Paths of the Norseman, page 8
part #2 of The Norseman Chronicles Series
When Thjordhildr returned from her church vigil we abruptly finished our talk. Like embarrassed youths nearly caught in the act, we grew silent and distant when the lady of the house walked in through the door. She set down whatever baggage she carried and washed in the basin that was newly warmed by Alverad, the household thrall. I welcomed Thjordhildr, but excused myself, saying I would not eat with them that night and went into the still-light evening. I was not ten steps from the longhouse, when Alverad came out calling after me.
“What is it?” I asked the girl.
She was young and pretty, with a nose that went to a narrow point, but I never spoke to her other than single word phrases in the normal course of living with Erik and his family. She was from lands similar to Tyrkr and even had a like accent. Alverad struggled more with the words as she tried to speak, so I asked her if she would do better in a Danish dialect. My hunch was correct. The Danes were very proficient traders, especially in the trade of slaves. After her initial capture, she spent several years with them before being sold off to the Norse.
Now in Danish she answered. “I do not know exactly what you and Gudrid spoke of in the house tonight, but you two should marry.” Why she seemed so certain as to what I should do was beyond me. When I didn’t immediately respond the young woman continued, “She has been very sad in the weeks since her arrival. For the first time I saw a brightness in her eyes while you spoke. Women notice such things. You are a widower and she is a widow. You will make a good match. You can work her father’s land.”
The thrall woman was right. I have told you again and again that except for the occasional summer a-Viking, all I ever wanted was to be a farmer with a good woman nestled under my covers. Here was my chance. I could be near my second father. My goals were finally within my reach. I think that if I was given the chance to stand there again today, I would march right back into that longhouse and propose a union. No delay. I have had some good times since then, but I think that marrying Gudrid that summer would have made me a happy man.
Instead I said, “What do you know about me? You’re a thrall and should act as such. Maybe I’ll just have you and be done with it.”
She was stubborn, but not overly so. A worried look flashed across her face that perhaps I would see a punishment sent her way. It was very common for female thralls to be used by their masters for pleasure. Since Erik had lost all interest in such things recently, Alverad would have feared me coming to her sleeping place in the night. Yet with as much courage as she could muster, she said, “I am sorry for noticing, but I think I have been told enough about you. Tyrkr shares stories with us sometimes. I think you are gentle and noble. I know you want a wife and farm.” Then she finished, “I did not mean to speak out of turn. I thought I helped.”
Tyrkr and his flapping German lips! I would need to talk with him sometime. But, as I said, the woman was right. While I stood there, I resolved to marry Gudrid upon my return in the autumn from our adventure to the lands Bjarni ignored. More gently this time I said, “You were right to tell me. Thank you, Alverad. Now please go back and attend to Thjordhildr and Gudrid.” She nodded with a slight smile, heading off into the house.
I walked to Fridr Rock to spend the night staring up at the stars and think about what might be.
. . .
Bjarni’s ship, Thor’s Treasure, hadn’t looked that seaworthy in years. I saw to it that we employed freemen and their horses to pull the longboat onto land. Thralls then scampered over its walls and decks to recaulk the strakes with tar-soaked wool or to swab another coat of pine tar over any exposed wooden surfaces. Bjarni had a partially finished sail in his home that Leif bought from the crew’s widows. He hired women from neighboring estates to finish the cloth in a matter of weeks. It was handsome indeed, with alternating blue and white vertical stripes.
The boat was pushed back into the waters of Eriksfjord. A long plank was set, leading from the gunwale to the shingle so that provisions could be easily loaded. It was stocked with plentiful food such as salted mutton and smoked fish. Four large casks of ale were rolled up the gangplank to be stowed in the cavernous hold of the knarr. The old sail was stowed away in the event inclement weather came upon us. We could stretch it over the length of the ship like a tent to protect us from the elements. As I stuffed it into the hold, I remember wishing we had something similar on our trip from Norway to Greenland the previous autumn. But if we had, we would have seen neither the icebergs coming toward us nor the stranded crew. I shrugged and thought that these things usually work out right.
