Paths of the Norseman, page 27
part #2 of The Norseman Chronicles Series
“But I do not live alone,” I said, confused.
“You do not?” asked Ahanu, eyebrows raised.
I took a drought from the ale, accepting their moniker as descriptive enough then set the pot at my feet with Right Ear quickly lapping at the drink. “You are fortunate, for I am here. Though I would say you would be most welcome among the new arrivals of my people. Welcome in one of the houses for sure. Helgi and Finnbogi are moderate and fair as any men I know. The occupant of the other house is best avoided by all men, Norse and skraeling alike.”
Nootau looked to Ahanu, indicating with a curt nod that he should speak what he wanted to say. Ahanu’s eyes told me he had sad news, but he spoke not. “Out with it,” I said. “I’d have my friends treat me with respect and honesty. What do you need to tell me?”
Ahanu looked down at his arm while sliding the arm ring off, played with it while spinning it between his hands, then extended it toward me. “Take this. I cannot keep it.”
I was honestly offended, “It was a gift as a sign of friendship. It is yours to keep.”
“Your people and my people are at war. My people look on this ring with disgust when I wear it. I cannot accept it.”
“My friend, Ahanu, you are wrong on many accounts. Our peoples are not at war, for all those who fought against your village are gone, returned to Greenland. So while many of your best men are dead, you have won, driven the Norse off. I am here, but do not intend to fight anyone. The new settlers will just harvest trees here in Vinland and take them back to Greenland for profit. As far as your people and their anger toward you, I would think an elder such as yourself can tell whomever you wish to eat turds! Finally, you have no choice, you have already accepted the gift. It is yours, what you do with it, is your business, but I will not take the ring back.”
He reached the ring a little farther toward me saying, “My chief has told me that I must return this to you, and so I must.”
“Your brother? You obey the daft words of your crippled brother?”
“Halldorr, my chief is my chief, whoever he may be. Brother or not, I will carry out his wishes. If this ring is mine to do as I wish, I wish you to take it as a sign of true friendship from me. Wear it around your arm, remembering that we are friends so that hopefully, someday our peoples will be friends.” He stood, grabbed my wrist, shoving the ring into my hand. His thin hands were strong, squeezing my own hands around the gold. Ahanu then leaned forward, kissed my forehead, turned and left. Nootau rose said a friendly goodbye and disappeared into the black night.
Years earlier, I would have called Ahanu my fourth father, after Olaf my third, Erik my second, and, of course, Olef, my first. But sitting there in the dark, I finally felt I was old enough, man enough not to clamor for another father. He was not another father to me, Ahanu was my friend, chosen by me. I shook my head, not knowing why the One God would not allow me to even give a gift to a friend. Why did he isolate me so?
Soon my friends were completely gone, the sound of their footsteps grew fainter and fainter. The soft, muffled chattering of Hassun and Rowtag became quiet. When all was again silent, I reached down for a sip of ale, but found that my dog had emptied the bowl. A well-timed ale fart told me he enjoyed it very much.
. . .
By day we marched about without any worries. I feared no man, mostly because there were no men anywhere nearby that I knew of. Ahanu’s company was long gone, and I saw no signs of anyone else. But I also feared no one because I had become quite proficient in the language of these Vinland peoples, and so I knew I could speak peaceably and passably to anyone I met. If they chose to approach me in anything other than a friendly manner, I had the confidence that comes with experience and age to know without a doubt that I would prevail in whatever maliciousness a young man, eager to make a battle name for himself, could plan.
These two weeks did much for my mood. I was already becoming something of a hermit, or enkoodabooaoo, I could tell it in my soul, and so I would need to resist such leanings. But I did look forward to seeing my friends again; sharing with them my stories of the sights I had seen and the game I carried upon my back. But such joy was never to be had.
