Their leader appeared with the head of the bear I had killed on his head, circling my father, who was stumbling around with his empty horn of beer. He had lost his dignity, his demeanor and his poise. He was just a stumbling drunk.
Skoll stood in front of him. The musicians stopped playing and crept away, the elders stood up and rushed to the barn to flee with the horses. The women scattered, looking for places to hide.”
"Kolburn, you know why I'm here. By the powers granted to me by King Svend, I challenge you to the sacred duel of our ancestors. The winner shall take possession of everything the other owns. The loser will not be allowed to return to the Vallhalla, a place where there is no room for cowards."
My father walked over to him and they stood face to face, without taking the smile from his face.
"I've been waiting for you, you bastard," he said in a harsh tone.
And then he fell to the ground, unable to keep a dignified stance any longer.
"This is going to be easier than I thought," Skoll muttered to himself.
He threw his shield to one side, drew his sword, which had destroyed many bodies, put his foot on my father's neck and raised his sword with both hands, ready to drive it into my father's chest. My father just looked at him, with a smile on his face, without understanding what was happening".
19
Charles de Gaulle
IAGO
Marion weighed up my words. Some small snowflakes fell on her black hair, but she didn't seem to notice.
"That's why you were in such a hurry," she muttered, looking serious.
"That's right."
"So, that's it? We find each other again and you've leaving?"
"Marion, I don't know how to fit all this into my life right now. All I know is that my wife's life depends on me and I have less than three weeks to do the impossible. I can't look any further than that, I don't want to look any further than that. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Santander. You've got my card with my number, which you can call, and I can get hold of you through Pilkington."
"Is that a goodbye?"
"I'm afraid so."
Marion looked up into the dark sky and closed her eyes, as if taking in the moment.
Then she stood up, picked up her vintage Cartier purse and took out a flashdrive.
"Here's a copy of all the research from the Kronon Corporation with regard to telomerase behavior. It's encrypted, our son's name is the password."
She then left the balcony and her queenly footsteps walked her downstairs with dignity.
I put the flashdrive in my pocket and ran after her.
"What was his name, Marion? What was our son called?"
Marion looked at me in surprise, and stopped in her tracks.
"Don't you remember? What were we, just another family amongst the thousands that you've had?"
No, Marion, the dearest, the most loved, the most longed after.
"I remember that our son took a year longer than normal to say his first word. I remember that he inherited my aim, I remember that he hated the corn stew you made and he poured it into the dog's bowl when you weren't looking. I remember him digging ditches next to me, hour after hour, night after night, to plant seeds that the rooks tried to steal. I remember how I tried to turn him into a good farmer."
"Is that why you were so hard on him?"
I had to make sure that he was ready for when I left you.
"Marion, don't deprive me of that memory, what was his name?"
"You've deprived yourself. Being a longevo, you should know fair well that we choose what to remember and we choose what to forget. And you chose to forget his name."
"Maybe because his memory is too painful."
"Were you happy with me, despite how difficult our life was there?"
So happy, Marion, I do remember that. You cured me of the wounds that Gunnarr left.
But it was useless to keep dwelling on the past.
"If you're not going to tell me the password to the research, you should go and I should rest, my flight leaves first thing in the morning. I only have few hours left to save my wife's life. Goodnight, Marion. I wish you a long life."
I woke at dawn and took a taxi to Charles de Gaulle airport. I had a couple of hours left until I boarded, so I distracted myself in the boutique area when they raised the shutters, buying Belgium chocolate for my father in the Godiva shop. I returned home with empty hands, with no progress that would bring me any further towards the research. I'd lost twenty-seven hours and the clock kept ticking.
Frustrated, I strolled the aisles of the shops until the bottles of liquor became too tempting and I ran the other way, losing myself in the trendy gloom of the Hugo Boss boutique. I picked up a couple of blue shirts to get the young, well-dressed store manager off my back, and hid behind the thick curtain of the last changing room.
I stripped from the waist up and was doing up the buttons of one of the shirts when Marion walked into the changing room, stood behind me and pulled the curtain closed. Our eyes locked in the mirror.
"Peregrine," she managed to say.
"Peregrine," I repeated.
That's right, how could I have forgotten? Our son was called Peregrine.
"Why are you here, Marion?" I said, putting my scientist shirt back on.
"I'm going to help you."
"You've already helped me by giving me the password to the research."
"I mean really help you. So that you're not alone in this, I'll help you with the inhibitor, and meanwhile I'll help you to find your wife. I've got contacts on all the borders. If they left Spain, someone must have received a good sum of money to turn the other way."
The air conditioning in the cubicle exuded a masculine scent of cinnamon to increase shopper's urges to buy more, although Marion and I weren't thinking about buying shirts right then.
I knew what she was asking me for with her look, and I turned away, looking at the wall and biting my lip.
"If your wife dies and you end up coming back to me, we'll always ask ourselves if you're with me because she's not there. I need her to live, I need her to live so that you can decide who you want to be with."
"Ok," I finally gave in.
