B0046ZREEU EBOK (22 page)

You must understand, Agnar, that the plan was to make a trading post in Vinland, not a farm. None of us wanted to settle permanently so far out of the world, at least, not until the trade was coming, and then the place might attract settlers. Leif and Karlsefni wanted to make sure of their own rule in the new country before they encouraged anyone else. So we were to build up Leif’s houses into a winter settlement that could be a base for all future expeditions. It lay at the gateway of Vinland, which we assumed went on south until it joined with Africa, round the circle of the world. With the resources of such a country behind us, we could supply Greenland with timber for ships, and if the hunting was as good as in Greenland, we could have furs and ivory for Norway too. Leif was obsessed by the possibilities of making wine, though I sensed that Karlsefni was sceptical. He hadn’t tasted the Vinland wine as we had.

So Karlsefni committed himself to Greenland in a way he’d never foreseen when he arrived. I couldn’t answer all his questions about my estate at Sandnes, and he was wary of talking to Leif about that; it wouldn’t have been tactful to show much interest in the property that had once been Thorstein’s. But I know he had plans for it, situated as it was so conveniently on the Vinland route. I didn’t like that; in my mind Sandnes was still Thorstein’s, and I felt protective of the past when Karlsefni talked about it. Sandnes and Thorstein – that was the core of the matter. But I’m tired. I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

The most fickle places are at the edge of the earth, where a way can be impassible one year, and wide open the next. Not only that, but you’re not allowed to believe it could ever have been different. My second journey to the Western Settlement was all sun and wind and sparkling light. We left Brattahlid first; the arrangement was that we’d rendezvous with Snorri at the mouth of Lysufjord in three weeks’ time. The sea was dark blue, the icebergs gleamed like jewels, and a fresh following wind whipped the crests off the waves and filled our sail. On land the mountains looked as if they’d been scoured, and the precipices cast purple shadows that moved round slowly as the long days passed. Lysufjord was blue and innocent. We passed Thorstein the Black’s farm, a snug steading on an open slope that looked as if it had never known a winter since the world began. In a sudden pearl-grey calm we moored off Sandnes, and the smell of spring lapped us round.

My tenant at Sandnes was a man called Helgi, but it was his wife Sigrid who was in charge of things. She seemed glad to see me, especially as when we rode over the farm I could only praise the work that had been done. The cattle were out eating the new grass, and seemed robust already. We rode inland to the sheep pastures, where the bleating of new lambs competed with the rapids of a swollen river lined with withies. Karlsefni rode behind us, taking in everything, while I questioned Sigrid and Helgi; I could tell he was satisfied.

We chose sheep and cattle and a couple of ponies to take with us, and enough food for the rest of our voyage. In the space they were to
occupy we’d brought Norwegian goods, which Snorri and the crew had unloaded while we were out. It pleased me to watch Sigrid look into the barrel and the sealskin sacks that were for her use. I’ve always liked watching people receive my gifts. Sigrid put her hand into the grain sack and ran the golden stuff through her fingers, and Helgi weighed the nuggets of iron in his hands, and smiled. Karlsefni gave them instructions about trading the rest of his goods for furs and ivory, to be stored at the farm until we came back. When Sigrid realised we intended to leave so soon for Vinland she was distressed, and took my hand, patting and stroking it. No one mentioned Thorstein, but these people knew him well, and used to look for his ship every year at just this time.

That night I dreamed that the door of the house was flung open, and my husband Thorstein and Grimhild the wife of Thorstein the Black pushed their way into the hearth, throwing aside Sigrid’s spindle and the chessboard to make room for themselves. I screamed, and sat up. There was a crash from the fireside, and Karlsefni was out of bed, grabbing his knife from under the pillow. Something moved across the room towards him. The fire glowed in the draught from the open door, and then a turf was taken off it, and a lamp flickered into life. I saw a huge shadow on the wall, but before I screamed again I realised it was Karlsefni standing by the hearth in his shirt holding the lamp high. The light fell on a white face, and I recognised Helgi. Helgi pointed with his sword to something by the hearth, and Karlsefni lowered the lamp. The big soapstone pot which had held our meat at supper was broken into three pieces.

