B0046ZREEU EBOK (16 page)

They laid him on the deck, and as he’d ordered them, no one tried to staunch the wound or pull the arrow out, which would have ended it. He spoke to them in a whisper, for his lungs were filling with blood. ‘Get back to Leif’s houses, and get yourselves food for winter. In the spring go home to Brattahlid as fast as you can. As for me, I was right when I said that I had found the place I choose to dwell. Take me back there and bury me. Put a cross there, and tell my mother privately that you did so. And tell my father I died well.’

That was all Leif’s story. Thorvald’s crew had done just as he ordered, and were all safely back at Brattahlid. ‘Did Thorvald leave me no message?’ asked Thorstein.

‘No message to you or me,’ said Leif.

Thorstein stared into the fire. ‘He knew he need not,’ he said at last. ‘I shall follow him, Leif. I shall find the place he chose. I won’t leave him alone out there.’

‘You won’t move him?’ asked Leif startled.

Thorstein looked at Leif with strange unfocussed eyes. ‘Move him? What do you mean?’

‘Our mother wants him brought back here.’

‘Against his own wish?’

‘The priest told her that a soul is damned if it’s not buried in Christian ground.’

‘Then are all our ancestors damned?’ I asked.

They ignored me. ‘I agree it’s not practical,’ said Leif, ‘But that’s what she’s asking us to do.’

‘He didn’t ask for it,’ said Thorstein. ‘In fact he said he wanted to lie out there. But I’ll find him.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘Leif, you’ll give me your ship?’ Thorstein laid his hand on his brother’s knee, pleading. ‘I knew he wouldn’t come back. I knew it would end like this. I must be the one to go. You understand that?’

Leif looked at him thoughtfully. ‘To find Thorvald, or to find a new land?’

‘To find Thorvald’s place. It’s the same thing.’

Leif shook his head. ‘A loyal brother, and a born follower. Fair enough. I won’t give you my ship, but I’ll lend it. I’ll lend you Leif’s houses too, to over-winter. What will you do when you get to Thorvald’s place?’

‘He chose it for a settlement. I’ll do his will.’

‘And the savages?’

‘I won’t be taken by surprise.’

‘You’ll not live in peace until you’ve destroyed them.’

‘Then I shall destroy them. You said a couple of small clearings? That won’t be hard.’

‘Take care, Thorstein, fates have sharp ears.’

I thought the same, and crossed myself.

‘A settlement?’ went on Leif. ‘It’s a long way, you know.’

‘You’re the one to say that? You built Leif’s houses!’

‘As a trading post.’ Leif was frowning. ‘I’m not sure it’s a world for men to live in.’

Thorstein turned on him. ‘Thorvald meant to live there! The truth is you don’t want anyone to have it but yourself.’

‘No.’ Leif was the only one of that family to be even-tempered, and it was just as well. ‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘What I have I share with my family. But I don’t want to lose both my brothers.’

‘What did you mean by saying I was a born follower?’

‘I meant well,’ said Leif, ‘Thorstein, don’t quarrel with me. I’m lending you my ship and my houses. Isn’t that enough for you? If you didn’t want them I’d be using them myself. I’ve every right to do that. Your luck’s in your own hands; I’m just saying you should think about it.’

Thorstein turned suddenly to me. ‘Gudrid, this farm of your
father’s has kept us both well enough. It’s my turn now. Will you come with me to a new country?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said at once, because I realised all at once that this had always been my destiny. ‘Of course I will.’

Until I met Karlsefni, an evil fate pursued me whenever I put to sea. Why I should be punished more than anyone else for daring to trust myself to wind and water I don’t know. I think it must have been written in my fate before I was born that I should be a creature of the land. The cruellest part of my bad luck was that it was never fatal to me, only to those I loved. That was why I was so reluctant to go with Karlsefni at first. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with him, quite the opposite. I was frightened that if we trusted ourselves to the sea, where more than anywhere else one is in the hands of stronger powers, he would be lost to me. I never doubted that he was the best thing for me; I was just terrified that I should be the worst thing for him. But Karlsefni said that his good luck would overcome my bad fate, and that from now on the curse of a hostile sea would be lifted from me. I was afraid his confidence would tempt a vengeful ghost, but he was right. I never suffered at sea again, nor did those I loved, after I was with him. And that wasn’t due to any action on my part. I have some skill in unseen things, as you know, but I have my limitations, and the shores of land are one of them. I have no power over the sea, or anything that belongs to it.

