Authors: Margaret Elphinstone
Vinland. Do you know how important a ship is, Agnar? You don’t, because you’ve not been in Vinland. Norway is the place where ships are made. Of course you know that. A ship in Vinland is as little as a needle, and without it there is no following the thin thread back again across the world. When spring came the first year in Vinland, my baby was five months old, and you could see he was taking a firmer hold on life, as babies do when they start to eat solid food, and so I was beginning to dare to realise just how much I loved him. We were
very short of food. When the ice melted Karlsefni went straight back to Bjarney to collect eider ducks and eggs. Before he came back … But wait. I must tell you about the quarrel first.
It was the first day that the sun had a bit of warmth in it. The land was still snow-dappled, with patches of flattened yellow grass. It was the light that drew me out. I took a sheepskin and sat on the bench on the south side of the house, blinking like a bear just woken from its winter sleep. It was so light I felt almost drunk with it, unfocussed, and not able to see very far. The yard was quiet, but I could hear voices from the beach, where the men had gone to haul the ships down from their winter shelter. Otherwise there was only the rushing of the unfrozen stream, swollen with meltwater, flowing at my feet. I was glad to be alone, and rejoicing in forgotten warmth. I was feeding my baby, and I could feel the heat of the sun on my breast. I pulled back my shawl so I could get more of it, and I leaned back and shut my eyes. I could see the red blood in my eyelids against the sun, and I could feel my baby suckling, and everything else seemed dreamlike and far away. The sound of water wove itself into my thoughts, dissolving them into incoherence, like the moment when you realise you are falling into sleep.
The fates look down at Leif’s houses, and they find the people they have been waiting for all winter. As the fates spin, a triangle is woven, a tight thread binding the three who unsuspectingly move into their appointed places. Gudrid is there first, leaning back on the bench in the sunny spot at the south side of the house. Her eyes are shut, and her face is turned up to the sun. She is suckling her baby, and her tunic is unfastened and pulled away from her breasts, and underneath it her dress is undone to her waist. She pushes her shawl off her shoulders so she can feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. After the long winter it feels like a benediction. She spreads herself out to the sun, stretching out her legs and her free arm like a starfish, and she smiles as the heat touches her body, which has been cramped in the dark for a whole winter
.
Thorhall the Hunter arrives next. He has come down from the cairns on the hill. He has been up there for some time, and he has been watching the men on the beach slowly hauling Karlsefni’s ship down to the tideline
.
Every man is needed for the job, and Thorhall is the only one who has not been there. He has had matters of his own to consider. He reaches the smithy, and follows the line of the stream round to the house doors. But he stops suddenly on the bank, just to the south of Karlsefni’s house, arrested by the unexpected sight of Karlsefni’s wife. Gudrid is alone, apart from her infant, lying in the sun’s embrace as if she were in the arms of her lover, as unaware and vulnerable as he is ever likely to find her. Thorhall stands rigid, his gaze fixed upon her, like a wolf that has sighted its prey, and only waits for the rest of the pack in order to be ready for the kill
.
Thorfinn Karlsefni has seen his ship safely moored, and is on his way to the storehouse because he needs a coil of rope that he remembers putting there when the ship was laid up last autumn. His mind is entirely on rigging, when he reaches the top of the little hill by the smithy, and sees Thorhall the Hunter below him, poised as if he were about to strike. Puzzled and wary, Karlsefni looks the same way as Thorhall, and sees his wife, lying as he has only seen her do when he has made love to her at length, without letting her touch him back. It is not a thing he has often done, because the very notion of it was new to her when she married him, and she seldom lets it happen. It has been among his rarest and most private pleasures, being all the more piquant for having being entirely unshared and unguessed at by any other man
.
There came the sick thud of a blow and a shriek. I jumped up and the baby screamed. I couldn’t see; there were two men fighting just across the stream, but my eyes were all sunspotted. Then I heard Karlsefni: ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!’ Footsteps came from the yard and stampeded past me. The baby wailed furiously, then gradually I could see. Karlsefni was locked against Thorhall, with both hands round his throat. I saw Thorhall raise a knife to strike over Karlsefni’s shoulder, and I think I screamed a warning. Karlsefni twisted away just in time and seized Thorhall’s knife arm by the wrist. I watched the knife move in an arc as Thorhall forced his own arm down and Karlsefni strained against it. Karlsefni still had his other hand round Thorhall’s throat, but you can’t strangle a man one-handed, and Thorhall was trying to shake him off, but Karlsefni held on, like a dog at a bull. Then Thorhall wrenched his knife hand round, and at the
same moment Snorri came past me and leapt the stream, and grabbed Thorhall from behind, and the knife slid away into the water.