Whatever her reasons were, I needed help with the research, and quite possibly, the only person in the world that could help me was someone with that level of knowledge on telomerase.
I'm doing this for Dana, I'll do anything for her, I repeated to myself. Pick up the pieces later.
"And what are you going to do about your job at the Kronon?" I reminded her. Have you thought about that?"
"Yes, I've thought about it," she said, sighing. "I had two months to set up the European headquarters. I'm going to have to put back all my meetings and I'll re-schedule them over the next eighteen days. I'm sure they won't be too happy, but I'll deal with that later."
"Ok, Marion. Come with me to Santander. We've got eighteen days to make history. And then, I promise, I'll make a decision."
20
The knife from Toledo
IAGO
Atlantic Ocean, 1620 B.C.
That was when I realized that I had a rope tied around my body, and from the deck of the ship, the shadow of a woman and a boy were pulling on it until they managed to get me back to the surface.
"Ok, Degory," Marion Adams said to the boy, a young Puritan who she gave a couple of coins to, which he quickly hid in the pocket of his doublet.
I curled up into a ball, shaking, hugging my soaking clothes in search of some heat that would return some life to me.
"I pushed you into the sea, Ely. If you were thinking about drinking all the alcohol that you brought in the barrel, you can think again. I have to explain to William Bradford why I let one man bring so much alcohol on board, and I believed your story, but if you're not going to keep your word, and I let a simply drunk onto this ship, then it's my responsibility. We've still got several months left of this arduous crossing, without taking into account the hards
hips we will come across in Virginia. I want you to know that every time you drink and lose control, I'll be there to throw you back into the sea without giving it a second thought."
"You have no idea what you're doing, I'm going to die from cold, goddamn it! And who do you think you are to get involved in my business and in what I want to do with my life," I shouted at her, furiously.
She didn't flinch, and handed me a doublet, some stockings and some black shoes.
"Here, I've stolen some dry clothes. Put them on right now and I'll go to the boiler room to dry your clothes. You should put yours back on and return these before everyone else wakes up. But you can be sure that if you drink again, this scene will be repeated. And I'm not doing it to help you, believe me, but rather to avoid more serious conflicts on the Mayflower."
Well, Widow Adams stuck to her promise. I was thrown into the sea the following nights, unable, after living for eighteen years in a drunk haze, to resist a few hours of oblivion that alcohol gave me.
I cursed and insulted her every time she threw me overboard, but I saw the firmness in her eyes and knew that she wasn't going to change her attitude, however many injuries she received.
Our daily duel also had its advantages. Widow Adams and I made it a habit to talk next to the fire of the boiler every night, whilst everyone else was asleep. She wrote her chronicles by candlelight and I dried myself off with clothes stolen from the Puritans, searching for a heat in the fire that began to shine in her eyes.
But I began to fear for my life. Although I had always been pretty resistant to disease, my daily dunking in the increasingly colder ocean water was chilling my lungs and stomach, and I was beginning to feel weaker.
So I decided to give up drinking, aware of the fact that Marion, as I had become used to calling her, would not give in, and her willpower was much greater than mine.
On the first night I stayed up, playing cards with other passengers, but my hands began to shake and I was so focused on trying to cover it up, that I wasn't able to keep up with the game. Frustrated, I handed over the money I had lost and went up onto the deck.
Behind the mast, I could make out a shadow that was haunting me, but I ignored it and carried on. I knew that I wouldn't be able to ignore it for long, that Gunnarr's ghost would also cross the seas and I would come across him in the forests of the New World. I would never find a place to hide from my sins. My throat went dry, longing for the sweet taste of my anesthesia.
"You took your time coming up tonight," said a woman's voice from behind me.
I turned around and stared at her, wishing that I had the willpower of those eyes that were always watching me when I fell.
"You didn't bring the bottle," Marion whispered to herself. "It looks like it's finally happening."
And her hands began to search under my clothes. Wise hands, whose touch I didn't expect from a widow. Despite my surprise, I kept her gaze and let her continue, wishing that the meticulous inspection would never end.
"Help me," I begged, not being able to control myself.
Manon pressed her forehead against mine.
"I don't know if I can do it on my own," I continued. I don't want to go back to Europe, and I don't want to be the useless man I am now, but I just can't control myself."
"I'll throw all your bottles away," she whispered.
"It won't help, I'll steal from the other passengers."
"Can you manage to go all day without drinking in front of the others?"
"Yes, nights are the problem."
"I'll keep you company at nighttime. I don't sleep much, I take the opportunity to write my notes and transcribe the reports that William Bradford gives me. I'll keep you busy, night and day."
And that's what she did. I barely had time to rest after that night. Manon gave me one task after another, from repairing the keel after a particularly violent storm that almost split the hull in two, to assisting with Mrs. White's birth on the day that the old doctor, Samuel Fuller, wasn't available. They called that boy Peregrine, and the woman made me promise that I would name my firstborn son on the new continent after him.
Manon turned me into an essential part of the colony, and Gunnarr barely crossed my mind.
