Authors: Margaret Elphinstone
Thorbjorn went to Mikligard when he was still only seventeen, and joined the Varangian guard. It was more than ten years before he came home again, and when he first walked in, just for a moment he seemed a complete stranger. Then I saw it was Thorbjorn, turned into this foreigner with brown skin and bleached hair and unfamiliar
clothes. He had a ruthless air about him, a suggestion of pent energy that I found disquieting, threatening even, although he was my own son. He’d been a truculent, sturdy boy, no taller than his father but very strong, a hard worker at home but always much too ready to pick a fight. The man who came back was less obviously aggressive, but Agnar, I’d have been afraid to be his enemy. Being his mother, however, it soon became clear to me that I’d never be allowed to lack anything he thought I wanted, for as long as I lived. He brought us home a chest full of treasure from the East, silks and jewels in strangely worked settings, and a sinister curved sword for his brother that looked as if it would snap in two, only it was forged to be as tough and supple as a whiplash, and everyone who saw it marvelled over it. This was just at the time when Karlsefni was beginning to be ill, and I was very anxious about him. I remember vividly how he sat there at the table with Thorbjorn, studying the strange metalwork, and asking Thorbjorn question after question about the countries he’d been in, the way things were made there, how men resolved their quarrels, about the seas and the tides and all the strange gods that the infidel believed in. Karlsefni didn’t leave home again after that winter. The following June he was in too much pain even to ride to the Thing, which he hadn’t missed once since the year we came to Glaum. But he never lost his curiosity, Agnar. When he couldn’t travel himself, he made do with asking endless questions of everyone who did. He was a good listener, Karlsefni, a good reader of men.
But you must make me keep to the point. At the time I’m speaking of, Thorbjorn was only fifteen, and he’d never been further than Thingvellur. He and Snorri were very close just before Snorri went away. Snorri had always tolerated Thorbjorn, and, I suspect, quite often kept him out of trouble – Snorri was never a jealous boy – but four years makes a lot of difference between children. Thorbjorn grew up very quickly though, and once that happened they nearly always went about together. They’ve been parted for years at a stretch since then, but when they’re together, it’s always as if the time between had made no difference at all. I’m glad I’ve been able to give my sons the thing I never had myself – one another, I mean. Until I had my boys, I was always envious of brothers and
sisters, I always wanted to be two against the world, not one. Since Thorbjorn was born I’ve not felt like that, because it was a precious gift that I was able to give to them.
You must stop me talking about my sons, Agnar, or I’ll never get to the point. I miss them, you know. I miss them and my daughters-in-law and my grandchildren, and I want to see my great-grandchild. I think I’m ready to go home.
* * * * *
Yes, good boy, you keep me to the point. Very well, we were in the hall at Glaum: me, Karlsefni, our two sons, both with damp clothes and flushed faces after galloping home through wind and rain, our guests sitting with us close to the fire, and the house thralls clearing away the last of the meal. The dusk was drawing in outside, and the wind was rising to a storm.
We didn’t hear anyone coming because of the wind, but a thrall came running in to say a group of horsemen had been sighted on the road which leads west out of the Glaum valley. The men hurried outside, and I pulled a cloak round my shoulders and followed. As the strangers reined in at our door and Karlsefni greeted them, I suddenly saw in my mind another picture: my father at the door of Laugarbrekka, and a group of horsemen in wet cloaks riding up to us out of the gale. I smelt the steaming horses, and I seemed to hear the sea roaring over the skerry to the south, and feel the salt spray coming in on the wind and stinging my cheeks. I was aware of myself as very small, a little girl clutching the doorpost, staring wide-eyed at the storm and the sea and the armed men appearing so suddenly out of the dusk. I don’t know if it was a real memory, but it was so vivid that for one moment I was overwhelmed by it. Then it vanished, and I stepped forward, once again the mistress of Glaumbaer, to welcome our unexpected guests.
It was a man called Gudleif, whom Karlsefni knew. Like Karlsefni, he’d made a great reputation for himself as a seagoing trader. We wondered to see him so far north of his own home in Borgafjord at the beginning of winter, but he said there was a matter he needed to
discuss with Karlsefni. As soon as he and his men had eaten and drunk, he told us his story.
