Authors: Margaret Elphinstone
I still hate being wet. You know what it’s like on a long voyage, when you’re wet to your skin, so the wind gets through, and your clothes are heavy and chafe you, and you get sores round your neck and sleeves where the cloth rubs, and when you wrap yourself in your cloak at night you hear the water running down the deck round you, and your clothes squelch every time you try to turn over? I hate it as much as the animals do, and you can see how they suffer.
So the weeks of summer passed, and finally we got a bearing, and headed west, where Thorstein reckoned there must eventually be a coast. He thought we might make a landfall in Vinland, or in Africa, but the cloud came down again, and when we could get a bearing at
last we had come far to the north again. When we did finally raise a coast the first thing we saw was icy mountains and glaciers falling to the sea. We came further in, and then one of the crew, who had sailed with Leif, called out, ‘That’s the Green Land! That’s home! We’re south of Gunnbjorn’s skerries.’
And so we followed the coast round at last to the western settlement. We passed the entrance to Eiriksfjord, and we could have gone home, but Thorstein wouldn’t have it. He was thinking of the shame he’d face, coming home without anything to show for it at all. So he forced the men to press on, and so we beat slowly up that wild west coast, with the wind as fickle as the fate that followed us. The weather wasn’t done with us yet. We sailed into thick fog, and we could feel the cold of ice to the east of us. Thorstein said this was the most exposed part of the coast, where the ice desert meets the sea. We sailed blind through fog and yeasty sea, but the wind held, and so we kept our direction. Though there was a big swell, it was regular, and I could stand up and stare into the fog, instead of just holding on in the belly of the ship. In two days we reached the entrance to Lysufjord, where Thorstein’s farm lay at the very head of the fjord. The wind was dead against us, threatening to blow us out to sea again, but Thorstein knew the currents, so we beat to and fro, pitching nastily while we waited for the tide. So he got us into the fjord, and for a day and a night we did our best to beat up it, only the wind was against us, and the rising seas were tossing the icebergs to and fro. At last we sighted a steading on the north shore, a little patch of green under crags, and there we went ashore.
We made a hard landing on stones. There was a hideous grinding and the ship stopped with a jerk. Our hull was damaged just where the bow bellies out into the body of the ship. For the first time in all our troubles Thorstein was visibly upset. It meant that we were stranded here, halfway down the fjord, with our own farm, promising hot food and water and shelter, only a couple of hours’ journey away. It was only a week till winter, and a thin fringe of ice was already forming along the shore.
It wasn’t Thorstein’s fault. The curse that dogged our ship was mine. He should never have married me. I meant to be the best
possible wife to him, and in the end I destroyed him. During those weeks at sea I grew to respect him more than I’d ever done in our lives at Stokkanes. I told you I’d never seen him as he really was. Thorstein came alive, I believe, on those hunting trips up north, and men still tell stories of his adventures there. If he could have had a ship sooner, he would have been as great a sailor as his brothers. As it was, he only knew the coast up to the western settlement and the hunting grounds, and the only long voyage he tried to make was doomed. He was a good captain. He ate and drank no more than his men, and as his wife I got no privileges either, which I think was right. He made them go on, for his pride’s sake, and again I think he was right. He had to prove who he was before he went home to his father and brother. He didn’t care if it killed him; he wouldn’t be shamed.
He never complained or confided in me. Sometimes he would crawl into our wet sleeping bag when we were hove to in the dark, and make love to me, briefly and painfully, squashing me between his weight and the hard planks under the flattened layer of hay. I can’t say I got any pleasure out of it, but perhaps it helped him through. I don’t know if it occurred to him that our bad luck might be my fault. Of course he knew I’d been aboard an unlucky ship before, but he’d never mentioned it. I know he badly wanted a son. I don’t know if that’s why we always made love so regularly, or whether his body just needed it. In the daytime he was respectful to me, but he wasn’t one for saying how he felt. I think he’d got used to me, and relied on me for small things more than he knew. Once he was accustomed to having a wife, she wasn’t really the sort of thing he thought about any more. But I liked him, and I did my best to give him what he wanted. I never meant to do him harm, and now in my prayers I do my best to atone for it every day. Do you think that if a soul is ignorant of the harm they do, it makes them less guilty?