Right Ear was ahead of me as we approached Black Duck Pond. He had been chasing a squirrel, determined to catch it then do what, I am sure he did not know. I called to him often while he ran after the tiny, fluffy-tailed creature, taunting him for his lack of pursuit skill. The creature taunted him too, because it chose not to flee up the trunk of a tree, but instead ran along the ground from rotting tree trunk to clusters of rocks. The chase had gone on for several harrowing moments before Right Ear caught the tip of the animal’s tail, spinning it up into the air. The squirrel hissed, swinging a small clawed paw at Right Ear who yelped from nothing in particular, causing the squirrel to drop to the ground and at last skitter up a tree.
I laughed heartily at the scene which seemed to drive Right Ear ahead in shame to the lake. Moments after bursting through the brush to the water’s edge he began barking loudly in such a way that said he was not playing. Then I began to hear faint sounds, like screams of pain or terror in the distance, being carried to my ears on the wind. Clutching my pack and my bow just a little tighter, I jogged to the shore.
Helgi’s home was nearly an English mile away from me now, so I could not see anything other than the roof and wispy smoke from the hearth trailing away from the hole. But the openness of the pond allowed a terrible screeching sound to roll all this way without losing its power. God help us, I thought, a skraeling attack. That is why Ahanu and Nootau were about. My Norse friends were dying.
Without thinking, I dropped my pack and game to the ground in a rumpled heap and ran toward the battle. I noticed my formerly injured leg throbbing, but the excitement of confrontation so near allowed me to run like a man half my age. In minutes, I was close enough to see men surrounding the longhouse. The screaming continued, but it was an isolated screech now, like some of the war cries I had heard from skraelings. Our men seemed to be loitering about, yet they were all dressed for war with spears standing tall, swords in hand.
Still I ran. Now I was close enough to see that the men’s leather and chain and blades were covered in blood, fresh blood from a recent battle because it was still crimson red not brown. It still dripped wet from their articles of war, running down their helmets or faces. I was also close enough now to know that it was Freydis, not a skraeling warrior, who cried like a woman possessed by the evil one himself. I could not see her, but it sounded as if she were on the far side of the longhouse with the men looking on at something she did. They faced me, some still panting from the exertion of battle.
Something was wrong. Obviously, the blood and screaming told me that something was amiss, but something else was terribly wrong. I could tell it as my feet pounded closer to the screaming. Amidst the shrill cries, I heard an occasional whimper or feeble weeping that would be abruptly cut off after a dull thud. Then I noticed that the men surrounding the longhouse were Norsemen, of course, but each one hailed from Freydis’s camp, none from that of Finnbogi’s and Helgi’s house.
These men noticed me approaching, but none of them moved to stop or attack me or welcome me. Instead they leaned further on their spears, watching me come with an air of total disinterest. I doubled my efforts until I came around the longhouse among them.
Horror. I do not know what else to say about the dreadful sight which greeted me. I have seen morbid, disgusting sights in my life. Men do terrible, repulsive acts to one another in battle. But this shock was more than I could take. Sadness unleashed itself within my soul, taking over my entire being. A few of the men chuckled behind me when I went to my knees in the yard, tears welling up, rolling out of my eyes like those of an infant with an empty stomach and wet backside.
Each man in Helgi’s household lay splayed out before me. Dead, all of them. Hacked down without being given the chance to defend themselves. None of them carried a javelin, spear, or sword. Defenseless, they were cut down by the men who now surrounded me. I could have spun and killed three or four, perhaps more before I would have been killed myself. But I did not. I kneeled there watching the remnants of the carnage, hoping for a flinch of life so that I could swoop in and save someone. I knew it would not happen.
I kneeled there with tear-obscured eyes watching Freydis in what was an unbelievable sight, even when I consider Freydis. She strode among the bodies of men, wearing a bright green dress under a simple brown tunic with white details along the edges. The tunic and skirts of her dress were soaked in blood as if she had washed them in the stuff. With two hands she carried a sword that was just a bit too heavy for her so she tripped and struggled. Next to her on the ground were the bodies of the women, all apparently killed by Freydis. Freydis screamed again. She was a mad woman, shrieking. Then she took a step to the side while drawing the sword high over her head, blood dripping into her red hair.
