The Saga of Colm the Slave (15 page)

A stream crossed Colm’s farm. The path
followed the stream for a ways, then forked. One fork turned up the
mountainside to the shieling, the other went on to the waterfall
and pool below that fed the stream. As Colm approached the fork he
saw a huddled mass in the stream and was seized by fear.

He pulled Gudbrand’s body up out of the
water. Blood streamed from a great dent in his skull. The boy’s
purse still hung from his belt and a gold ornament dangled from his
neck. Colm laid his body on the grass. Gudbrand’s right hand was
closed tight into a fist. Colm prized it open and there was a
carved bone charm on a string. It was Geirrid’s. Gwyneth had traded
for it from a woman of knowledge who said the runes would protect
her son.

Colm looked about and spotted a stone,
about the size of a boy’s fist, all stained with blood. He rocked
back on his heels and thought about what to do.

People gathered around the body. Bjorn
stood dumbstruck, his face drained of blood. Gwyneth, too, was
pale. Geirrid stood beside her. Colm saw that he had on a clean
shirt. He hoped Gwyneth had the sense to destroy the other one. He
slipped the bone charm into Geirrid’s hand. “I found it up by the
falls,” he said, “Where you dropped it.”

Geirrid started and looked up at him in
surprise, but Colm paid no attention to his son. He dropped to his
knees beside Gudbrand’s corpse and tried to work up some tears.
Tears dropping on Gudbrand’s face to match the drops of stream
water beaded there – that was poetry, the kind of thing that would
make a story people would recite about a grieving man and his
murdered foster son.

Then Colm raised his grieving face and
cast his wild eyes about. Suddenly he fixed his gaze on a certain
point. Slowly he rose, always staring straight at the same place.
He made his way along to it, then reached down and grabbed up the
bloody stone where it lay next to the path going up to the
shieling.

Colm held the stone a moment, studying
it, breathing hard, waiting for the moment. Then he cast it down
and let out a great wordless cry. He ran up the path, up the
mountainside. Behind him, the crowd gathered their wits and ran
after.

Colm ran hard until he reached the
flock. Old Edgar, sitting on a rock, gave him a puzzled glance.
Colm didn’t pause but ran into the stone shelter where Edgar slept.
He grabbed at the old man’s bedding, dry grass and a single cloak,
then began scattering his few belongings: his cup, his spoon, a
strip of scavenged leather. Others were in the shelter now. They
tore the bed apart and one yelled in triumph as he held aloft
Gudbrand’s purse. Another snatched up the gold charm necklace. They
ran out to show Bjorn and Colm slowly followed.

Edgar’s expression shifted from
bewilderment to saddened understanding. Colm wanted to hate him
then for not fighting his fate. It would be easier if he could hate
him. But Edgar knew there was nothing he could do to help himself.
Best for him to gather what dignity he could.

Bjorn screamed at the sight of his son’s
belongings. He charged forward and grabbed Edgar around the waist
and lifted the thin old man from the earth. Then he threw him off
the cliff.

Edgar never cried out as he fell to his
death. Colm was glad of that for he knew such a sound would forever
haunt his dreams if he heard it. Silently, he tried to say a prayer
for the old man’s soul. He thought that was what he should do, but
his memory of that lost religion was vague and he could find no
words.

Colm and Gwyneth never spoke of this
matter just as they did not talk of the men Gwyneth had killed.
There were slaves working at the Trollfarm now and sometimes free
men hired on for a time. There were always people about and Colm
did not want anyone to overhear. Once, when they were alone and
Edgar’s name came up, Colm felt his eyes fill and stretched out his
hands. “I couldn’t think of anything else...”

“Hush,” said Gwyneth. “I know. There was
nothing else to do.” She took his hands in her own and put her face
next to his. “We do what we must. This was for Geirrid.” Then a
serving girl walked in and Gwyneth pulled away from him.

The servant smiled to herself as she
busied about her tasks. She thought she had caught her master and
mistress in an intimate moment. Having it off in the daytime! she
thought. Well, everyone knew they were very fond of one
another.

