Paths of the Norseman, page 24
part #2 of The Norseman Chronicles Series
I dropped the hudfat to the sand with a thump and turned to the last passage I had studied before the visitors came, using the leather band to find my page. In the great book of Proverbs, I read, “My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. . . they will keep you from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words. . . Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.”
Closing the book while looking back to the sea at the return of the woman of my dreams who more and more seemed like the woman of a filthy sweating nightmare, I gave a heavy sigh. Turning, I picked up the hudfat and bade Helgi to follow, not caring what happened to Freydis and her boat among the sandbars.
. . .
“These will be my houses, given to me by my brother!” Freydis screamed with intense vitriol. “You will carry your filthy belongings out of them now!” The expensive gold brooches I bought her over twenty years ago still held her red tunic in place over top her dark brown dress. They had a brilliant sheen that afternoon under the bright sunlight as if she had a thrall put a new shine on them just moments before her longboat skidded to shore.
She threw her fit out in the yard of the largest longhouse that Leif and I and the rest built after discovering Vinland. Helgi and Finnbogi had already hauled all their luggage into it before Freydis arrived and now she refused to even enter until they were gone. She had climbed onto the stump I used to split logs into more manageable wood for the hearth while she shouted. I sat some feet away on an overturned crate watching the scene unfold. Freydis, despite her aging features, was beautiful in the most base, lustful sense of the word. And so I chose to watch her for her form because certainly her words were nothing I cared to hear.
The brothers and their party were not moving fast enough for her liking. “I said get out! Why do you linger? Do you not take me seriously? Do you not think I rule here? I may be a woman with tits between which all you men dream to suffocate, but don’t take that for weakness.” While saying the last, she slipped both hands between her pregnant belly and swollen breasts, hoisting them a touch with a simultaneous jiggle.
Helgi and his crew worked methodically to remove the small amount of items that already found their way into the home, setting them onto the dirt outside the door. Freydis looked at me for an instant and flashed me a smile which softened her features. For a moment, ever so brief, she was the young woman of my dreams again. I saw her freckled nose and her full lips, framed by the two stray curling ringlets of her red hair that escaped her braids and was enchanted like a man a fraction of my age.
Then as quick as it was back, the feeling fled. She had turned her face to more forcefully direct her anger toward the others, “Why do you not answer my questions? Are you dumb? The whole lot of you must be dumb!” All the while, Torvard, her husband since soon after my banishment from Greenland, paced nervously behind the stump, warily watching the earth beneath his feet as if it were preparing him harm. Torvard gnawed on a fingernail. I noticed that all of his fingers had torn nails and dried blood from frequent bouts of anxious chewing.
Her two children scrambled all over the wood pile I had neatly prepared next to the door for the coming winter. Logs rolled off, scattering up against the longhouse or into the yard. I ignored the additional work, deciding that perhaps I could have the children help me re-stack it later. The oldest would be seven if my memory was correct and he did look like Tyrkr, but with the deep red hair of his mother and grandfather. It had been years since I saw children, yet I think he was short for his age. His younger sister was a replica of her mother. It was like I watched a memory of her and me playing the same game many years ago. In fact the girl was about four years old, so they were about the same difference in age as Freydis and I. The only feature that indicated that Tyrkr had been to visit Freydis’s bed again was the man’s honest, round eyes. I guessed that the child she now carried was again from my old friend’s seed because I could not imagine Freydis allowing the cowering Torvard to touch her, let alone leave something in her womb.
Helgi let out a sigh while he gathered his patience, then spoke, “Freydis, we are happy to move and will not do anything to cross your will in any way, but there is plenty of room in the house for our two families. I ask you, if it pleases you, to allow us to stay until we have a home of our own built.” Her stare bore into him. I am sure he wasn’t used to obliging the whims of even kings, yet here Helgi stood, shrinking to the will of a spite-filled woman. Freydis’ stare must have unnerved him because he continued, “I assure you that we all understand that these are your homes, given to you by the jarl of Greenland, your brother, Leif. We further assure you that we will have our own longhouse prepared well before the winter arrives among us.”
Still the woman stared. It unnerved even me, and I wasn’t looking at her face. At last Helgi grew frustrated, shaking his head while roughly grabbing his woman’s hand, pulling her back toward his boat. Finnbogi and his wife followed, carrying their belongings back to the shore as well.
I slapped my knees loudly, stood up, and grabbed more of their baggage to carry it to the ship. I guessed they would spend nights there until they had a proper structure built to shelter themselves from the weather. Helgi, feeling safer from her wrath at this new distance, gained the confidence to call over his shoulder to Freydis who remained fixed on the stump, “Freydis Eriksdottir, we brothers and our crew will never be any match for your ill-will. You have certainly got your way, but I, for my life, cannot understand why you are this way, when your family is such a delight.”
Freydis mumbled something that I know Helgi could not hear. I only heard the words, you’ll and delight, though what came between them I’ll never know.
. . .
I suppose I should have known it would only be a matter of time.
