B0046ZREEU EBOK (8 page)

The nights had begun to grow dark, and when we saw the sun again at last we realised we were too far south. We turned north as much as the wind would let us, knowing that the land we sought was nearly as far north as Reykjanes. We had no idea if we were west or east of it; my father was even wondering if we would raise Iceland. But as we went on the sea grew far colder than our seas at home, and soon lumps of ice began to appear in it, small and white at first, and then larger and sometimes turquoise or azure, all drifting south past us as we struggled on against the growing current. An intense chill off the water wrapped us round, and each berg blew its cold breath over us as it passed us, like a sigh from the dead.

The land we finally saw was much grimmer than the one we had left, and we could see nowhere where it was possible to make a settlement. The rising sun twinkled against a huge glacier. Great lumps of ice had broken away from it, and threatened our little ship as we drew closer. The mountains were bare rock and snow, with a whiteness behind them that might have been ice or cloud. All that land gave us, when we risked our ship to reach it, was melt water running under a huge twisted crust of ice, but it was fresh, and it saved our lives. The coast tended north-east; my father said that was wrong: Eirik’s sailing directions indicated a coast with many fjords, tending north-west. When we put about to follow the land south-west the crew almost rebelled. Winter was
coming on, and they just wanted to go home to Iceland after all that we had gone through.

Uneasily we followed that fierce coast. My father reminded us that the settlements were far up the fjords, invisible from the open sea. We passed what could have been islands or promontories, all sheer rock and ice. Long inlets thrust inland. There was no knowing which we should follow. It grew warmer, and with the end of numbness came something like despair. I have more experience of sailing directions than any other woman in the world, and I have learned one thing: like icebergs, directions never show a fraction of what is there. Yet men have gone far into the unknown relying on these fragile words, that never begin to describe the awful nature of the place itself. It never surprises me that so many ships get lost; on the contrary, I have never ceased to be amazed whenever one actually arrives.

I’ll tell you one thing, though. I would rather suffer the whole journey, and risk my life every time, than wait safely at home for news of the man I love. I’ve never allowed that to happen to me, and yet I admire the women who bear it, year after year.

There was a man called Herjolf, the father of Bjarni who first saw Vinland, who chose to build his farm in Greenland on a ness facing south-east into the open sea. Every other farmer in Greenland sought the shelter of the long fjords, but Herjolf’s boldness paid off. Each new ship searching the Greenland coast was likely to sight the settlement at Herjolfsnes, and every seasoned traveller made Herjolf’s house his first port of call. Herjolf’s object was to trade, but he was willing to save lives too, if that were likely to be profitable. He saved ours.

I’ll never forget that first sight of the farm at Herjolfsnes. We had passed the mouth of a long fjord, and ahead lay another steep island, or headland. Then, as we rode the crest of each wave, a patch of green appeared. Each time we rose from the trough we strained our eyes to see it. Slowly the ship closed the land. The pastures became studded with brown dots. Cattle. There was a beach with lumps on it, rocks, or possibly boats. Then something else: a thin coil of grey, almost obliterated by the tails of mist that clung to the breakers on the shore. The cry went up from all of us together. ‘Smoke!’

We reached a stony beach, and the ship came down hard and
stopped in the breakers. No one waited for orders. Men, women and the two surviving cows struggled towards the bows in a babble of confusion. I was still aft, staring at the new land. I made out the outline of an oblong turf building under the smoke, green as the pasture around it. And then I saw people coming towards us. My hands were pressed to my mouth, in a kind of horror. It seemed so like home, but this was another world, after all that had happened to us, and I trusted nothing.

But in fact it was real and familiar. We were met by Thorkel, who farmed the land nearest the shore, and he took us to Herjolf, who at once invited my father and all his people to spend the winter there. If the ship had been whole we might have pushed on to Eiriksfjord, now we had found our direction, but the spare sail was barely holding together, and besides, we didn’t have enough people to man her. It was at the end of that first voyage I learned to work the steerboard, when there were not enough men to cover the watches. Later, Karlsefni made use of my skill. Thorstein never did. He refused even to believe that a woman could steer a boat; even the thought of it was unlucky for him.

When I came ashore at Herjolfsnes I could hardly walk. The solid land was treacherous and never still. At Herjolf’s hall we had fresh water and milk, and dry clothes. But I hadn’t even got used to that before I realised that even now nothing was simple. The ghosts, as always, were before us.

The ghost of hunger I knew well. The ghosts of loss and fear had hung behind it from the beginning of my life. As the numbness melted away, beside the fire of seaweed and driftwood in Herjolf’s hall, I saw how hunger feasted on the gaunt flesh of Herjolf’s folk, and how famine had settled itself in their drawn faces and suffering eyes. As I regained my own strength I felt it too. It ate away my insides, so that there was always pain, sometimes dull and sometimes gnawing, as the ghost slept and ate within me like a monstrous child. The greatest blessing any human being could know is to be assured they will always have food and drink. If you are with me, you can say that to me when I am dying, and it will comfort me. Only then can you be sure it will be true. I hope you will never be hungry, Agnar.

