Authors: Margaret Elphinstone
Not knowing any other babies, I just took Snorri as he was. He didn’t say anything until he was past two – not a word – but he understood us very well, much more than most babies. Perhaps he didn’t know what he was supposed to be like, being the only one of his kind in the world, so far as he knew. He listened to us, and in some ways he was precocious, but I don’t think it occurred to him that he might talk himself. When he did start, that last winter at Leif’s houses, he could very soon say whole sentences. His first word was ‘boat’, and then ‘stone’. ‘Mother’ and ‘father’ came later. When I look back now, I think how much I was hampered by having him with me
all the time. I didn’t notice it then, it was just the way life was, but when I think about it I hardly travelled a mile from our camp in Vinland. Everything I did seemed to happen in slow motion. He’d play on the shore for hours, happy with stones and shells and bits of wood, but if I took my eyes off him for a moment he was quite apt to run headlong into the sea. So I stayed and watched him. I wonder now what I thought about all those hours. I can’t remember. When we finally put to sea we put a harness on him, and tethered him. He liked best to stand by the helmsman at the steerboard, and help steer the boat, especially when his father was there. In rough weather it was hard to keep him quiet down in the body of the ship; he was never ill at sea.
* * * * *
Oh yes, the skraelings. We should have gone, Agnar, after we killed one of them. I didn’t see it happen. Karlsefni said that some of the skraelings had wandered over to the pile of timber. When Snorri saw they were touching the tools stacked there, he ran after them. But before he could get there one of the skraelings had seized an axe and was examining the blade. Thorbrand tried to get the axe away from him, but the skraeling swung it out of reach. Someone came at him with a sword, and the skraeling beat away the weapon with the axe. Then as he swung it again, another of our men grabbed it from behind, and when the skraeling turned on him, he felled him with one stroke. When the skraelings saw the rest of our company coming down on to them with drawn swords they fled, as I saw myself, when I came running to see what the noise was about.
We knew we wouldn’t have seen the last of them. Not only had we killed one of them, but they’d left behind all their furs and the goods they’d traded them for. I thought, and Snorri thought, we should leave at once, and so did some of the others. Karlsefni would not go. We still had to cut the tree trunks into manageable lengths so we could stow them aboard, and he absolutely refused to leave behind any of the timber we needed for the boat. I said we could get more elsewhere, but I couldn’t deny the fact that what we had was already
partly seasoned. He was determined we’d finish the job, and as he said, a delay now might mean another year in Vinland. The time had come when no one wanted that. I think we were all beginning to think longingly of our own homes.
The men who supported Karlsefni, and they were in the majority, were quite ready for a battle with the skraelings. They were, after all, freemen, trained to fight, and they’d had no chance to use their weapons since the day they’d left Iceland. Quarrelling among themselves was on the whole denied to them, as even the fiercest of them had to see that we needed the whole crew to stay alive and amicable if everyone was to get back to Leif’s houses. Our people are not afraid of dying in battle, as you know, Agnar, but I think they were afraid of being left behind, alive or dead, to be alone for ever in the lands outside the world. If they died in battle, of course, they would not be alone, for some of their companions would go with them on their last journey, and their ghosts need not wander, but would be taken at once to the place prepared for them at the feast which lasts until the end of the world. Even in Vinland death in battle is the one insurance against eternal loneliness, I suppose. But I’m a woman, and I had my son to think of, so the fates had nothing to offer me, and I urged Karlsefni to get out while we could.
Instead of doing any such thing we built a stockade around our camp, and kept watch day and night. Even with that extra task, we worked feverishly with the timber. For three weeks nothing happened. Our work was nearly finished, and I began to hope that we might after all leave before the skraelings came back.
The attack came at sunrise. They must have crept along the shore while it was dark, because they came along the beaches by land, from both sides at once. Our guards were watching the sea, not the forest, and so the skraelings would have surprised us completely. It was the bull that saved us. We’d never caught him again once he’d got ashore. He’d appear from time to time and graze among the cows, but if any man attempted to approach him he’d toss his horns and charge. Once he’d frightened off pursuit he’d lumber off into the forest. We’d let him be; we had enough to do without keeping him under restraint to no purpose, and the cattle had been able to forage for themselves all
winter. In the end it was his waywardness that saved us. He was on the dunes with the rest of the cattle, and somehow the approaching skraelings had him cornered between the camp and the sea. We were roused by his bellowing, and saw the skraelings, less than a hundred yards away, at the same moment as we saw the bull charge.
