B0046ZREEU EBOK Read online

  But in fact it was real and familiar. We were met by Thorkel, who farmed the land nearest the shore, and he took us to Herjolf, who at once invited my father and all his people to spend the winter there. If the ship had been whole we might have pushed on to Eiriksfjord, now we had found our direction, but the spare sail was barely holding together, and besides, we didn’t have enough people to man her. It was at the end of that first voyage I learned to work the steerboard, when there were not enough men to cover the watches. Later, Karlsefni made use of my skill. Thorstein never did. He refused even to believe that a woman could steer a boat; even the thought of it was unlucky for him.

  When I came ashore at Herjolfsnes I could hardly walk. The solid land was treacherous and never still. At Herjolf’s hall we had fresh water and milk, and dry clothes. But I hadn’t even got used to that before I realised that even now nothing was simple. The ghosts, as always, were before us.

  The ghost of hunger I knew well. The ghosts of loss and fear had hung behind it from the beginning of my life. As the numbness melted away, beside the fire of seaweed and driftwood in Herjolf’s hall, I saw how hunger feasted on the gaunt flesh of Herjolf’s folk, and how famine had settled itself in their drawn faces and suffering eyes. As I regained my own strength I felt it too. It ate away my insides, so that there was always pain, sometimes dull and sometimes gnawing, as the ghost slept and ate within me like a monstrous child. The greatest blessing any human being could know is to be assured they will always have food and drink. If you are with me, you can say that to me when I am dying, and it will comfort me. Only then can you be sure it will be true. I hope you will never be hungry, Agnar.

  A demon must have possessed that summer. We had fought it at sea; on land they’d struggled too. Much of the flock had died for want of new grass, a hunting expedition had never returned, and no ships came with supplies. That winter we didn’t have half enough fish, and very little beef or mutton. We ate mostly seal meat, which men said was best, as it would make us strong like seals against the most dangerous enemies in the Green Land, the sea and the weather. But whatever you eat, there has to be enough of it if it’s going to make you strong.

  Winter came. Outside the snow rose to the roof, and inside was like a cave, dark and muddy and chill, in spite of the seaweed fires. One thing I remember from that winter is the dirt. There was always grime, seal’s grease and smoke and mud, and no hot water. One of the things I like most about living at Glaumbaer is the hot spring. Once a week, before Sunday, we can wash. It’s a good charm against evil to wash away what is past. In Greenland that wasn’t usually possible. This isn’t a clean country either, but that doesn’t seem to matter where the sun can drive away evil things.

  At Herjolfsnes the ghosts thrived in the dirt and the hunger and the dark. There was a man there who was possessed. He used to scream and beat against the walls, and at night he would rush around the room and pull the furs off the people on the sleeping benches, telling them to rise and defend us all. We had to tie him up in the end.

  It sounds to you like a nightmare, perhaps, but the people never despaired. Even then I could see enough to realise how much of that was owing to Herjolf himself, and his son Bjarni. In Iceland people still mock at Bjarni Herjolfsson, because he was the first to sight Vinland, and he didn’t even bother to land. I can understand it. Bjarni is a man of one thought at a time, and his goal on that voyage was to find his father. You know how it happened, don’t you? How Herjolf went off that summer with Eirik, when Bjarni was in Norway, and when Bjarni got home his father had gone, leaving a message to follow him to Greenland? So Bjarni did. My father said he had no imagination. But my father was jealous, of course, because he himself had failed to go with Eirik that first time, and he paid for it in prestige all his life. It counted in Greenland to be able to say you were one of the first settlers. Bjarni had a rich cargo to bring to his father; he’d have been a fool to risk it exploring new lands, with autumn coming on. He did the right thing, Karlsefni always said so. Karlsefni always said, too, that if Bjarni had taken the first land, there might be a Vinland settlement to this day. I’m not saying all the blame lies with Eirik’s family. Karlsefni played a part in it too. But Karlsefni had no reason to be jealous, and he was able to admit that in some ways Bjarni would have been the better man.