8.Bjorn’s Sadness

Thick white clouds boiled up from behind
the point of land across the bay. The sky was wonderfully blue,
shading from robin’s egg, where it met the sea, to a much deeper
ultramarine at heaven’s peak. The sea was the same deep blue as the
highest sky and was unmarked by wind or waves. Seabirds flecked the
sky as if tiny specks of the dark rocky shore in the distance were
flying up like thistledown. Colm’s chest filled and he felt like
singing, though that was something he had never learned to do. He
turned to Bjorn, “Look! How beautiful!”

Bjorn sat slumped over his knees,
staring down. “Colm,” he said, “When you look down from a place
like this, do you ever feel like jumping?”

Colm’s blood ran cold and all beauty
left his thoughts. They were sitting on the edge of the cliffs, a
long way above the water. Below were rocks that would crush a
falling man before the waves swept him out to be eaten by sea
creatures. “Never!” said Colm. He drew back from the brink a
little. “I never feel that way, ever.” He thought of Edgar who
Bjorn had thrown from the cliffs a few hundred yards from where
they sat. He thought of slaves sacrificed by being thrown from the
cliffs. He thought of Edgar...

“You are a blithe man,” said Bjorn. “You
have glad thoughts.”

“What thoughts could not be glad on a
day like today?” Colm resolved to be cheerful, though he felt
Bjorn’s dark mood begin to cloud about him. “It is a beautiful day.
The grass is green. The sheep are all well. We have good women in
our houses. What is there not to be glad about?”

Bjorn shook his head. “It doesn’t
matter.”

“No, tell me, what’s wrong?”

Bjorn dropped his face in his hands.
After a moment he said, “It’s all pointless. We live, we die. What
does it matter?”

Colm was stumped. “What matters is the
joy we find in every breath we take!” Bjorn did not respond but sat
with his face in his hands. Colm wanted to say something about the
joy of children, but he didn’t want to remind Bjorn of his son’s
death, nor did he feel much joy at his own role in that event. The
problem with talking to Bjorn was that his depression spread and
attached itself to you, tainting your own pleasure. Colm said,
“Let’s go drink some beer!”

“I drank all last night.” Bjorn raised
his head and Colm saw that his cheeks were wet with tears. “I drank
all I could hold and found not a single smile in the barrel of
beer.” He lapsed into silence again. Lately he might sit that way
for hours, hardly moving, never speaking.

Colm rose to his feet. “Well, you come
watch me drink, then. Perhaps I’ll get drunk and fall on my face
and that will give you something to smile about.”

Bjorn rose slowly and grabbed Colm by
the shoulders. “You are a good friend, Colm, the best any man could
ask for.” And fresh tears started in his eyes.

Colm embraced the weeping man and
wondered if he really was Bjorn’s friend. And, deep down, he felt a
thought rising that, perhaps, life was indeed pointless. He looked
back out over the water into the wonderfully blue sky and tried to
rediscover the gladness that had filled his heart before. But Colm
had his own store of dark thoughts that sometimes spilled into his
feeling.

He never spoke of Gudbrand's murder. A
few times either Colm or Gwyneth alluded to the event around
Geirrid, but the boy only returned a puzzled stare as though he
knew nothing whatever about his foster-brother's death. And perhaps
that was for the best, both parents thought. Let this thing vanish
from memory. But it remained, another secret, another burden
shared, another corpse -- Hastein, Gunnlaug, Grim, Gudbrand, the
berserk that everyone believed Colm had killed rather than Gwyneth,
the old Frisian that Colm never spoke of, and, worst of all, Edgar.
Colm's life was raised on a heap of dead men, dead men and lies.
People praised him for killing the berserk, Grim, and Gunnlaug, but
all the rest were never to be mentioned. But they were there,
always, burdening Colm and Gwyneth both and, by silencing
themselves about these deaths, the couple lost part of their
ability to express their feelings. They closed up and sometimes
found themselves not speaking of other things, good things, that it
would be a joy to share with another person. They had less joy as
they grew older.

9.Thurid Three-Mothers

Gwyneth had no more children after
Geirrid. Several times she became pregnant only to deliver
shapeless lumps or spots of blood. The other women examined the
lumps and blood and discussed the matter at length. Some gave
Gwyneth charms meant to insure healthy births and others had herbal
prescriptions for her to try. Gwyneth made special offerings to
various gods and to the elves and land-spirits. She recited certain
prayers and formulae given her by wise women. She ate the organs of
female animals and her own menstrual blood. Nothing worked.