* * * * *
I’m glad you told me the truth, Agnar. I know you’d like to give me a kinder answer, and if you did I wouldn’t believe you. You’re a good priest. I hope you’ll go back to Iceland one day. You’d be of use. But
Thorstein. My poor Thorstein. Let me tell you the end of it, and then you’ll know all my guilt.
It wasn’t a part of the settlement that Thorstein knew well, and the people living near the coast were poor outlanders. They were friendly to us, and took the crew into their houses. In answer to Thorstein’s questions, they said that the head man of the place was a man called Thorstein the Black, but he lived half a day’s journey by pony up the fjord. Thorstein sent a couple of men to tell him of our arrival. Meanwhile, he would not leave his ship, as he was worried the poor folk living close by might plunder our belongings in his absence. We had a lot of valuables – at least, they were valuables in Greenland – iron tools for boatbuilding and smithying and carpentry, plenty of weapons, and barrels of whey and oil. So he and I made a tent for ourselves out of sailcloth, and camped on the ship where she lay hauled up on the beach.
We spent three days there. It was the only time we were ever alone together. Our sail sheltered us from wind and rain, and there was a stream of fresh water nearby where we drank and drank. No holy water blessed by saints could have seemed a greater miracle. We washed the salt out of our clothes, and back on the ship we hung them all around us, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could without a fire. Now we had enough to drink we were ravenously hungry. The second morning one of our men killed a seal, and brought us fresh meat that they’d cooked in one of the huts. The first night hard rain blew over us, but at least we had land under our backs. On the third morning it stopped raining, and we managed to light a fire outside and cook our own meat, so we ate hot food for the first time since the spring. I shall never forget eating that hot fresh seal meat, with the fat pouring off it. We went on eating all that day, the juice dripping down our faces, until we just could not swallow any more. Dusk fell early, clear and cold, with a million stars shining down on us. We made each other warm, huddled in our damp cloaks. Thorstein was in good spirits again, in spite of everything. He had saved his ship and his men. We could over-winter in this place, and next year was another season. He had no more to say about good luck than about bad, but he was obviously feeling better. He was never idle for long,
even when he was exhausted, and already he’d started cutting a patch for the broken hull, and heating seal oil over the fire to proof it. I remember him standing over the fire, working with that intense concentration he had for every job he did. I watched him, and wished, as I had never properly wished before, that I could give him a son. I never did anything about it. Perhaps I had learned too well from Halldis to simply accept what was given, or with held. I certainly knew charms enough, and I’ve used them too, for others, but it wasn’t until that day in our tent that I ever thought I owed it to Thorstein to make a child come, and by then it was already too late.
Obviously we couldn’t stay in our shelter for long, now the year had turned, but I don’t think either of us was impatient for a message. I remember we were both unsteady on our feet after so long at sea, and that made us clumsy in the small shelter we had. If Thorstein had sailed as much as Leif, he would have been used to it, and got his balance back again the first day. It’s always worse in a small space, and the first day we hardly went out except to lash down our sail-tent when it needed it. On the fourth morning the ground was white with frost, and ice crackled in the small waves that broke on the beach below us.
The ground was so hard that we heard the thudding of hooves before we saw the horses coming. We looked over the gunwale: there was a herd of ponies, three of them ridden, circling across the meadowland towards us. There was no sign of any of our own men. Thorstein frowned. ‘Get back inside,’ he said, and took down his bow, and notched an arrow to the string. He didn’t aim, but held it just out of sight, inside the gunwale of the ship.
From inside our tent I heard the horses come alongside, and halt. ‘Who’s there?’ cried a voice.
‘Two people,’ said Thorstein. ‘Who asks?’
‘I’m Thorstein the Black, the chieftain of this settlement. And you are Thorstein who owns Sandnes. I know that, because you sent me a message. You won’t repair your ship in time to reach Sandnes now. I’ve come to invite you and your wife to spend the winter with me as my guests.’
Thorstein glanced at me, where I crouched under the sailcloth, and
raised his brows. I nodded. Thorstein laid down his bow where it could not be seen, and stood up. ‘We’re glad to accept,’ he said. ‘But I don’t like to leave my ship and cargo undefended here.’