  Anyway, I spent a winter on the edge of death with Bjarni Herjolfsson to guide us, and I found that I could trust him. He was a pagan, like his father, but faith seemed to come to him by nature.

  There had been a Christian at Herjolfsnes, a Celtic freedman from the Hebrides. This man had gone to Eiriksfjord for the winter, as Eirik’s wife Thjodhild had asked for him. Herjolf said Thjodhild wanted him to talk to her about the new religion. My father was relieved. It had occurred to him that his own baptism might be a distinct drawback in Greenland. Eirik had not been the kind of man to appreciate new gods.

  ‘He still isn’t,’ said Herjolf, when Thorbjorn asked him about it. ‘But Thjodhild wants to hear about them all the time. It’s not a happy situation. But you’ll see for yourself. I think it would be safer if we didn’t discuss the matter here.’

  My father might well consider changing his religion if it were expedient, but I wanted to make it clear that I wouldn’t. Not because I was deeply religious, I’m afraid, but because I despised my father, and that made me behave like a prig. ‘I hope to find Christians at Eiriksfjord,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’re sympathetic to them here.’

  Herjolf ignored me, but Bjarni looked at me thoughtfully. When the others had gone to haul up my father’s ship to her winter berth, he called me over to him, and showed me an inscription burnt into the headboard above his bed. ‘Can you read that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’ll recite it to you:

  I beseech my Master

  To steer my journeys.

  May the Lord of heaven

  Hold his hand over me.

  ‘That’s what it says, as far as I remember. I’m not one of your Christians, but I respect the maker of that. He carved it for me before he went to Brattahlid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Thjodhild were convinced by what he says. But you’ll see.’

  I got Bjarni to say the words until I knew them, and I’ve used them as a charm ever since. The best charms are just words. They’re easy to carry about, and on the whole you don’t lose them. I felt that Bjarni was my friend after that. I liked Herjolf too. He was a tolerant man, and a good master. He was under a great strain that winter, accepting that the fate of the whole settlement was his responsibility. He was convinced that the land was possessed by an evil spirit, and at Midwinter he sent for a woman in Thorkel’s household, who was known for her skill in witchcraft.

  When the witch Thorbjorg came, I’ll admit that at first she made an impression on me. She certainly took to me. I think she wanted me to be like her. She was quite different from Halldis in that she liked to make a show of things, and I think she enjoyed the performance of what she did even more than she cared about the substance. But I couldn’t dismiss her. I wanted to, because I’d given my loyalty to a different faith, but I recognised what she was doing, and something in me responded to it. I performed my part just as well as she performed hers, and I was awed by the vision that she had.

  I don’t want to describe anything to do with witchcraft here. It doesn’t belong in this sunlit cloister. The woman herself must be dead long since, and it all happened in another country. If I think about it I see things too much from her point of view, and I don’t want to.

  I, Thorbjorg, am summoned to Herjolf’s hall at Midwinter in the year of the worst famine, and this is what I see.

  I sit in the High Seat at Herjolf’s table. I see the men who have been lost on hunting trips, the men who never returned from the fishing, the women who died after giving all their food to their children. I see the babies who never lived to know their own names. I see strangers too, soaked with seawater, a larger company than the living guests among us. For the first
time in this new country the dead outnumber the living. The time of innocence is already past.

  Living and dead crowd around the board, their white skin stretched against their bones. The eyes of the living glitter with hunger, but the eyes of the dead are empty. I see a young girl with a pale face and sores on her hands. Two ghosts hover over her as she sits close to the high seat, her eyes fixed on my face. When the meal, such as it is, is over, I prepare the sacred things. I watch her face as I do so, and I see that she knows very well what I am about.

  I ask for a woman to help me by singing the spell, because I know that she is the only person there who may be able to do so. But she does not come forward. Instead she lowers her eyes, and twists her hands together. I wait for someone else to speak to her. As I expect, Herjolf repeats my request. ‘Is there anyone here who can sing the spell? Say now, because our lives this winter may depend on it.’