I don’t know what kind of monster they thought this was, but they broke ranks and fled. The bull got one of them though. We saw him toss the man on his horns and trample over him, then charge away into the forest.
Soon we heard the same rattling noises that had heralded the skraelings’ arrival before, and we saw another band of them running towards us from the opposite direction. And that was all I did see, because a hail of stones came crashing in over our stockade, and I had to take the baby into our hut. That was worse; I could hear, but I couldn’t see anything but the backs of the bowmen who remained in the stockade, shooting at the skraelings as they approached. But the noise outside was frightful: the shouting of war-cries, the screaming of wounded men, thuds and trampling, and sometimes huge blows on the stockade wall that shook the timbers and made the whole thing shake. I wanted to act but there was nothing I could do. Snorri didn’t cry, but he clung to me like a limpet, He didn’t hide his face though, as a scared child usually does, but kept his head up, his eyes so wide open it seemed as if he were listening with them.
Something crashed against the stockade; there was a splintering of timber and a wild rhythmic yelling. I jumped to my feet and unsheathed my knife. I don’t know what I could have done, with a baby clinging round my neck, but I stood at the door, with the knife poised in my hand. I wasn’t scared; everything was too unreal for that. I felt a strange cold calm inside me and I would have done anything, if I’d had to.
There was no clash of weapons, it’s funny how I noticed that. No metal on metal, just thuds and thumps and screams. I remember one voice that kept on screaming, just outside the wall, and the noise going through my head, and me wishing it would stop. At last it did stop, and afterwards I saw the skraeling, pinned through his stomach to the wooden wall, and not able to wrest the sword away. He was dead by the time the fight was over.
It felt like a long time, but when the quiet came it was still only just after dawn. The noise was gone, and I heard voices speaking Icelandic, and someone opened the gate.
The skraelings had gone, all but five dead, who lay in their blood between the stockade and the beach. There was one body that was not a skraeling, a bundle of woven cloth that did not move. Karlsefni turned the man over. His clothes were soaked in blood but his face was clean and white. When Karlsefni moved him his head rolled horribly on the broken neck. I could see very clearly who it was: Snorri’s son Thorbrand. Snorri walked over quite slowly, and stood looking down at the body. Karlsefni, crouched beside it, didn’t move. No one spoke. Then Snorri stooped and picked up his son as if he were a child and not a grown man, and walked away, carrying the body in his arms. We watched him kick open the door of his hut and shove his way inside with his difficult burden. No one went to help him. We saw the door shut on us, and slowly Karlsefni stood up. The sand round his feet was red with Thorbrand’s blood.
After a battle the fates move slowly across the field. They take the souls of the dead and carry them away to Valhalla, where all men who die in battle feast until Ragnarok, the last battle of all, which is the end of the world. In battle a man need not face death alone; he need not fear that he will be forgotten and cease to exist in the minds of men.
But in this battle it seems that the end of the world is already here. The enemy are not warriors but strange half men who are perhaps not subject to fate, and who have no place in the eternal halls. Their ghosts, if they have any, have faded away to some alien place. Their bodies lie in a heap on the shores of the world out of which they came, but there is no sign of their souls.
A ghost hovers over Karlsefni’s camp at Hop. It watches men bringing down timber and barrels of wine to the shores of the lagoon. It watches a ship being prepared for sea, with supplies of water and dried meat, enough for a long voyage. It watches blankets and pots and weapons being carried down from the huts and piled on the shore. It sees a few cattle rounded up and led down to the beach. It sees the ship brought close in at high tide, and the cargo carefully stowed aboard.
It returns to one of the huts whose door has remained shut while all this is happening. It looks down and sees the body of a young man covered by a brown cloak. It sees how the young man’s sword, with the blood cleaned from it, lies beside him, and how his shield has been placed by his left arm. It sees the young man’s father sitting silently beside the body, while hour follows hour. It sees the grief that no living being will ever be allowed to see. The walls of the hut are thin, and the father of the young man neither moves nor makes a sound. Only the ghost witnesses the helplessness of a father who could do nothing to save his son.