We planned to leave for our adventure on the summer solstice. The sun was terrific with not a cloud in the blue sky. A good omen, I thought. For its part, the sun would set for a mere two or three hours this time of year so we should be able to make efficient time toward whatever land we sailed. Most of the crew, including my old friend Tyrkr, was already aboard. I lingered on the stones scattered about the shore, trying to think of more reasons to talk with Gudrid, who was kind enough to walk with me that morning. I told her I waited for Leif and Erik to arrive. They had taken their horses to make last minute governing plans with Thorvald, who would serve as leader while Erik was away.
“But why must you go?” Gudrid asked while the soft waves from the fjord lapped the shore.
It was a good question. I’ve stewed myself to anger and despair over my lack of a home and woman. If I asked for the woman before me to be mine, I would have her. I knew it. I would just tell Leif I changed my mind; that I would stay and help Gudrid run Stokknes. We could rut under the covers all winter, then she could give birth to the first of our children while I worked and hunted outside in the summer. We would repeat this as many years as we could. But my plans weren’t so easily achieved. “I gave my word to Leif that I would go a-Viking with him.”
She wasn’t impressed with my logic, “So tell him that circumstances have changed.” Gudrid was opinionated. I found that captivating.
I gently touched her arm while saying, “Giving my word isn’t the whole truth. All my life, I have told others I wanted to find a good woman and work the earth. And that’s true. But something changed in me while I was serving Olaf all those years.” I hesitated because I was afraid that speaking my thoughts out loud would make them so and, therefore, change who I was. But I was already a different man. So I said, “I have come to yearn for adventure. I still want a good woman. I still want to build an estate, but something pulls me to the sea, to adventure.”
Gudrid nodded quietly with a quivering smile. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. Then she sniffled out, “Halldorr, you are so much like my Thorstein. He wanted two lives. He wanted to see the world and so he travelled to Ireland and back. But he also wanted to be firmly planted and rule with honor in both his home and the Western Settlement. He was honorable. I was proud to call him my husband.”
A great shout echoed over the hills to the southwest, interrupting our conversation. We both turned to see Erik and Leif cresting the hill atop their galloping horses. The beasts’ thundering hooves kicked up dirt, grass, and rocks while their riders whipped the horses’ rumps, driving them ever faster. I instinctively pushed Gudrid behind me and put my hand to my sword hilt to prepare for the trouble that must pursue my friends. But then I heard the laughter and taunting of men racing.
Both men rode medium sized palfreys. Erik’s was a dappled grey, while Leif’s was light brown with one white sock. The palfrey was generally a fine horse, and Erik had imported several over the years. They did not trot, but by their nature had a smooth, ambling gait. The horses were superb for the rocky, uneven terrain of Greenland.
Leif led his father by two horse lengths, but Erik gave a shrill scream and jammed his spurs further into the creature’s sides. The grey’s eyes widened while, like its rider, it gave a shrill neigh of its own. Erik’s face was livelier than I had seen it since we heard of Thorstein’s death. His forehead was furrowed with intensity. His teeth gritted behind his smile. Wild red hair flew behind him while the tips of his beard blew up to obscure his view. Erik looked like Erik once again. His horse began to pull closer.
The men onboard Thor’s Treasure heard the commotion and all moved to starboard to cheer on their leaders. I snuck a glance back to Gudrid who stood with a broad smile, our serious conversation forgotten. Turning toward the racers, I shouted my encouragement to them both.
I could now hear Leif’s baiting, “How do you expect to embark on a journey when you can’t even get your horse to budge? Maybe the beast is taking after your bowels and has decided not to move!” Erik was only a half-length behind.
With a determined smile Erik retorted, “You little bastard! When I win this race, I’ll show you how fast my bowels work. You’ll be in charge of the dung bucket on our journey!” Leif was surprised to now see Erik abreast of him. The grey had the momentum and would certainly win for they were a mere thirty ells from us.