The second night I had the dream again, and that time the big chest in the corner was thrown open, its lock broken, and winter clothes from it were left smouldering over the smoored fire.

On the third night Karlsefni didn’t come to bed but sat by the fire, his drawn sword across his knees, and the lamp burning on the bench beside him. Helgi waited with him. I would have sat up too, but Karlsefni ordered me to sleep, which to my surprise I did, almost as soon as I lay down. Afterwards he told me he’d given me poppy seed, because he had to make sure of the dream.

That night the dream was worst of all. When the door flew open it
wasn’t just Thorstein and Grimhild who thrust their way in, but everyone who’d died among us that winter. I saw them fall upon the living men, and when I woke up there was nobody beside me. I saw the lamp burning by an empty hearth, and the fire scattered in glowing embers across the room. Sigrid was crying when she came over to my bed to find me. I couldn’t move, and it seemed so long before the men came back, and when they did, they were soaked through from the rain. They’d followed the taunts and footsteps through the dark, but it had been as hopeless as following the wind.

Sigrid wept again next morning, and said we needed a priest to sprinkle holy water, but the nearest priest was far away at Brattahlid. ‘Nothing like this ever happened here before,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s been a good place. We’ve been happy here.’

‘And shall be,’ said Karlsefni. He sat at the hearth all that morning, frowning into the fire, while the rain beat down outside. Then, when we’d had our meal, and the crew and thralls had been sent to work, he called the four of us together. ‘Sigrid and Helgi,’ he said, ‘you were friends of my wife’s first husband Thorstein. I want you to listen, and see now that justice is done. Gudrid,’ he turned to me, ‘the ghost of Thorstein never came here before, although this was his farm. Why do you think he’s coming to claim the place now?’

Tears were running down my face; I couldn’t help it. ‘He was never my enemy,’ I said. ‘I loved him. I don’t want to hurt him now.’

‘So what do you want for him?’

‘To rest in peace,’ I answered, and tried not to sob aloud.

‘Very well.’ Karlsefni stood up, and led me outside, and the others followed. We all stood facing the house door, and the rain drove against our backs. ‘We don’t have any spiritual powers,’ Karlsefni told us, ‘but we all have the authority of our own laws. This is my house, it belongs to the living, and the dead are trespassers here.’ He raised his voice, and called into the empty room. ‘Thorstein Eirik’s son, you no longer have any rights here. I summons you for trespass in the house of the living. Come out!’

Although we’d left the house warm the wind that blew out of it then was as dank as an open grave, and the door banged outward,
wrenching its hinges. Sigrid screamed, and clung to Helgi. Helgi drew his sword.

Karlsefni didn’t flinch. ‘Thorstein Eirik’s son, and all those you’ve brought here with you, listen to your judgement!’ He pulled me to him. ‘Go on, Gudrid. Judge!’

I don’t know if he could see, but I could. I saw Thorstein, with the earth of the grave staining his shroud, his eye sockets empty, and white bones showing through his parched skin. I saw Grimhild beside him, her skin yellow and shrivelled on the bone, and I saw all the dead gathered behind them, between us and the house door, more than I could count.

My legs seemed not to hold me, and I fell back against Karlsefni. He held me against him hard, but he made me face them.

‘Gudrid, they’ve obeyed my summons. They stand to be judged.’

I looked into the dark holes that had been Thorstein’s eyes, and they seemed to draw me, so I felt I would fall in and drown. I tried to draw breath but my throat was too tight.

‘Judge, Gudrid, judge!’

I made myself stand upright, Karlsefni behind me, and I wrenched my eyes away from the empty eyes of the dead, and I whispered, ‘You must go now to the place prepared for you. You must go forever and not come back. And may you rest in peace.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sigrid cross herself, and I made a cross too, not on myself, but in front of me, for the ones on the other side. They bowed their heads, resigned, and slowly they began to slip away.