The ghost turns away and sees men digging a grave at the edge of the forest. It sees a man choose a stone and scratch the mark of a cross on it. It sees two men carry the stone across the dunes and lay it beside the open grave. It sees Karlsefni go to the door of the hut and call out his friend’s name. It sees the door of the hut open at last, and it watches while the body wrapped in the brown cloak is carried to its grave. It sees everyone in the camp gathered around the grave, where the body of the son is laid at the feet of his father. It sees the body lowered into the soil of this land where no man of his people has ever lain before. It sees earth sprinkled, and the sign of a cross made over it.
The ghost waits until the last of the cargo is stowed into the ship. It watches while men, and one woman with her small son, climb aboard. It sees the ship loosed from its mooring, and, as the tide begins to stream out of the lagoon, the wooden ship goes with it, out into the open sea. It sees the square, brown sail hoisted. The ship turns sunwise, borne by the river current, until the wind fills the sails, and gradually she makes headway, and ploughs a white furrow out to sea.
The ghost looks down on the grave, which is covered by the stone with the cross scratched on it, and it knows that no living man will ever come there again in the knowledge of its presence. It looks down at the abandoned huts that have been built upon the sand, and knows that no one will ever return to live there in the time that used to be it. Its people have left nothing behind them that anyone will ever find again. There is nothing left but a ghost, and it will be nothing too, when no one is left who is able to remember.
Wait, I’m not ready yet. I’m still looking at it. My dear, I thought you’d have forgotten all about it long ago. They really don’t mind you bringing it here today? Such a precious thing, and you told them it was only so an old woman who never learned to read could have a look at it. They must be kind men, in spite of the strange lives they lead. Do you mind if I turn the pages? Is that really all right? I won’t damage it, will I? Look, Agnar, it has faces in it. And see the patterns. It’s like metalwork. Karlsefni loved metalwork. He loved patterns like these. Look at the pictures. Look, Agnar, that’s a man, those are arms and legs, and a body all twined up with the pattern. Oh, it’s a letter, is it? How do you mean? A sound? I’m not sure that I understand. But that’s a bird. Red and yellow and blue. Karlsefni loved bright colours. I’d never seen so much colour in my life as when we got to Norway. At the king’s court everyone had dyed clothes, and jewels, and the king’s rooms seemed to me then to be crammed with beautiful things: wall hangings, carved chests and chairs and tables, cups and dishes of engraved gold. People wore bracelets and necklaces and brooches of precious stones set in worked silver, or even gold. There seemed to be every colour in the world there, colours like these. And yet, Agnar, compared to Rome it was all nothing. Until I came here I had no idea what could be made by men. I went to the cathedral in the Lateran, and it was all the colours of heaven; arches soaring high above my head, stone transformed into gold like the wings of angels. For the glory of God, like this book in front of me.
See, there’s a green. And purple, or is it dark blue? I can’t tell, my eyes are old. But look at the strange beast, Agnar, look at its long twisted body and its claws, look at the patterns coming out of its jaws. And look, there’s another one there: that’s its body going right round the edge of the page. Look, it has the faces of men in its angles. Is all painting made like metalwork, Agnar? When we got to Norway, Karlsefni gave me a mirror like this – I’m not being blasphemous, I hope. It was a secular thing, but the patterns on the frame were very like this. It was real gold, Agnar, very extravagant of him, but the beast carved round the frame was just the same, like Jormungand, with his jaws trying to swallow his tail, and beautiful patterns chased all over him, and birds and small beasts hiding in the folds of his body, like the squirrels in Yggdrasil running up and down. And where the black letters are on this page there was real Venetian glass and I could see my face in it, as clearly as I see the writing here. I’d never seen my own face before, Agnar. Some people think it’s wrong. No woman, or man either, should contemplate their own beauty. But isn’t all beauty for the glory of God? Karlsefni said how beautiful I was, again and again, when we got to Norway. He gave me dyed cloth and a gold necklace and rings of twisted gold with rubies in them to hang from my ears, and the first night I wore them he kept looking at me across the king’s table as if he’d never seen me before. Then when we did go to bed he made love to me as if it were the first time he’d ever known me. It was like beginning all over again, Agnar, and I’m sure, though I can’t prove it, that that’s when Thorbjorn was conceived.