It took half a dozen men to force them apart. Thorhall shrugged and gave in, but Karlsefni still struggled to be at him, like a mad dog, until he realised that it was his own men he was fighting, and then he stopped, panting, and brushed the sweat out of his eyes. The baby was still screaming, and I was too shocked to move, and then before I could speak, Snorri was saying, ‘What is this? What is it?’, and Thorhall turned and looked at me, and I thought of the spell I had made, and the dream, and the blessing I had failed to ask, and I remembered that my tunic was undone and I pulled my shawl around me and fled into the house.
It was pitch dark inside, and I stumbled across the hall to the entrance of our room and felt my way to the bed, where I sat shaking, and holding the baby to me, rocking him and trying to comfort him. I didn’t know what had happened, but I recognised that look of Thorhall’s. It suggested … what? Complicity, something shared between us that should not be shared. I remembered how he’d met me coming off the hill. I remembered what Helga had told me about the men saying if there were to be women, they should be for all, and not men’s wives. I didn’t know what I’d done but I knew I was guilty. I hated the man and had not been able to stop myself dreaming about him. He haunted me, and I was afraid of him.
Karlsefni was angry with me; I knew that from the way he didn’t talk to me about what had happened, or tell me how it had been resolved. That night Thorhall was gone, with a few others, and it was Helga who told me they’d gone inland after caribou. Karlsefni sailed for Bjarney the next day. He had to; we were desperately in need of food. I was upset because he hardly spoke to me before he went, and frightened because he was away. Both feelings were quite new to me, and I resented them. I was scared Thorhall would get back first. Indeed he did, but I never saw him, and nor did Snorri. We all expected something to happen, but it never crossed our minds that Thorhall would do what he did.
Agnar, he took my father’s ship.
You don’t react. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand what that
meant? She was moored in the bay. The weather was calm. We kept no watch at night. Why should we, in that empty land? He came back at night, and he took the ship, and nine men went with him. Thorhall was never heard of again.
A rumour reached us at Glaumbaer years later that they’d been swept off course by the next westerly gale, and blown across the sea to Ireland, where those who’d survived were captured and sold into slavery. It was never confirmed. I don’t even know where it came from, or who brought it. As far as I’m concerned, there’s been no trace of Thorhall since the day he sneaked out of Vinland, taking my father’s ship with God knows what plan in his mind. I think he might have picked up a cargo of some sort in Vinland, and made for Europe. He wouldn’t have dared to go back to the Green Land, surely, after doing that, and even in Iceland his crime might have caught up with him.
* * * * *
What do you mean, what had he done? Have you still not understood? Oh you’d have understood all right, if you’d been standing on the shore that morning, looking out to where the ship should have been. Karlsefni came back three days later, far too late to pursue Thorhall, even if we’d known which way he’d gone. He still had his own ship, which could carry up to thirty people, and a cargo. There were forty-five of us, Agnar, and our animals. To carry that number on one ship, we’d have to be sure of a flat calm all the way. A flat calm, in those seas! Now do you understand?
Karlsefni didn’t even seem to be angry. It was Snorri this time who blustered with impotent rage. Karlsefni had a temper, as you know, but his anger was never impotent. If Thorhall had been there I think Karlsefni would have killed him, but with the bird flown, his mind turned at once to repairing the damage to the cage. We all crowded into our hall that night to decide what should be done. While the men who’d stayed behind cursed Thorhall and explained at length that his flitting was none of their fault, Karlsefni stared into the fire, saying nothing at all, and his attention seemed to be far away. When he stood up everyone fell silent.
‘It’s done now,’ he said. ‘We can all say where we should have been, and what we should have done. But if we’d thought about it, what choice had he? He knew I’d have killed him if I could. In fact I would have done before next winter, given the chance, because I couldn’t see any other way for us to go on living here. He’s solved that problem for us. Now we have to solve our own.
‘We can’t all go home without another ship. Then we must build one.’ He waited for the mutter of protest to die down, and went on. ‘It’s no use saying it’ll be difficult. Of course it will. This isn’t a Norwegian shipyard, I know that. But do we have any choice? We don’t, and you know it. Very well. You know what our plans were for the summer. We were going to take two ships south, and get a cargo out of Vinland, and sail home next spring. We can’t do that now. But I’ll sail south as I planned to do. Thorvald’s men said there were tall trees growing in the heart of Vinland, tall enough to carve out the keel of a ship. Don’t tell me what the problems are. I know. We can’t wait for the wood to season for long enough. Maybe we’ll find old wood already fallen. I don’t know. We’re not shipbuilders, but some of us have seen ships built. We’re short of iron; we’ll have to get more. It’s June now. I can sail at once. I shall sail into Vinland, and find the trees that we need. We have to cut them down and split them. We also have to find food, because we’ve no supplies to take with us. We won’t be back this summer. We’ll make a winter camp in Vinland. The rest of you must stay here at Leif’s houses and fish and hunt for yourselves. We’ll leave you the two small boats. You must get the smithy working and make as much iron as you can. We’ll come home as soon as we can the next summer, and in the winter we’ll build our ship.’