Thorstein was the last. He drifted past so close to me I could have put out my hand and touched him. I knew I must not, and so I let him go.

There was nothing now between us and the house door. I turned and flung my arms around my husband’s neck, and sobbed as if my heart were broken. He brought me in out of the rain through to the privacy of our bed place. He held me in his arms and told me again and again that he loved me, until I was calm, and ashamed of the fuss that I was causing. Of course I never said so to him, ever, but while I was still crying I could feel that he was trembling. On ordinary occasions he had no patience at all with women’s tears, and he used to
walk out of the room at the smallest threat of them. Not that I caused him trouble that way; I’m not given to weeping. But I never forgot what he did for me that day, and I never held anything back from him that I could give, ever after. 

We’d better work hard today to make up for yesterday. But I enjoyed our talk, and surely we’re allowed to relax sometimes. The story grows, doesn’t it? You’ve nearly covered that roll of vellum, and soon you’ll get to the stick. Can I look while you write?

It’s strange to think that any man who can read could look at that and hear my story, just the way I’ve told it to you.

No, and he wouldn’t see me standing here looking over your shoulder either, and he wouldn’t smell the cypress and the cooking smells, or see that hen pecking in and out over the kitchen doorstep. Come to think of it, he might be somewhere completely different, in another country even, or another time of year. He might be sitting in a cold scriptorium with woollen mittens on to keep his hands warm, and the snow swirling outside. He might not be able to imagine how we sat here in the courtyard with the sun so high in the sky that the cloister hardly seemed to cast a shadow. He certainly wouldn’t be able to share these walnuts with us – have another, take a handful – it must be a strange experience to be a man reading a book. How do you manage without a voice to guide you? How do you know who’s talking? Where would you look while you imagine everything? Do
you have to look at the writing all the time, just the black and white? How do you see pictures in your mind when you’re doing that?

Yes, I suppose wise men in Italy have gone thoroughly into all these questions.

What, different colours? Like the pictures on a church wall? Or more like weaving?

I didn’t know that. I never knew a book could be beautiful. Does it take the monks a very long time? Do you know how to do it?

For the glory of God. Yes, I understand. Agnar, if one were a woman, if one were never able to enter a scriptorium, or stand at the lectern in the Cathedral – is there any way – would it be at all suitable – that one might have a look at one of these books?

Would you? Would you ask him? I’d be so grateful. Yes, I’d like it very much. It would be something entirely new.

So where were we? I never saw Eirik Raudi again, Agnar. He’d been dead two years when we came home. He was a lawless, dangerous man when I first knew him, but he came into his own. He meant more, in his outpost of the world, than the Holy Roman Emperor means here. He wasn’t just an idea, shrouded in majesty and politics. He was a man, and we all knew him. He wasn’t good. He was violent, partial and overbearing. Men were attracted to him because he was
brave. He seemed to be generous, but the advantage was always on his side in the end. He made a country for men out of the wilderness beyond the end of the world, and I suppose his descendants will live in it now until time ends, and so the world is left a little larger than it was before.

I ought to explain the sailing directions for Vinland. We had to start from the Western Settlement to pick up the prevailing wind down the far coast. From Lysufjord we sailed west until we raised the high mountains of Helluland. Then we kept the new coast in sight to starboard, and followed it south until rock and glacier gave way to forest. The landmark we had to watch for was a sandy beach so long and white that Leif named it Furdustrands. It had a distinctive headland halfway along it shaped like a keel, that we called Keelsnes. From there it was a day’s sail to a place where the coast began to fall away to the west. Then we had to look out for a high island to the south-west, so it was important to have good visibility after Keelsnes. Thorvald and his men had camped there for days waiting for the fog to lift. Once we got to the island, which was called Bjarney because Leif’s party killed a white bear there, the coast of Vinland was visible to the south on a clear day.