  Slowly she answers him. ‘I’m not a witch, but in Iceland my foster mother Halldis taught me to sing the spell you mean.’

  ‘Then come.’ I sense Herjolf’s uneasiness, and when she answers I know why.

  ‘I told you I was a Christian. I can’t take part in this.’

  She says this, and yet she brings no new gods with her into Herjolf’s hall. We had a Christian here before, and his god did not acknowledge me. Unlike him, this girl knows exactly what I am. I wait for Herjolf to settle the matter.

  ‘Gudrid, you’re our guest here. We’ve shared with you all that we have, when you know that our own survival hangs in the balance. What more could we do for you? Perhaps you can save us all. I don’t see how you can possibly refuse.’

  She is silent for a moment, twisting her fingers together. ‘You’re right,’ she says at last. ‘I can’t refuse.’

  I guess her power before I hear her sing, but once I hear her I feel it in every bone in my body. The note hums through the circle we have made, and before my eyes I see the sacred images grow, a tree of plenty springing from dry twigs. I see spring blossom out of winter, while hunger and disease flee into perpetual darkness. I see our settlement grow and flourish until the passing generations vanish into mist. And I see a young woman passing through our Green Land on a terrible journey beyond the boundaries of the living world. I see a ship sail east until it raises the shore of Iceland just as the sun sets, and the woman, no longer young, stands at the helm. And her power is so much greater than mine will ever be, that I know I have come on this long journey only to prepare her way.

  SIX

  July 12th

  I hated Thorbjorg. She compromised me, using me as she did, and it affected the whole of my life afterwards. I was young, remember; I didn’t realise how serious it was. I thought she was an old fool, and I hated her because she pretended to be what my foster mother had been. Remember too, I’d only just lost Halldis. Nothing was said about that. My father didn’t talk to me, and no one at Herjolfsnes had known her or Orm. Death in Greenland is too commonplace to make a fuss about. Sometimes I wonder if I have ever got over that voyage, those deaths. They were my fault, you see. Halldis came for love of me, and Orm came because he loved her. It’s been dangerous for people, loving me.

  I was bewitched, I know that now. That’s a strong word, and I see you flinch. Don’t be afraid of me, Agnar. There’s nothing to fear now. Karlsefni broke the spell over forty years ago, and that’s why I still thank God for him every day. Every day I thank God for him. He took me out of hell, but I’m running ahead of my story. Where was I …? Oh yes, the witch at Herjolfsnes. I hated her, Agnar, I hated her.

  * * * * *

  Sorry, what did you say? Was I dreaming? I am sorry. Yes, all that winter she pursued me. That’s what it felt like. She actually lived at the far side of the settlement from Herjolf’s hall. But after the spell was cast, she kept coming back to see me. I didn’t realise then what she’d done to me. She never mentioned it. Maybe she was gloating; I just thought she was a nuisance. No, not that – but I despised her, and showed it as much as I dared. It was a confusing time for me, Agnar. I was so young, and had just been shocked out of childhood by that cruel journey. I craved to be ordinary, and that’s what I have never been able to be. There were girls my age at Herjolfsnes. I tried so hard to be one of them. I learned to look at men sideways and giggle about them afterwards. We used to sit in the byre, where it was warm from the kye. There was a girl called Inghild, who was a sort of leader among them. She used to sit up on the bull’s back, where he was penned in among his cows, daring him, I suppose. He was so wedged in he couldn’t move, and the cattle were all exhausted from hunger. If they hadn’t been held up by one another they’d not have had the strength in their legs to stand. That bull used to roll its eyes and snort when Inghild climbed on to her perch, but he never budged. The rest of us used to sit up on the wooden partitions in the dark. I can smell the place now. The roof was only just above our heads by springtime, the floor of muck had risen so far. It was the only place to go that was warm, where there were no grown-ups, and no men. When I smell a byre in winter, it always takes me back to that time.