As soon as he stopped speaking everyone started shouting at once. Some said it was impossible, some said it was the only thing to do. People said two more winters in Vinland would be intolerable. Some said why not sail straight back to Greenland, and send another ship next year to fetch those left at Leif’s houses. Others argued that no one in their right mind would agree to be left behind. I knew that Karlsefni wouldn’t go without getting what he came for, and I waited to see how he’d handle them. I was right; he argued with them
patiently, and of course they had no real alternatives to offer. No one wanted to be left at Leif’s houses, wherever the ship went. Suppose, they said, as was all too likely, Karlsefni never came back? They’d be condemned to exile in Vinland as long as life lasted, or, as Karlsefni pointed out to them, until Leif came back again, as he might well do one day. Snorri added that his brother Thorleif still had a ship in Greenland, and would probably set out for Vinland himself if Snorri and Thorbrand didn’t come back in a year or two.
The argument went on far into the night, and Karlsefni let them all say what they wished. He knew there was only one conclusion to be reached, but he knew too that it mustn’t seem an arbitrary one. In particular, the lesser men who were to be left behind at Leif’s houses must feel that the whole plan had their consent, so that they would willingly play their part. Some thought Snorri should stay at Leif’s houses too, and take charge of things there, but Karlsefni objected, saying that Snorri knew more about shipbuilding than he did, and he wanted him to help find the right timber. What he did not say was that Snorri was his sworn friend, and if Snorri were to die in Vinland, Karlsefni would see that it was in action and not in a hopeless exile. He was only prepared to take that risk for men he didn’t care for. When he tried, Karlsefni could be as wily as Eirik, and there was no trace of anger in him now. I watched him deal with them, apparently ready to consider every point of view that was put before him, and in the end I saw how he got exactly what he wanted.
I was sorry to part from Helga, whose husband’s role at Leif’s houses was now a vital one. The other women stayed behind too, with their men. If anyone thought I should have remained with them, they never dared say so to Karlsefni, and I heard nothing about it. So that’s how it was that I put to sea again on a chilly June morning, with the sun rising over the hill behind us, and a cold half moon sinking into the grey seas ahead.
The heart of Vinland is old; the seasons have followed one another here since the world was made, but no time has passed; no one has measured the years that have gone by. No one knows the boundaries of this country; its shores stretch on and on, far into the south of the world, and no one has sailed to the end of them. And no one at all has travelled inland to the heart of the country. There is no way in.
For two months and more Karlsefni’s ship traces the shores of Vinland, and still the strange land leads them further on, offering no conclusions. They follow Straumfjord far to the west of Leif’s houses, and they find hills and rivers and islands, all thickly overgrown with trees, all empty and unnamed. They follow the southern coast of Straumfjord east again, and sail across a landlocked sea where headlands and islands loom unexpectedly out of the haze. When the swell tells them they are back in the open ocean they turn south-west and find another coast, and follow it far into the south until the night is not much shorter than the day. They reach a part of the coast where there are extensive sand dunes, offering some open ground between the forest and the sea. They come to a broad river flowing across the white sand into the sea. When they go ashore for water they find that the river flows out of a tidal lake, a Hop, where a ship could be taken in and moored at high tide. Nowhere could be more suitable for a winter camp, and when the green forest begins to be tinged with red and gold, they retrace their course to Hop.
Their choice is clearly blessed by a kind fate, for at the edge of the forest berries grow in abundance, and among them there are true grapes, blood-kin to the vines that make the wines of Europe. Not only that, but when
men follow the river inland, they find caribou trails crossing it, with hoofprints still fresh in the mud, and vanishing into the forest on either side. All that autumn the company feasts at night on fresh meat and raw grapes. They build huge camp fires to keep the mosquitoes away, because there is no shortage of wood here, and the nights stay fine and dry right up until Advent. The cattle graze on the dunes, and although there is no hay they are never short of fodder. After Yule the snow comes, but it does not lie for long, and there is more daylight than has ever been known in winter before. Spring comes early, and while there is still plenty of meat and fish hanging from the rafters of the huts, men are bringing in fresh food again every day. Meanwhile the grape juice ferments in the barrels, and all winter men have been carving new barrels out of Vinland timber, ready for an even larger harvest in the new year.