Lifa, Helgi’s lovely young wife, yet lived. She kneeled in a defeated position with blood splattered across her dress, cradling her dead husband’s head in her lap, lovingly combing his hair out of his content-looking face with her trembling fingers. I firmly planted a single foot into the ground to rise myself up, to make the short sprint to kill Freydis, but my strength faded when she brought the blade down onto Lifa’s peaceful head. I fell from my own weight as the leg buckled beneath me.
As I rolled onto my back, looking at the bright blue sky, I heard the assembly begin to disperse. Right Ear finally found me, sniffed my face and tucked his own into my armpit as if to console my intense grief. I lay there frozen, unable to move, not wanting to ever move again. Why should I ever move again, I thought?
Then the shadow of Freydis fell upon me. The sun was blocked by her face so I could not see the expression she wore. Blood, more blood, dripped from those curling ringlets I used to love, onto my face, spattering. I moved not. I glanced at the heavy sword she had dragged over to me with one hand, scratching a path in the earth behind her. Drive it into me, I thought. I would have spoken the words, but all power was gone from me. How I managed to breathe and see, I do not know.
I write this by my own hand in my extreme old age, so you know that Freydis did not kill me that day. Perhaps she killed a part of me years earlier, making me resigned to whatever life thrust upon me. Yet I wished she would do it then. Plunge the thing into my heart, cracking my ribs. Or even hack at me, as many times as it took. Whatever she did would be better than what I was experiencing at that moment. She did none of this, for even in her insanity, she is wise. Freydis knows how to torment a man more than he knows himself.
Freydis began laughing at me. The laughing went on for some time while the last of her men left the clearing, until she said, “You are a helpless weakling, and you will always be a helpless weakling.” She finished her thought by spitting at my face. I saw the ball of phlegm approaching my eye, yet I did not even try to close it. The wad splattered there, as if it were an exclamation to finish Freydis’ own thoughts.
She dropped the sword, letting it clatter down among the dead men next to me and walked back to her longhouse by the sea.
. . .
The brothers’ thralls survived the brutal attack by the house of Freydis, but soon found they had new masters, considerably harsher than the last. Shortly after that day, I spoke to one of them, Bedwyr, the Welshman, who carried out a full, sloshing dung bucket from the longhouse occupied by that woman and her band. He was nervous, in a hurry to return lest any ill come to him or the other recently acquired thralls, but Bedwyr took a few moments to tell me of the events of that terrible day.
Early in the morning Freydis came alone to Helgi’s home, knocking courteously on the heavy door, calling aloud for a truce in the pent up hostilities. Bedwyr was fixing a small fishing net behind the longhouse and so heard the entire exchange. The men of the house welcomed Freydis gladly, saying they would be relieved to move on and begin to work together to build Leifsbudir into a respectable village. With that, the short exchange was done, and the men went back inside to finish their morning meal. Bedwyr saw fit to peek around the corner of the longhouse because he began to immediately hear mumbling from Freydis once the door slammed shut. She was speaking to herself in a loud voice, walking unsteadily with her boulder-sized pregnant belly protruding some distance before her down the walking path. Bedwyr followed.
When she was a safe distance from Helgi’s, Freydis began to scratch herself with twigs and sticks. She ran her face into the trunk of a large tree with jagged bark, creating an open swollen wound on her nose and left eye. The thrall was confused and worried. At first he actually considering running and offering help to her. But he did not, for he was frightened of the woman, and rightly so. After generating terrible scrapes all over her face and arms, she at last dropped to the ground, rolling in the forest debris. Eventually climbing to her feet with much effort, Freydis looked as if she had been in a battle, attacked, maybe even raped. Leaves were stuck in her hair; her dress and tunic were torn and soiled.