Then it all changed. Erik’s horse found an unexpected furrow behind a large stone. The right front leg plunged into the depression, then snapped with such a piercing sound, my ears still hear it today; my face winces as I record the event on this page. The strong chest of the palfrey smashed into the earth while Erik continued forward into the air. His horse’s ass-end was already rolling over toward us by the time Erik hit the ground. My second father bounced once off his torso, rolled in the air, then bounced again. He skidded to rest against a dark brown, jagged boulder.
Leif pulled his horse to a halt, dust rising into a billowing cloud, and scampered down to his father while I set out at a sprint. The fall would surely mean the death of the horse, but did the man live? I didn’t know. The rock partially obscured my view of him. His legs lay still to the left and one hand jutted out from the right. Then I heard Erik shouting a string of curses, “Thor’s goat shit! By one-eyed Odin’s turds! Freya’s tits! Tits! Tits! Tits!” He pulled his hand back to cradle his ribs just as I rounded the rock. He looked bad, but not terrible. Erik’s face was scraped with a bloody nose. His arms and legs did not appear to be broken.
“Ox shit! My ribs! I’ve broken my ribs. It hurts to breathe.” He intentionally tried to limit the volume of his inhalations so as not to stretch his chest.
Leif and I knelt down to the man. When I touched his head with my hand he shouted, “Halldorr, this doesn’t mean you can rub me like a lonely woman! Ow!”
Leif laughed, “If it’s just your ribs you can rest on the ship while we sail. You’ll be up before we set foot on this new land.”
Gudrid slid to a stop behind us when Erik grunted out, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Undaunted, Leif responded, “Then we can delay our trip by a week or two. You’ve broken ribs before. They heal.”
“I’m not going anywhere, anytime!” Then gasping, “Shit that hurts. This is a bad omen. I’m not leaving Greenland in my lifetime. I even question whether or not you should go after this.” Gudrid squeezed my shoulder. I read her thoughts. She, no doubt, hoped that I would be forced to stay with her. A part of me wanted to walk to Torleik and have him marry us on the spot, but another part craved the uncertain danger to which this omen directed.
We received our answer, “Father, you may stay here like a woman. But Halldorr and I, the adventurous sons you have remaining, are leaving.” Leif jumped into his saddle, walked his horse to the shore, and shouted to several men to see to it that Erik was carted back home. I looked into Erik’s eyes. He gave a half smile and shrugged.
I finally noticed the grey palfrey breathing heavily, snorting. It lay sprawled in a heap five ells from us and gave an occasional, pathetic neigh. Its broken leg was bent into several awkward directions with bloodied bones protruding from grotesque wounds. Gudrid’s eyes reminded me to put the horse out of its misery, so I pulled my saex out and slit the animal’s throat. After two or three gurgles of wet blood from the creature’s neck, it lay motionless.
We spent another hour or two hauling the horse and Erik back to Brattahlid – one to be butchered, the other to heal. I gave Gudrid a half-hearted smile of encouragement, kissed both Thjordhildr and Erik on their foreheads, then walked alone to the shingle. The brilliant sunshine of the morning had been replaced by fog and a chilly breeze. The signs and omens were shifting. I waded into the cold fjord, walking on the uneven stones beneath the water’s surface. Tyrkr offered an arm and hauled me into Thor’s Treasure. Without fanfare or ceremony, Leif ordered the men to their oars and we started on another voyage atop the waves.
CHAPTER 5
The fog stayed with us for two days as the men strengthened their backs at the oars. We were thirty-five men, altogether. The seas were calm with no breeze. Leif was solemn since his father’s accident and ardent refusal to consider joining the voyage. At the time I thought his disappointment made sense because it meant more morose inaction from Erik, but looking back on it now, I think Leif had another one of his premonitions of the near future – more on that in its proper turn. In his foul mood, Leif actually did tend the turd bucket as Erik had threatened at the end of their race, a task of penance to be sure and fitting for the man who brought Christianity to Greenland.
Most of our crew had sailed in the waters surrounding Eriksfjord for seal or fish and so those first days brought no concern from the men. Most Norse sea voyages involve an overnight stay on land, but on this trip we simply had the men sleep beneath the foggy midnight sun for several hours before resuming their rowing. We ate the smoked fish from the hold and washed it down with ale.