  We talked about sex. I knew all about it, of course, from Halldis. But she used to tell me facts. I never, ever, saw Halldis giggle. I wonder if she ever did when she was young? The only time I joked about sex – it was the only chance I ever got – was in that byre. It’s strange, when you think about it. We were always hungry, cold, and dirty, crouched there in the dark, and yet there was still this secret excitement among us. So much more exciting than the event, as it turned out. It was as if we expected to be rescued. Not in the way you might think: for a man like you, the life I’ve described might seem like something to be rescued from. But those girls in Greenland knew nothing else, and expected nothing else. Winter is always winter. No, I’m talking about another kind of rescue: it was as if we hoped that marriage to some dull youth would rescue us from ourselves. The only man I felt could do that was Bjarni Herjolfsson, but he was already married, and I’m sure he never looked at me. But already I was less innocent than the rest of them. Some had more experience of sex than me, but none had my burden of guilt. Did I honestly believe that some man might rescue me from that? I half knew already that I’d been bewitched.

  Thorbjorg used to seek me out. For weeks the snow was too thick, and when she didn’t come I tried to forget about her. But as soon as they’d made a path I saw her picking her way down the hillside. Wearing her old cloak she looked to me like a great black crow, with the white snow behind her. My only refuge was the byre, but for the first time in weeks the sun shone, and the wind was still. I could feel the smell of indoors, hall and byre, all over me, and I wanted the clean air to take it away. There was no way to go but the path the men had dug. So she found me, and I took refuge in being sulky. I wouldn’t talk to her, but she talked at me. If Halldis had been there she’d have sent her off quick enough. But I was a guest in Herjolf’s house, and Herjolf was afraid of the witch because his people were hungry and she had the power. I had to stay there, like a fly in a web, and let her talk.

  That night I dreamed she came flying at me and swallowed me up, and then I was her, the wings of my old cloak beating through the snow-filled night.

  Other people knew it, too. Herjolf himself began to treat me with a kind of deference that frightened me. I didn’t want to be set apart. And on one of our last evenings crushed in the byre Inghild asked me to tell fortunes. ‘Me?’ I said, ‘I can’t do that. I don’t know how.’ ‘Oh yes you do,’ she said. ‘We all saw you. You sang the song for Thorbjorg. You’re a witch, Gudrid. Don’t pretend you’re not. Isn’t she?’ God help me, they all said yes, and they weren’t laughing either.

  The snow was melting at last, and at night I lay in my bed listening to the rush of water. My father was anxious to get to Eirik’s settlement, and though Herjolf was polite, he was just as anxious to have us gone. A hungry winter means a hungrier spring, and Herjolf had staked everything on an early hunting trip. Every day both men would scan th
e ice, and though they said nothing to each other, I knew exactly what was passing through their minds. I was just as anxious as my father to get out, and one day, when the sky was a clear pale blue, and the north wind had died down to a breeze like a cut from a small knife, I decided to speak to him. I told him about the witch, and my dream, and the guilt that pursued me.

  ‘I don’t want to take it with me,’ I said to him. ‘I want to be ordinary.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘You’re a pretty girl, Gudrid,’ he said. It was the first time in my life he’d ever mentioned my looks, and unfortunately it was too late for me to care. ‘It’s time you were married. That’ll put an end to all this nonsense. We must get you a good man.’

  I stood in front of him so that he couldn’t walk on. ‘You won’t do that,’ I told him, ‘if they think I’m a witch. You mustn’t let that idea travel to Eiriksfjord with us.’

  ‘If you want to leave it behind you, you need to put it out of your head.’

  ‘It’s more than that. Listen, father, we’re Christians, aren’t we?’

  He paused. ‘I’m not sure we want to make so much of that, with Eirik. We’ll see how the land lies.’

  ‘No, but listen. If we make it clear to Eirik’s household that we’re Christians, they can’t possibly think I’ve had anything to do with witchcraft. Men like Christian wives; you saw that in Iceland. Christianity makes women safe and dutiful. You don’t have to tell Eirik Raudi you’re an enemy of Thor. Just tell him that as a Christian, you disapproved of the witchcraft at Herjolfsnes, and it’s the same for everyone in your household.’