But I’m running ahead of my story. Thorstein had Leif’s ship thoroughly refitted that winter. It needed a lot of work done on it, after a three-year voyage. That meant we spent a lot of time at Brattahlid. Luckily the ice was thick that year, and soon we had a sledge track as wide as a Roman road running straight from Stokkanes to Eirik’s boat shed. I forgot to tell you, by this time Thjodhild had built her church. It was small, just about four paces each way; the turf walls were almost
as wide as the space inside. It was aligned so that the altar faced east, because Herjolf’s thrall had said that churches in Europe must always be built this way to face Jerusalem. That meant it was the only building in Brattahlid whose door didn’t face down the fjord. Instead, you came out and saw the waterfall where the river flowed into the settlement over a little crag. Thjodhild said that was suitable – the water of baptism, of life, is supposed to be at the entrance of every church. When we had our mass we’d leave the door open if the weather was good, to have daylight, and the sound of water would accompany the priest’s chant. The church was tucked away behind the byre so Eirik couldn’t see it from the house: Thjodhild did her best to be tactful, like all that family, just so long as she got her own way in everything. She tried to keep Leif’s Norwegian priest out of Eirik’s way too, but as the man had to eat, that was more difficult.

And now she wanted Thorstein to bring back Thorvald’s body to be buried in consecrated ground, for the saving of his soul. Eirik said that was nonsense, and his son should lie in peace in the place he himself had chosen. ‘What greater honour can any man have,’ he demanded, ‘than to be able to claim a new country, a land flowing with wine and honey? Isn’t Thorvald’s grave a greater monument to his deeds than the largest burial mound ever raised? What man needs his wealth buried with him if he lies in his own country where riches lie all around him for the picking?’

‘I’m not talking about worldly things,’ said Thjodhild. ‘He was my son and I want to make sure of his salvation.’

‘You won’t do anything for him by meddling with his corpse. Be thankful Thorvald had no cause to do other than lie still where he’s laid. Aren’t there enough ghosts walking this world without you digging more up?’

‘They’re the ghosts of a heathen country. If you would listen to me there need be no more ghosts in Greenland.’

She kept trying to talk to him about her faith, and always in the end he’d resort to blasphemy, as she saw it. He’d use the name of Christ to swear by, just as we used to do with the old gods. Now men do it all the time, and it’s hard to remember the effect it had on me when Eirik first used it as a way of silencing his wife’s arguments. He succeeded, because she was afraid he would damn himself if she
provoked him to go on. In the end she said as little as possible, but she had her church. What’s more, she wouldn’t sleep with Eirik any more, because he was a heathen. I don’t know if he was more angry about her refusal, or that she told other people, so everyone, even the thralls, knew that he couldn’t have sex with his own wife. He retaliated by being unfaithful to her at every opportunity, which was easy enough, because none of the thralls would have said no to him.

I suppose they were both grieving for Thorvald in their own ways. Families are like that. You think there is a pattern to the way people behave, that they will do certain things in what is supposed to be a normal way. But I have never got to know any household well, where I didn’t find quite soon that they don’t keep to the pattern. Everything they do is peculiar, and in fact one is forced to conclude in the end that the pattern doesn’t exist. I’ve never met a family that behaved normally. Have you?

Yes, it must make you long for what you haven’t experienced. My sons are both strong men now, much tougher, you’d think, than a churchman like yourself. We didn’t have them fostered, but kept them with us at home. I was happy with my foster parents, as you know, but living in a monastery must be very different. Of course, you’ve never lived in the same house with a woman since you were ten. Well, naturally it’s hard for me to imagine that. Did you wonder about women a lot when you were growing up?

That’s true. Girls are much harder to deal with generally, but as far as I can make out boys of that age never think about anything except sex.

All right then, hardly ever.

Yes, I suppose that’s bound to happen. I don’t think it’s natural. If I were you, Agnar, I would go back to Iceland, where there are souls that need you, and I’d get a farm and get married. I don’t suppose you want advice; no one ever does, but perhaps one day you’ll remember what I said. Now, where were we?

Oh yes, that wicked voyage. Thorstein and I intended to sail first to the western settlement, which should have taken a few days. It was the part of the journey he knew very well, because he went there every year on his way north. He’d claimed land in the western settlement too, a farm called Sandnes, which he’d put in the charge of tenants.