A demon must have possessed that summer. We had fought it at sea; on land they’d struggled too. Much of the flock had died for want of new grass, a hunting expedition had never returned, and no ships came with supplies. That winter we didn’t have half enough fish, and very little beef or mutton. We ate mostly seal meat, which men said was best, as it would make us strong like seals against the most dangerous enemies in the Green Land, the sea and the weather. But whatever you eat, there has to be enough of it if it’s going to make you strong.

Winter came. Outside the snow rose to the roof, and inside was like a cave, dark and muddy and chill, in spite of the seaweed fires. One thing I remember from that winter is the dirt. There was always grime, seal’s grease and smoke and mud, and no hot water. One of the things I like most about living at Glaumbaer is the hot spring. Once a week, before Sunday, we can wash. It’s a good charm against evil to wash away what is past. In Greenland that wasn’t usually possible. This isn’t a clean country either, but that doesn’t seem to matter where the sun can drive away evil things.

At Herjolfsnes the ghosts thrived in the dirt and the hunger and the dark. There was a man there who was possessed. He used to scream and beat against the walls, and at night he would rush around the room and pull the furs off the people on the sleeping benches, telling them to rise and defend us all. We had to tie him up in the end.

It sounds to you like a nightmare, perhaps, but the people never despaired. Even then I could see enough to realise how much of that was owing to Herjolf himself, and his son Bjarni. In Iceland people still mock at Bjarni Herjolfsson, because he was the first to sight Vinland, and he didn’t even bother to land. I can understand it. Bjarni is a man of one thought at a time, and his goal on that voyage was to find his father. You know how it happened, don’t you? How Herjolf went off that summer with Eirik, when Bjarni was in Norway, and when Bjarni got home his father had gone, leaving a message to follow him to Greenland? So Bjarni did. My father said he had no imagination. But my father was jealous, of course, because he himself had failed to go with Eirik that first time, and he paid for it in prestige
all his life. It counted in Greenland to be able to say you were one of the first settlers. Bjarni had a rich cargo to bring to his father; he’d have been a fool to risk it exploring new lands, with autumn coming on. He did the right thing, Karlsefni always said so. Karlsefni always said, too, that if Bjarni had taken the first land, there might be a Vinland settlement to this day. I’m not saying all the blame lies with Eirik’s family. Karlsefni played a part in it too. But Karlsefni had no reason to be jealous, and he was able to admit that in some ways Bjarni would have been the better man.

Anyway, I spent a winter on the edge of death with Bjarni Herjolfsson to guide us, and I found that I could trust him. He was a pagan, like his father, but faith seemed to come to him by nature.

There had been a Christian at Herjolfsnes, a Celtic freedman from the Hebrides. This man had gone to Eiriksfjord for the winter, as Eirik’s wife Thjodhild had asked for him. Herjolf said Thjodhild wanted him to talk to her about the new religion. My father was relieved. It had occurred to him that his own baptism might be a distinct drawback in Greenland. Eirik had not been the kind of man to appreciate new gods.

‘He still isn’t,’ said Herjolf, when Thorbjorn asked him about it. ‘But Thjodhild wants to hear about them all the time. It’s not a happy situation. But you’ll see for yourself. I think it would be safer if we didn’t discuss the matter here.’

My father might well consider changing his religion if it were expedient, but I wanted to make it clear that I wouldn’t. Not because I was deeply religious, I’m afraid, but because I despised my father, and that made me behave like a prig. ‘I hope to find Christians at Eiriksfjord,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’re sympathetic to them here.’

Herjolf ignored me, but Bjarni looked at me thoughtfully. When the others had gone to haul up my father’s ship to her winter berth, he called me over to him, and showed me an inscription burnt into the headboard above his bed. ‘Can you read that?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll recite it to you:

‘That’s what it says, as far as I remember. I’m not one of your Christians, but I respect the maker of that. He carved it for me before he went to Brattahlid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Thjodhild were convinced by what he says. But you’ll see.’

I got Bjarni to say the words until I knew them, and I’ve used them as a charm ever since. The best charms are just words. They’re easy to carry about, and on the whole you don’t lose them. I felt that Bjarni was my friend after that. I liked Herjolf too. He was a tolerant man, and a good master. He was under a great strain that winter, accepting that the fate of the whole settlement was his responsibility. He was convinced that the land was possessed by an evil spirit, and at Midwinter he sent for a woman in Thorkel’s household, who was known for her skill in witchcraft.

When the witch Thorbjorg came, I’ll admit that at first she made an impression on me. She certainly took to me. I think she wanted me to be like her. She was quite different from Halldis in that she liked to make a show of things, and I think she enjoyed the performance of what she did even more than she cared about the substance. But I couldn’t dismiss her. I wanted to, because I’d given my loyalty to a different faith, but I recognised what she was doing, and something in me responded to it. I performed my part just as well as she performed hers, and I was awed by the vision that she had.

I don’t want to describe anything to do with witchcraft here. It doesn’t belong in this sunlit cloister. The woman herself must be dead long since, and it all happened in another country. If I think about it I see things too much from her point of view, and I don’t want to.