanctuary they were angry. Thor flung his hammer from the glaciers above Gunnbjorn’s skerries, and it landed in the sea between Greenland and Iceland, and stirred up a whirlpool. Ice that had lain quiet for hundreds of years broke into huge splinters and began to drift, monsters roused themselves from the deep, and waves the height of Snaefel flung themselves the length of the western sea, until they crashed to their death against the cliffs of Europe.

So they say. I tell you this and I tell you that. What I’m not telling you is what it was like aboard that ship. Poor boy. You’re so young; but you too will be judged, as we’re all judged. Are you ever afraid? Is there anything that you’ve done that rises up to haunt you? No, you needn’t answer. I’ve made many terrible voyages. I know what the sea is. Not an enemy, precisely, but stronger than any of us and wholly unreliable. Sometimes its face is like a mirror, and sometimes it is a tormented hell. My first voyage was the worst of all.

When we reached the open sea the fair wind failed us. We ran into bad storms, and made little headway all that summer. We had hardly any water, and disease broke out among us. It was colder than I can even begin to imagine now. Half our company died. Orm died. Halldis died. The sea grew worse. We suffered terribly from thirst and exposure. I have scars on my hands still, look. Those were open sores. But at last, when we had gone far beyond hope, the sea spat us out. We made landfall at last at Herjolfsnes in the Green Land, right at the beginning of winter.

I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m quite ready to go on now. But I must apologise. I have no right to inflict my feelings on you.