At the foot of Eiriksfjord we put in at Dyrnes. Snorri Thorbrandsson was still living there, opposite Eirik’s island and the old winter camp. We were feasted there the first night. I woke early next morning and followed a path made by fishermen along the shore of the fjord. Black crags towered over me, but I was walking through sweet young grass. I stopped by a stream bordered by celandines and river beauty, and looked down into water clear as air. I looked at the path under my feet, and I thought, ‘This path is twelve years old. That’s how old we are in this country. And this place, lovely as it is to my eyes, has been here since the nine worlds were made. From the beginning of time it has been like this for the glory of God alone.’ Our world is made out of the empty places, Agnar, and we’ll never touch anything but the fringes of the unknown. That seems to prove to me that it wasn’t made for us.

What you say is true, but Eden was a garden with walls built around it. Adam never laid eyes on the vastness of the worlds. He never named what has not been seen and known. That’s what your theologians in Rome don’t see. They can’t look out of the world from here; they don’t know how small we are.

We sailed on down Breidafjord, where the ice was still very thick, so we thought we might have to go back and wait longer. But we did find a passage to the open sea, and then Thorstein steered us west by a complicated route sheltered by many low-lying islands. The ice wasn’t nearly as bad here. The water was calm and black, and in the distance we could see mountains like dog’s teeth, and to our north the ice desert that covers the heart of the Green Land. Thorstein and his men were confident and full of hope, and gradually I began to relax. I’d never said so, but I’d been afraid of going back to sea. For a woman who stays at home among the Greenland fjords it’s easy not to remember, whereas at Snaefelsnes you have the reality in front of you all the time. I had no excuse – I, of all people, shouldn’t have forgotten. And yet when we first came out west of Greenland the sea was benign: there was nothing but a great openness, the silvery light of the north, and icebergs as white as froth on cream. That’s how I remember those seas most often now: the distance and the vast light.

The west coast of Greenland is a different world from Eirik’s country. The mountain that marks Thorstein’s channel through the islands is made like four trolls standing in a circle, and afterwards I saw that as a warning. We came into a heavy swell and turned north, along the most inhospitable coast I’d ever seen, just ice and bare mountains, as if God had abandoned this place on the fourth day. There was a moon, so when night came we kept on sailing. I lay down under the awning, wrapped in my fur sleeping bag, and slept.

I woke to tempest. We were pitching wildly, and I couldn’t feel any rhythm to it. It was so dark I thought I hadn’t opened my eyes, but I had. I put out my hands and felt wet fur, but no one was there. The ship bucketed so I couldn’t move. Water washed over the planks round me. I lay where I was until a faint light began to show, and, holding on tight, I got to the edge of the awning. I was drenched at once. I couldn’t see anything but water. Then I saw the men, and made out Thorstein at the steerboard. I couldn’t get to him. It was all I could do to carry on with life, to reach food or drink or the bucket, and I would think about each thing that must be done for hours before I did it. It was like that not just a day, but weeks. I can hardly imagine it now. You survive by inhabiting your body as little as
possible, like a bear in winter. Your soul is in abeyance. I barely exchanged a sentence with Thorstein in all that time. He held me in the brief watches when he snatched some rest, but speaking was too difficult.

God knows where we got to. We had two cows with us, and a few sheep. Thorstein had been planning to get enough stock for Vinland from his farm at Sandnes. The beasts died of exposure quite early on, but already there was very little water left for us. If we hadn’t had rainwater we would have died too. I would rather die of anything than thirst.

When there were storms it seemed we must founder, and when there was a lull in the weather we did our best to sail on, but as we were lost to direction, and had no way of steering a straight course, I’ve no idea whether we made headway in any direction at all. At sea nothing is where you think it is, and out in the greyness dwell unimaginable things. Sometimes if you stare hard into the mist you half see them. The worse your sufferings are, the plainer they get. They’re like carrion crows waiting for the battle to be over, only it’s not just your flesh they’re waiting to feast on, it’s your soul too. People say that the drowned can’t enter heaven. I don’t know what you think about that. I think about it every time I pray, and I ask, if that is really so, whether Christ who stilled the storm might find it in his heart to change the order of things. Perhaps he can’t; there are things that live in the western seas which he never encountered in Galilee.