Several days later, after docking on the snowy coast of Cape Cod, many kilometers further north than originally planned, a group of sixteen of us left in a boat armed with muskets, swords and coats of mail, led by Captain Myles Standish. During the last weeks of the crossing, I had gained the trust of Governor Carver, and I had told him of my plans to make contact with the natives and set up a beaver skin trade. The time had come to go through with the task my father had given me to make his investment viable.
We came across a plain with several mounds, and I could sense what we were getting ourselves into, but the Englishmen didn't seem to be aware. Some threw down their weapons when they saw brightly colored baskets and discovered that they held ears of corn.
"We can use these to plant seeds in the colony," said one of the men, picking up a basket with the intention of taking it.
"Please, I beg you, leave it where you found it," I said, racing ahead. The natives haven't just randomly abandoned these baskets. They're offerings, offerings for the dead. We're standing on their graves. This is a cemetery."
Everyone looked down apprehensively at their feet. Standish began to dig, and came across the skeleton of a man who, given his attire, looked to have been a great leader, despite the fact that he was blond. We all looked in amazement, not understanding what we were looking at.
I remembered the journey that Gunnarr made, six centuries beforehand, and the colony that Leif Eriksson had founded further north, in Vinlandia. Could he have been a descendant of those Nordics? Had Gunnarr spread his seed here? Could that corpse belong to one of my great-great-grandsons? How many times had I asked myself the same thing in every corner of the planet?
Furious cries roused me from my musings. The natives were attacking us with stone-tipped arrows and everyone was running into the undergrowth of a nearby forest of junipers, in search of cover.
Everyone except me, who ran behind the natives and cut them off between the tree trunks.
I stood in front of a small group, all of them pointing their arrows at me. They were upset and very offended. I took all my clothes off and threw myself to the ground, naked with my arms crossed on the snow, just as my father had taught me when I was a boy. It was the ancestral sign of an unarmed man. All the ancient tribes knew and respected it. Then I concentrated on their cries, on the words they were repeating, "man, father, dead man, great man, leader".
"Sachem," I said.
"I wish to see the great Sachem, take me too your leader".
One of the Indians, who had shaved his head on both sides and had left a bushy crest in the middle, came over and began to look through my clothes. He took one of my weapons from the pocket of my doublet and in Spanish, said:
"A knife from Toledo.”
"Holy Christ, how the hell do you know how to speak my language?" I exclaimed, also in Spanish, as I stood up.
"Non-Englishman?" he asked cautiously. "Your English also seems to be fluent."
"No, I'm Spanish. Although the English don't know that."
We both laughed, and he ordered the rest of the warriors to lower their bows whilst gesturing to me to put my clothes back on, although he jealously looked at the furs I was wearing on my shoulders.
"I'm Squanto, the last of the Wampanoag people. A few years ago an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped me and sold me to some monks in Malaga. They taught me Christian rites. I pretended that they had converted me, and they let me travel to England, where I once again boarded a ship to return to Patuxet, my village, and found it empty. I joined the Nauset and they told me that the epidemics over the last few winters had killed everyone in my village."
"Squanto, my Real Name is Urko, although you must call me Ely in front of the English. I want to go with you. This colony has come to stay, but I t
hink that we can all benefit and not be enemies. Take my hat," I said, throwing it to him. Do you know those skins?"
He caught it in mid-air.
"It's beaver. They're abundant in the north, we can catch them and trade them with other native villages. What have you brought from England in exchange?"
I smiled, Squanto spoke my language, in every sense of the word.
"Meet me back here in two moons. I'll bring broad-shouldered men to carry the goods. And tell the great sachem about me."
"Ok, Urko. I'll send a fast-footed messenger to the southeast, to the home of Massasoit. I'm sure that he will be interested to hear what you have to say."
"So be it," I said, squeezing his forearm, bonding the two of us.
"So be it," Squanto repeated, handing me my Toledo knife.
I ran back to the coast, where the boat was about to set sail back to Cape Cod to join the Mayflower. Standish's men had left me for dead, and were surprised to see me, although I didn't want to tell them too much.
As soon as I got back on the ship, I went to speak with Governor Carver and William Bradford. Both had a good level of common sense, and they were just as concerned about the financial viability of the company as they were about the souls of their parishioners.
The next morning I made preparations to leave again with the barrel of metal plates and meet back up with Squanto.
"You're leaving," said Manon, coming up from behind and helping me to load the barrel on the small boat they had lent me.
"That's right. I'm going to travel south and meet the leader of the natives, and then I'll try to set up a business network of beaver skins with the north. I'll come back to the colony when I need goods to trade and when I've got enough skins to send back to our associates in London. You also have a lot of work ahead of you. Build huts that will see you through the winter," I said, looking at the white sky. "I think it's going to be especially long and cold. Take care of managing the supplies. I don't think that there will be riots between the colonies for food, they seem to rather merciful. I'll come back before the thaw if I can. I'll try and bring seeds so as you can plant corn and beans, like the Indians."
The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection Page 12