Gwyneth thought she was blighted. She
loved Geirrid all the more because he was her only one and doted on
him, then she feared that she was spoiling him through
over-protection and worried that he was not growing into a worthy
man. At times like these she avoided Geirrid and spoke harshly to
him if he did the smallest thing wrong. Sometimes she treated Colm
this way, too, for occasionally she thought that perhaps her not
conceiving was his fault, his failing. And Colm, too, wondered if
that might be the case. So both of them found blame from the other
and fault in their own self. None of this was spoken openly between
them. It lay there in their marriage like a great boulder in a
field that the farmer ignores and works around.

Gwyneth became great friends with
Ingveld, Magnus’ widow. Ingveld did not remarry after Magnus’
death. She had six children with him but only two survived past
their eighth year. Halldor was murdered and Eystein was abroad,
raiding. There was no word from him for years now and people
wondered if he was dead. Although Ingveld had seen a great many
deaths in her lifetime, she never became bitter or angry. Other
women knew that they could count on her for help or a kind word at
any time and everyone was glad for her when she became close to her
chief farmhand, Mar. There was no question of them ever marrying,
for Mar had no property or money except what he earned farming.

One day, Gwyneth walked over to
Ingveld’s farm. She followed her usual path that took her through a
thicket of dwarf birch trees. Although the trees were very old,
none grew taller than mid-thigh on Gwyneth. So, in Iceland, when
someone asks, “What do you do if you are lost in the forest?”, the
answer is: “Stand up and look around!”

As Gwyneth picked her way through the
birch trees, she noticed something on the ground a few yards away.
She walked closer and saw that it was a newborn baby lying on a
scrap of cloth. In those days, before Iceland became Christian, it
was common for unwanted infants to be left exposed in an out of the
way place until they died and were eaten by foxes.

The baby did not cry. It stared up at
Gwyneth with wide blue eyes and moved a little, so that she saw it
was alive. Gwyneth did not pause to think but scooped up the baby
and the cloth it lay upon and continued walking to Ingveld’s
place.

“Now what have you brought me?” asked
Ingveld.

“A gift that may or may not be welcome,”
said Gwyneth and showed her the baby.

“Well, that is a gift indeed, but are
you certain you don’t wish to keep it?”

“No. I think I am cursed and not meant
to have any more children. Anyway, I have one at home and you have
none.”

“A fine strong girl it is,” said
Ingveld. “Well, I’m sure you’ll help in her raising.”

“Yes,” said Gwyneth. “Are any of your
slaves nursing? Is there one who could feed another child?”

“I think there is a slave named Groa at
Thorgils’ farm who has lost her child,” said Ingveld, “I’ll send
over there and see if I can borrow her for a while.”

Gwyneth understood from this that Groa
was probably the child’s mother and that its father was probably
Thorgils or a man in his household or another slave. So they sent
for Groa and fed the baby honey-water until she arrived and clasped
it to her flowing breasts. Gwyneth and Ingveld watched her nurse
the baby for a time then Ingveld said, “Well, I have this baby now
and it will be my daughter but I am getting on and will require
some help with it. I wonder if I might buy a slave that could serve
as wet nurse?” Speechless, Groa raised her face and nodded slowly.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Of course,” said Ingveld, “Gwyneth
has some maternal duties to fulfill as well since she is the one
who decided this babe should live and not die.”

Gwyneth said, “I will do my part
always.” And Groa looked at her, still nodding. “I think my first
chore should be to name this child. I think Thurid is a good
name.”

“Ah,” said Ingveld, “What do you think,
Groa?”

Groa said, “I think Thurid is a
wonderful name.” And then she burst into sobs. Her tears fell on
the infant’s face.

“Well, every child should be sprinkled
with water at its naming,” said Gwyneth. She and Ingveld began
joking until Groa stopped crying, then they said how beautiful the
baby was and strong and had all its fingers and toes and so forth
until Groa smiled.

Mar came in from the fields and Ingveld
held up Thurid. “See what I have got.”