Bedwyr secretly spied upon her the entire way back to her home. In the last ten steps she began weeping, sobbing loudly, limping with an air of tremendous weakness. Torvard and some other men came rushing out of the house at her sounds, quickly steadying her, setting her down to rest. After some time, Freydis struggled to explain that she had been ambushed in the woods by Helgi and some of his men then left for dead.
That was all it took. In moments Torvard had organized the entire household into battle dress, armed with every weapon they brought with them. Bedwyr ran ahead to warn Helgi, but arrived only a short time before the war party. The rest of the events are self-explanatory except that after cutting down all the men, Freydis’ husband and the others refused to kill the women. Freydis had no such misgivings, grabbing an axe, then the sword I saw, chopping them down one at a time.
I lay on my back for the rest of that awful day with their bodies surrounding me. Right Ear eventually grew tired of me, running off into the forest. I heard his barks echoing many miles off as he chased some type of prey. Even that was not enough to bring a smile to my lips. I lay there on my back throughout the darkness, not rousing even after relieving myself sometime in the night, moving at last when the sun rose brightly bringing with it a sweet spring breeze. The air itself was a gift from God for it brought life into my muscles, and I began the task of cleaning up what remained of my friends.
It was two full days of digging, dragging, lowering, praying, and covering before I was done. Not a soul from Freydis came to investigate or to help. I worked in isolation and was glad of it. I placed the women in their graves first, thinking that I owed it to them to see that their faces remained pretty in my mind, before the mottling stink and rot of death enveloped them. I have buried everyone I have known, outliving all, but those days, with one friend after another getting their bodies pushed beneath the earth put a profound sadness within me I do not think I have ever shaken. I still feel it in my chest and belly today, a tightness seizing hold. My breathing becomes labored while I lean in next to the flickering light in my house, just thinking of their faces, the ghastly, contorted pain frozen for eternity.
Men and their women, that woman, we are terrible, awful creatures. So much evil from which so much good is possible. My own life has been filled with countless evils done by my own hand, but I am confident from my reading that the One God’s son has done the hardest work for me. Why is all this so? I know not. Why is it all so confusing? I know not. I only know that I have failed much, but, despite those failings, found courage to wake up each day to kill or love as the case may be. Whether the strength came from within or from God, I know not. In fact, it exhausts me to complete fatigue to even ponder the question.
I found that I was in no danger from Freydis and her men. Moving about wherever I wished, they ignored me more than ever. Some days I wished that they gave me some notice, for it was worse that I created no menace in their minds. I do not know why I never even considered donning my bear skin and killing the lot of them in one swoop or by claiming one life at a time with great stealth, finding one in the forest with his pants down about his ankles, or finding another ambling to gather kindling. I did it to Bjarni, but that was years ago, for an injustice done even further back. I only know that I did not consider revenge. Was it maturity or laziness? I do not have answers to these questions either.
I only know that I don’t regret letting them live, for in some strange, perverse way, Freydis had a purpose to serve in my life. Her actions, which were yet to come, would indirectly bring about the most joy I had experienced since leaving the service of Olaf.
. . .
The clack and song of axes, which had usually brought reminders of so many fine times, rang throughout the forest as Torvard led his men to harvest more trees. I watched them clean the tall trees and drag them all the way to Leidarstjarna for stacking in the hold. It was clear that Freydis meant to load Helgi’s dead father’s ship as if it was her own, to take the badly-needed timbers to Greenland for even more profit. Her blatant thievery, which was of course nothing to her murder, stirred anger within me, but I again chose to ignore it. Helgi and Finny would have no need for the ship any longer, rotting as they were beneath their barrow mounds.
A certain resignation set in, and I developed idleness during these days. Three weeks after the killings, I sat beneath my tree at the shore reading the book from Olaf, once again doing my best to ignore the comings and goings of Freydis, until she plunged out of the brush next to me, looking as large as the ark of Noah with her round, swollen, pregnant belly. By the One True God, she was enormous.
“You stole my dog,” she accused while standing there looking uncomfortable in her own skin.