Now it is summer again, and the sun is higher in the sky than any of the newcomers have ever seen it in their lives before. It beats down on a double curve of white beach divided by grassy dunes. On the side facing the open sea waves curl and break; on the inner side the calm waters of a lagoon lap on wave-ribbed sands. Below the water-line the sand is firm and yellow; above it is white and powdery, scuffed by passing feet. The water in the lagoon is calm and clear as air. From the ship moored off the beach it is possible to look down through green sea, and see the ship’s shadow ripple over sand where small crabs scuttle over it.
The forest reaches to the dunes, and where the sea has licked away the sand trees have fallen, their trunks piled up like driftwood above the tideline, their spiky branches barring the way in. But there is a newly-made path along the river, hacked out this last winter through thorn bushes and creepers, among tree trunks as wide as a house, whose canopy seems to touch the sky. The forest is dim and full of noises. Strange birds call, and there are rustlings high above and in the undergrowth. Fish jump, making spreading ripples in the brown river. If a man turns from the dazzling river the forest is green and opaque, like looking into sea water, and if he turns from the forest to the light, it is like coming up from underwater into blinding air. It is always difficult to see properly, and with the trees there is no way to get the lie of the land. Snakes have been seen swimming in the river. Karlsefni finds one lying coiled in the path, and he kills it with his sword. The body is dry and scaly, spotted like the
jewelled hilt of a dagger. Not one of the company has seen a snake before but they all know that these creatures are the enemy of men, and that their bite is deadly. Karlsefni lifts the dead thing with the flat of his sword and throws it into the river.
It is impossible to see far into the forest, and impossible to move about without forcing a path with knives and axes. Early in the morning the birds scream and chatter as if in constant warning, and then as the sun rises higher they grow quiet, until by midday the forest sleeps in a strange damp heat that saps men’s strength and makes them want to sleep even in the middle of the day. Invisible insects chirp in the grass, and voices sound too loud in the silent heat. The rhythmic thud of iron on wood strikes a disturbing echo far inland. But there is work to be done, and so the afternoon sweats itself away, until the evening comes early and sudden, and the night noises begin.
In the dark only the howl of wolves is recognisable. The other calls and shrieks are unknown, and might be made by animals or demons; there is no way to tell. For almost half the time it is as dark as winter, even though it is close to midsummer, and the nights here are hotter than the brightest days at home. It is too hot at night for sleep to come easily, and yet sleep strikes unexpectedly on sunlit afternoons when the light is too precious to waste.
The men never say that they are frightened; still less do they admit to the enchantment that the place casts over them. They are tough and active; they have come so far out of the world because they know how to work hard, endure the cold and danger of the sea, and take what they want without pity. But in this place in summer it is impossible to work hard. The air sucks away their strength, and there is a magic in the heat that entwines itself around their purpose and slowly chokes the life out of it. There are afternoons when nothing seems more desirable than to lie in the sun and sleep. They have discovered already that if a man gives in to that the sun has no pity on him, and he will wake up sick and dizzy, with a hammering in his head and a terrible thirst, his skin burning as if it had been in a fire. Nor is there cold or danger to endure, only the dim mystery of the forest that waits behind their camp, full of sweet scents and strange noises. There is nothing to keep guard against, nothing to fight, nothing, therefore, to fear. There is nothing at all to stop them taking what they
want, and yet, when the first tall tree cracks under the axe, and the men stand back while it crashes through the undergrowth with a splitting of wood and rending of creepers, they stand aghast at the noise they have caused, while screaming coloured birds fly up into the sudden light. Slowly the forest settles back to calm, and a spear of sunshine points down accusingly through the hole in the high canopy.
The camp seems very small, caught between the forest and the sea. They have cleared the scrub from the dunes at the landward end of the spit that divides the lagoon from the sea. It is a hundred yards away from the entrance to the lagoon, through which the tide pours in like a stream into a bucket, and then empties as if the bucket were being tipped out again a few hours later. The sand dunes between the lagoon and the open sea are the only open ground where it is easy to move around. Wild wheat grows among the grasses, just as it does at Leif’s houses. The dunes offer no stone or turf for building, so the summer huts are made of split tree trunks, roofed in by sailcloth stretched over leafed branches. The few cattle forage among strange leaves and grasses and seaweed. Perhaps they miss their sweet northern pastures, or perhaps the people only say they do because they sometimes feel homesick themselves.