The hall at Glaum is filled with shadows. The fire glows along the length of the hearth, and half a dozen oil lamps cast little pools of light from brackets in the wall. The people shift on their benches, and settle down to hear Gudleif’s story. As soon as he has well begun they are motionless, their attention palpable. Karlsefni sits in his carved chair, his chin in his hand, his face a little in shadow so it’s not possible to see what he is looking at. On his left hand his son Snorri gazes at Gudleif as if he were listening with his eyes. He looks shocked, like a man being unexpectedly told his own dreams, or some tale that he had forgotten that he knew. Beside him, Thorbjorn watches Gudleif appraisingly. The only time he looks like his mother is when he frowns; there is the same vertical line between his eyebrows, which will one day be permanently etched. On Karlsefni’s right hand Gudrid sits leaning on her elbow, with her hand covering her mouth. Her eyes give away nothing, except that she never takes them for one moment from Gudleif’s face.
Gudleif sits on the bench on the opposite side of the hearth. As he speaks he knows his own power. He can make these people see pictures in their minds. He can take them on a journey far from their own hearth and show them another country. He has brought the image of it back with him from the ends of the earth, and it is in his gift to pass it on. These people can never go there; the way is closed. The place where he went is only an idea now, but when he looks at their faces he knows he has carried them away, and his words are all that is needed to make the story real.
The previous summer Gudleif had left Norway for Dublin on a trading voyage, his plan being to sail home to Iceland from there. It was already well into the autumn when he finished his business in Ireland and set out for home. He was less than a day’s sail west of Ireland when he ran into an easterly, which veered north and by nightfall had turned to a full gale. There was nothing he could do but run before it into the open ocean, and for days there was little visibility, and no sign of land. At last the wind began to abate; it was close to the equinox, which made it very difficult to guess how far south they were, but the air was warm and
when Karlsefni asked him, Gudleif said there had been no ice. They did see land at last, due west. It was nothing like Iceland or Greenland; there was just a long line of low-lying hills with no mountains. When they came close they saw the hills were covered with forest that was still green as if it were summer.
It wasn’t anywhere they recognised, but they were exhausted, and they needed water, so they closed the coast and sailed along it until they found a sheltered bay with a beach of white sand, where they moored and went ashore. While they were filling their water casks at the stream, they heard a sound, and when they looked round, they saw strange brown people running along the beach from both sides. Gudleif and his men had put down their weapons so they could manoeuvre the full barrels, and in any case there were so many skraelings that when Gudleif’s men did try to fight with their bare hands they were quickly overpowered. The skraelings seized them all and carried them into the forest.
They didn’t go far. There was a good path, though narrow, so they travelled quickly through the dim light of the trees, and then came out, blinking, into a sunny clearing, where they found themselves in the strangest encampment any man ever saw. There were several small fires burning outside, and grouped around them there were round tents made of skins sewn together, stretched over wooden frames. As soon as the skraelings came in with their prisoners a group of children came running, and pushed their way right up to the Norse men, not showing any fear at all, but chattering in a strange language, and even trying to touch the strangers. There were women there too, who came away from the fires to stand and stare, and although they kept their distance, no one tried to call the children to order.
Gudleif and his men were brought into the middle of the camp, and hobbled together with strips of hide; their hands were tied behind their backs. No one tried to speak to them, but it was clear that some kind of argument was going on among the skraelings. Gudleif could only suppose that the debate was whether to kill them or to make them slaves. It occurred to him that they were obviously too dangerous to use as slaves unless they were made harmless, and when he thought about how that could be done he knew it would be
better to die, even if they had to do the job themselves. But the argument died away, and nothing was done. Everyone seemed to be waiting. It was hot in the middle of the clearing, and the prisoners grew more and more thirsty. Sometimes they spoke to each other about the chances of escape, but at present far too many people were watching. So they sat still, while their skraeling guards watched over them.