For the first week, I slept on board Leidarstjarna with the brothers and their wives, after moving my own goods out from the longhouse the day of Freydis’ arrival. Eventually, I grew tired of being awakened by the couples and their nightly humping in the hold so I politely excused myself to sleep, isolated, next to a campfire on the bank of Black Duck Pond far from the sea’s shore. Finnbogi so liked the spot I chose that he convinced his brother it would make a good homestead, and they ceased building their longhouse near the brook, moving to my lake.
By day I helped bring down trees along with Helgi’s small band to frame the house. Lifa, Helgi’s young, tall wife, along with Ketilridr, Finnbogi’s wife, made us a mid-day meal over my campfire. They were larger meals than we needed, but no one turned the food away. These two women, who, I learned were sisters raised in the western fjords of Iceland, had a knowledge of cooking such as I had never witnessed. They knew how to combine fish and nuts and herbs into a meal that made my belly moan with satisfaction.
By night, my new set of friends went to their boat to sleep. The others in their band camped along the shore of the sea, behind some large driftwood to protect them from the wind. I stayed behind for the solitude of the pond and my lonesome campfire.
On the fourteenth night of their arrival, a sharp crack of a twig awakened me with a start. My hand landed on the hilt of my beautiful sword before my eyes even opened. It seemed that I was sitting up and looking toward the sound before it fully died away.
The snap came from the direction of Leifsbudir so any fear I had lessened. My eyes scanned the woods finally seeing the movement of a human form. It was Freydis. I know she saw me because I was partially illuminated by the small fire which had died to a low glow. Showing no shame, the woman crouched with her back against a noble tree, hiking her dress up so that I could see her milky thigh. I could not see it, but I heard the tell-tale sound of her urine splashing on the recently fallen leaves beneath her hovering buttocks. While she finished her work, Freydis turned to look at me, giving me a soft, very pleasant smile in the process.
At last she leaned forward and used her hands to crawl up the tree to right herself on two feet. The task was completed with some degree of difficulty; I heard a single grunt from exertion, due to her bulging belly. Instead of showing me her backside and returning to the longhouse she had so desperately wanted, Freydis walked slowly toward me on a circuitous route, avoiding several low areas filled with leaf-clogged water.
And so I thought this was to be her first move to bring her naked body into my blankets. But she calmly found a wooden prop used in the construction process for the brothers’ home, set it near the campfire, before gathering several logs and stoking the flames to a bright, lapping glimmer. Then she backed up so her hind quarters leaned against the construction prop, watching the fire silently.
I trusted her not. She was a spy in my kingdom, a traitor searching for co-conspirators to stage a coup against the king, a thief probing for weaknesses in the locks of my house, a villain capable of all means of treachery. I was wary, my senses waited for the chance to accuse her of evil, for the chance to drag her into Leifsbudir, before her nervous husband and shrinking crew, showing her for the seductress I knew her to be.
Yet, the chance did not come.
Freydis stayed there with her ass fixed to the prop, in a trance watching the dancing flames greedily lick their way ever higher, seeking every opportunity to totally consume the new fuel. Her face shone in the fire’s rekindled light, and I saw for the first time ever, even compared to when we were young, a barely perceptible introspective sadness in her eyes.
I leaned back onto one elbow still under my blankets to watch the flames as well, preferring not to be the first to speak. It is common among all men and women, I think, to find the undulating blaze and deep orange-red glow of the embers resting peacefully beneath their rhythmic action hypnotic. Many nights I have found myself staring into the fire of a hearth pondering my life while the rest of the longhouse slumbered. Olaf, my third father, used to do this on occasion, slowly pulling his way with his hand down his beard, worrying about those things which bother kings. He thought no one knew of this, I am sure, but many nights I awoke from my place on the floor in Kaupangen in the midst of a nightmare and saw him leaning forward on a simple stool, mesmerized by the fire.
That night with Freydis was similar. I do not know how long we sat there quietly watching. For a long while nothing in particular worked my mind, until the questions rolled upon me like the giant swell in the sea. Why did I find myself in this place with this woman? Where would my wife come from? Leif promised me I had to stay here to find my wife. I was certain she was to be Gudrid, but she was gone, maybe for good, with her husband and my son.
Freydis took in a long breath, letting it out slowly before speaking, “You seem well, Halldorr. Despite the isolation, you truly seem to be doing well. The One God faithfully shines upon you.”
I thought of correcting her to my point of view that I believed myself to be cursed most of the time, but did not have the energy for such a discussion. Instead, I said, “Perhaps that is so. You, however, do not seem to be doing well.”
She looked away from the fire, toward the blackness of the pond, letting my remark hang in the air. When Freydis turned her face again so that I could see it, she had streaks of tears down her cheeks, but did not beg for sympathy. In fact she half laughed while wiping the tears away with the sleeve of her dress, “Leif tells many stories about you and your adventures with Olaf. He says you would share the harshest, but truest ideas with the king, who would normally kill for such honesty. Somehow you got away with it, and so you will today.” Freydis brought her arm back down, shaking her face to clear her mind and the hair that stuck to it briefly. “I am not well. You speak such truths,” again with a head shake. “In the years since you’ve left, in all the years I remember, really, I’ve treated others terribly. They now expect it of me, and I expect it of myself. So I give it to them, so they are not disappointed.” A long pause, then, “I ask myself until I am exhausted, why my life turned out this way.”