‘Your ship will be safe enough, if we lash her down for winter, and build a shelter. You can reach her from my farm if you need to work on her. I can send over a cart tomorrow, if you like, and you can bring your cargo back to my house, and store it there.’
‘I’d be grateful,’ said Thorstein curtly. I stood up beside him then, and saw Thorstein the Black for the first time. He was a big dark man, with matted black hair and a thick beard. His hood was thrown back, and his leather-patched cloak unfastened, showing a greasy leather tunic underneath. He was fat and unkempt compared to the men at Brattahlid, but he looked powerful for all that, and well-armed, with a sword dangling by his side, and an unsheathed dagger stuck in his belt. I looked him over thoughtfully as I added my thanks to Thorstein’s. ‘May God bless you for your generosity,’ I said to him, and his thick brows snapped together in a frown, but then he laughed at me.
‘Which god is that?’ he said. ‘I’ve been hearing rumours about that sort of thing. Well, we’re of the old faith here. No doubt your god is a better one than mine, but don’t bother to tell me about it. You’ll stay then until the cart comes tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ said Thorstein, ‘We’ll stay here.’
‘I’ll be back tomorrow then.’ Thorstein the Black made as if to go, and the horses plunged forward. Then he reined in his own pony, and added, ‘Don’t expect much, mind you. There’s only my wife and myself, and I’m not much company. It’ll be a dull winter.’
Thorstein smiled for the first time. ‘Better dull than dead.’
‘You may not think so by springtime.’
And that’s how we came to the house of Thorstein the Black. I never guessed for one moment, though I often have hunches about these things, what a friend that man would become. I was repelled by his looks when I first saw him. He was a great, gross man, and he made no concessions to anybody. He smelt, and his house smelt, and whatever fleas we brought with us were soon outnumbered and overcome by the most virulent insects I ever lived amongst in all my
life. Everything in that house was greasy from the cooking, because Thorstein the Black liked his meat boiled for hours with the blubber on it, and certainly in those northern parts fat gives you warmth for the long winter. Hunks of meat lay about inside the house, and tubs of fermented buttermilk. Thorstein’s wife was big like he was, a great tough woman who made me think of a troll wife. But I was soon ashamed of thinking that. They were kind to us, and shared everything they had. Thorstein the Black and my Thorstein packed away our cargo safely in the barn.
Grimhild, Thorstein’s wife, gave us the bed space next to theirs. Grimhild and Thorstein the Black together snored more loudly than the whole crew of our own men all asleep at once. Thorstein and I lay in a dry bed for the first time in months, and had barely settled ourselves when the snoring began. Thorstein had me in his arms, but he stopped what he was doing and listened, astounded. Then he began to laugh. He was never one for jokes, Thorstein; he just got on with things, and let others mess around with words and games. But that snoring set him off laughing, when I’d had no idea that anything ever could. He couldn’t control it, and he had to bury his face in my shoulder and pull the covers over his head to keep quiet. I could feel him shaking all over with suppressed giggles, just like a foolish girl.
‘Thorstein, stop it!’ I whispered, though I was laughing too, it was so infectious. ‘Stop it! You’ll wake them!’
But he couldn’t stop. ‘Listen,’ he gasped. ‘Just listen. Did you ever hear anything like it!’
Poor Thorstein. The fleas in that bed were huge. He’d catch them and crack them between his nails. ‘It’s worth it,’ he said grinning, ‘to be dry again.’ And as if to celebrate, he took off all his clothes, and made me take off mine, and we lay there skin to skin, just as we used to do at home in Stokkanes. He made love to me without a word, as usual, but when he had done he whispered, ‘Things will go better now, Gudrid, won’t they?’ When I said yes, he believed me, because, although he never talked about it, he respected my knowledge of what to him was quite unknown.
We had hardly been in our new lodging for a week when a man called Gardi, who was the overseer of one of Thorstein the Black’s
farms, was taken ill. People thought he’d been cursed, as he was a hard man, and unpopular with the thralls. So, thinking it was a spell, no one worried too much. He was dead within a week. But then others began to sicken, and then a message came that two of our own crew were ill. Thorstein borrowed a pony and went to see them at once. Thorstein the Black frowned, and sat at home chewing his fingernails. ‘We had sickness here last winter,’ he said. ‘I hope for the sake of your gods and mine it’s not still going about.’