At last a new group of men came into the camp. One seemed to be some kind of chieftain, because their captors bowed before him and spoke to him with deference. Gudleif hardly noticed him. He was looking at the man beside him. An old man, with white hair. A man more than a head taller than any skraeling in the camp. A man tanned by the sun, but still paler-skinned than a skraeling could possibly be. A man dressed in a deerskin tunic and leggings just like the skraelings, but with a tattered woven cloak worn over one shoulder, leaving his sword arm free, although he had no weapon. Gudleif watched as the skraelings conferred, never taking his eyes off the strange man. The group moved closer, and Gudleif saw that though the man’s cloak was torn and full of holes the ring brooch that fastened it was bronze, and carved on it was an elongated beast, its mouth swallowing its tail. The chieftain, with the strange man beside him, stood looking down on the prisoners. Gudleif looked into the eyes of the stranger, and saw that they were a clear pale blue.
‘Well, well.’ The man looked them over, and shook his head. It didn’t occur to Gudleif to be surprised that he spoke to them in Icelandic. ‘So where’ve you landed from?’
Gudleif stood up, and the skraelings made no attempt to stop him. ‘Who are you?’
‘Just what I was about to ask you, my friend.’
‘I’m Gudleif, Gudlaug’s son, from Iceland.’
‘From which part of Iceland?’
‘Borgafjord.’
‘Where in Borgafjord?’
‘From Reykholt. You know it?’
‘Oh yes, I know Reykholt. Did you have an uncle, or a great-uncle perhaps, called Thorfinn?’
‘You know my family?’
‘I think we must have a talk.’ The stranger turned to the skraeling chieftain beside him, and began to speak rapidly in the skraeling tongue. Gudleif looked from one to the other, trying to follow the discussion. He could make nothing of it, but eventually the Icelander turned back to him, and said, ‘If your bonds are released, will you guarantee that you and your men will behave peacefully while you are here?’
Of course Gudleif promised at once, as this seemed a far more hopeful turn of events. But the man interrupted him. ‘That’s not all. You’ll have to stay here tonight, as it’s almost dark. But I want you to promise to leave as soon as it gets light, and furthermore, you must swear never to try to come to this place again, and never to tell anyone else where it is.’
‘I couldn’t if I tried,’ said Gudleif, ‘since we don’t know where we are ourselves.’
‘All the better. Swear to me you’ll sail east again until you reach lands you know, and never try to discover again where this place is. There must be no sailing directions, you understand?’
‘I understand what you say. But why not?’
‘This isn’t your world. There’ll be worse trouble if you don’t keep out of it. If I hadn’t been here they’d have killed you. If you, or anyone else, comes back, I won’t be here any longer, and then there’ll be no mercy.’
‘You won’t be here? You’ll come back with us now, I hope?’
But the man was speaking to the skraeling chief again. Then he said, ‘Gudleif, will you swear?’
Gudleif spoke to his men, and they willingly agreed to the terms offered. Then he made a formal oath, and when he had spoken, the Icelander repeated what Gudleif had said in the skraeling language. After that all the men had their bonds cut. They were still rubbing their wrists and ankles when water was brought to them, and they drank eagerly.
‘Now, you Icelanders,’ said the stranger. We’ll bring you food tonight and you can sleep where you are. Do you swear to stay where you are and cause no trouble, while I speak to Gudleif privately?’
One of the men said he’d sleep where he was, but he’d rather not shit there, and it was agreed the crew could go one at a time as far as the edge of the forest if they needed to. Then the Icelander took Gudleif into his tent. Presently a skraeling woman appeared with freshly cooked meat, which she served to the Icelander, and then to Gudleif, before going away again and fastening the flap of the tent behind her. The two men ate, and then they talked on through the night, while the moon rose and set again outside, and at last the brief darkness gave way to dawn.
The Icelander was full of questions about all the leading people in the Borgafjord area, and then he went on to ask about Breidavik and Snaefelsnes. He asked about Snorri the Priest, and about the outcome of the feuds in the Snaefel area. Eventually he began inquiring about the farm at Frodriver, and Thurid who had been married to Thorir the farmer there, and about her son Kjartan. Gudleif told him about the death of Thorir. He didn’t know Thurid, but he was able to describe Kjartan very well, because he’d met him at the Thing only three years earlier, and had been very impressed by him. Everyone spoke well, he told the Icelander, of the way Kjartan had handled the ghosts that haunted Frodriver after his father’s death, although he’d been scarcely more than a boy at the time. He had an authority that everyone respected, both the living and the dead. It seemed to him that the Icelander couldn’t hear enough about Kjartan, whom every- one called Thorir’s son, and Gudleif did his best to tell him every- thing he could.