I said a prayer to the One God right then and there for the woman who was still just a confused angry little girl playing in the icy waters of Iceland, searching for the most perfect smooth stone to hurl at her older brothers. I asked the One God to grant this woman his peace, at least for this moment, and it seemed to work, for without a word from me her face brightened, looking like a weight was lifted from her soul.
I did not know what to say on this subject anymore, so I redirected our conversation to something more factual, less emotional, “What is Thorhall the Huntsman doing back in Greenland? He must be nearly mad without Erik to join him on his famous hunts.”
Freydis looked genuinely confused by my question, “I don’t know how he is doing. He’s not in Greenland, unless he moved himself to the Vestribyggo without my knowledge.”
I worried for a moment for my old grumpy friend. “He was to be waiting here, but when he wasn’t, I just assumed he went back to Greenland.”
“I do not know where he is, but Leif speaks highly of Markland. We passed its many fjords on the way here. Perhaps my father’s old friend is killing the deer there.”
“You are, no doubt, correct,” I said, then thought no more on the matter, instead returned my gaze to the dancing fire.
Soon thereafter, another sigh from Freydis brought me out of my sleepy state. She was walking already, adding a straightforward, “Have a good night,” before threading her way back to the village.
My gaze remained fixed upon her while she slowly disappeared into the darkness. I did not understand women, particularly Freydis.
So it was only a matter of time until Freydis came to me. However, I had no idea it would be to share time staring into the never-ending abyss of our pasts through the portal of fire.
. . .
I worked closely with Helgi and Finnbogi during those days. They were good men and I was growing fond of them, especially Helgi. Finny, as Helgi called his brother, was prone to sullenness and perhaps a little too close to my own personality for us to be close friends. But Helgi had the ability to set me ablaze with laughter, so much so that my innards felt as if they would split my belly to burst onto the construction yard.
Despite his years of obvious experience running a successful trading operation, slicing through the highest of rough seas without fear or dread, Helgi was not much of a carpenter. He acknowledged this fact, even poking fun at his own short-comings, endearing him to me even more. Once when we gave him the measurement for one of the main timbers that would support the roof, he cut it far too short. Finny complained about it like any brother would, I was aggravated at doing the same work twice, but Helgi was nonplussed. He just said, “At least for the first time in my life, when someone says that ol’ Helgi cut it off too short, it wasn’t Lifa speaking about our fun on the sleeping platform.” He then began a crafty laugh that I joined when I finally got the joke. Finny shook his head in a loving disgust, while Lifa, who heard our conversation from the cooking pot, used an iron shovel to toss a hot coal at her husband in a high arcing throw. It glanced off his head, singeing his hair, then slipped down his back, causing him great, howling pain. He arched his back inward so that his chest and belly fled as far from the coal as they could get. Helgi jumped about the site trying to decide what he would do. Lifa, who threw the coal in jest, was horrified that she now caused hurt to her husband. At last Helgi did the simplest thing and plunged into the cold waters of Black Duck Pond.
This last act brought a deep, rolling laugh from Finny. Soon the whole crew of workers and thralls laughed at Helgi’s expense. When he finally came shivering out of the pond, with his hair matted to his face, and trousers drooping as if filled with the load of a baby’s wrap, even Helgi began laughing. I wiggle a little upon my own stool today just remembering that scene from so long ago.
Freydis, too, kept her crew busy elsewhere around Leifsbudir as the winter approached, careful to avoid contact with Helgi’s men and women due to the continuing and building tension. Her boat was filled with more than the thirty mouths that the covenant with Helgi originally called for. I did not make an exact count, but it was at least forty, likely more. They worked diligently at bringing down many fair trees, trimming the branches for local use, then dragging the hulking trunks to her longboat which now sat perched on the shore, up from the farthest extent I had ever seen ice and water reach.
By night, Freydis awakened me with her visits. They always began the same way with her pregnant belly making her flee Torvard to urinate in the forest. She would stoke the fire then find a comfortable place to sit or lean while we talked, never within reaching distance. The talking for the first two nights following our quiet stare into the flame was stilted and awkward and, like our actual physical time together in the past twenty years, was separated by long gaps.
Soon, however, we became more comfortable with one another, even sharing stories about our lives spent apart for so long. We talked of my battles and strandhoggs for she still seemed to be as fascinated with power wielded as she was when we were young. For two consecutive nights, Freydis wanted to hear the story of our sacking of Aber Tawe along the underbelly of Wales. She poked about into my past with regard to women, love, and family, but I chose to keep my time with Kenna, Olaf, or anyone else I loved to myself. Trusting her was not something I was willing to do, especially not so soon and in light of her completely disparate moods by day and night. Therefore, I became adept at deflecting her questions with gentle tact to other lines of conversation.
Freydis shared of her many, varied, and sometimes disjointed thoughts. “I don’t know why he takes these actions,” she said out of the clear night sky.
“Torvard?” I asked.
“No, Leif. I don’t know why he does it,” she said with some exasperation.