When I was not lending my back to the oar, I spent time in the stern staring back at the fog to an unseen Greenland. What was Gudrid doing? What was she thinking? Our round trip journey would likely last just two months if we did extensive exploring in the new lands. I could be married by the autumn harvest of the short, low-yielding barley crops grown in Eystribyggo. The thought of marriage excited me for Gudrid would make a fine wife.
The thought also brought guilt. I had not experienced such a feeling before, but it came in waves like the sea as I sat there wondering about Kenna. Was it right that I should revel in my future happiness when the woman I had loved so deeply, died so recently in an agonizingly incoherent state brought on by fever? Even now, as Thor’s Treasure cut a path to adventure and hopefully glory, Kenna was rotting in the ground with my son, Olaf. My wife had taught me authentic love and language. I missed her companionship.
If Kenna were what are now called pagans, we would have burned her body then buried her remains with a small wagon to represent a more feminine version of Frey’s ship, Skidbladnr. The burning and transport would have seen to it that Kenna was in paradise in the blink of an eye. But she was not pagan. She was devout in her faith to the One God, having even spent time in a nunnery before we met. How long would she tarry in this world or in-between until she found paradise? I worried that my joy would cause her profound sadness as she looked at me from the heaven of the One God or wherever she now tread.
Ignored by Leif and the men and feeling utter woe, I reached into my pack to pull out my book for the first time in many months. I carefully removed it from the thick, leather purse which had protected it since the day I stole the book from Arwel during a strandhogg in southern Wales. I ran my calloused fingers over the imprinted, three dimensional cover thinking of the times I read the book while on journeys with Olaf while missing Kenna.
Among the many animals on the cover I took particular note of the dragon this time. Thinking the dragon imprint was more pronounced than what it appeared in the past, I took it as a good omen and opened the book to a random page toward the back. The first passage I read, a Psalm of David, brought a wicked smile amongst my beard. David spoke to the Lord about a deceitful man who hated and attacked him without cause. David beseeches the One God to, “Constituet sibi resisteret malus,” or “Appoint an evil man to oppose him.” I thought of Bjarni, his lies, his hatred against me. I thought that I must have been the evil man appointed by the Lord at David’s request. David further asks, “Ut dies eius pauci,” or “May his days be few.” Bjarni’s certainly were, for I, the evil bear-man, saw to it.
Completely satisfied by David’s and the One God’s justification of my revenge, I flipped several pages more into the Psalms only to find my answer. In the middle of a Song of Ascents, Solomon writes, “Erit uxor tua sicut vitis fructifera in domo tua, filii tui sicut rami olivarum in circuitu mensae tuae. Sic benedicetur homo qui timet dominum.” My heart leapt with joy and I gave a shout as I slammed the book closed with a smack. Leif gave a sideways glance from his post at the steering oar to which I returned a sheepish grin. I didn’t turn around to face the men who faced me from their seats at the oars. No doubt more than one of them shook their heads at the whelping man-child aft.
But my joy was genuine and ignited a new enthusiasm for life within me. The One God sanctioned my actions against Bjarni and now He told me that I would have a wife like a fruitful vine, supplying me sons to surround my table! If that was so, he did not expect me to mourn for Kenna for the rest of my days. As much as I loved the woman, I could and would love another. I was certain that Gudrid was to be my woman. She would provide me with warmth in my bed and a host of children. I would very soon finish this adventure with Leif and return to Eystribyggo to be wed in Thjordhildr’s own church.
. . .
Based upon Cnute’s original telling of Bjarni’s journey, we estimated that we should first find the land Bjarni had seen last within three or four days of Eriksfjord, depending on the wind. His description proved accurate in the middle of the fourth day when a stiff, cold breeze kicked up the seas white before us and blew away the fog with a frigid fury. Totally unmasked now, stood a land of mountains with immense blue and white glaciers plunging into the icy waters of the sea. While the terrain seemed forbidding to be sure, the spirits of the captain and crew of Thor’s Treasure sprang to new heights.
