Vinland the Good

by Henry Treece

  Bjarni said starkly, ‘Very well, there’s always tomorrow.’

  He spoke in a very low voice and the wind was whistling round him, but the youth with green cats’ eyes suddenly looked up and said, ‘There may not be tomorrow for certain folk, unless they learn better manners.’

  And when they put ashore below Brattahlid, the young man leapt like a stag on to dry land and strode up the hill towards the steading without asking the way.

  Bjarni said, ‘I do not like the look of this at all, Thorhall. Nay, I do not care for it.’

  Thorhall nodded. ‘No more do I,’ he said. ‘It is my place to hurry after him and to see that no harm befalls Leif.’

  He ran up the slope after the long-shadowed youth, and was amazed when the Hebridean halted and stood waiting for him, his pale face set and glowering. He called to Thorhall, ‘Whose dog are you, Blackbeard? Are you in such a hurry to be whipped?’

  Thorhall bit his lip then said, ‘There is no man in Greenland who dares say that to me.’

  The youth said, ‘Then the times have changed, Blackbeard, because there is now a man in Greenland who dares say anything to anyone. Throw that dagger of yours into the grass, or I shall step down the hill and put you to certain trouble. I do not carry this dirk for skinning rabbits.’

  Thorhall thought that his head would burst, the blood beat so hard in his temples. Then suddenly he began to laugh and then flung his dagger away where he could find it again. He said, ‘I think I remember you now. Or, at least, not you, but one like you.’

  The youth nodded and said without smiling, ‘I do not remember you, but I know who you are. And Leif will know who I am. Now walk before me where I can keep my eye on you, and take me straight to Eiriksson. If you try any Norse tricks, I shall have the ugly head off your thick shoulders before you can draw three breaths.’

  Thorhall shook his head. ‘I must say, you are a proper man,’ he said. ‘If I could get close to you, I could break you in two pieces with my bare hands. But you are every inch a man.’

  The youth said coldly, ‘What did you expect me to be, a mouse like Thorvard of Gardar?’

  This shook Thorhall so much, he did not say another word until they both stood before Leif in the hall at Brattahlid.

  Then he said, ‘Master, I bring you a visitor.’

  The youth said, ‘Save your breath, Blackbeard. He has been expecting me for half his life.’

  Leif gazed into the young man’s eyes, then said to Thorhall, ‘Sit by the fire, old friend. We shall say nothing that you may not hear too.’

  Then Leif placed his hands on the youth’s shoulders and drew him to his breast, as a father does to a son who has been away for many years. Tears were running down his cheeks, and Thorhall had never seen this happen before, not even when Eirik the Red died.

  Then Leif said, ‘How is your mother, boy? I have dreamed of her for years, especially since misfortune came on my family.’

  The young man said, ‘She died two months ago. But on her deathbed she commanded me to return the gold ring and the ivory belt you once gave her as a betrothal present. She could not return the green cloak because she wished to be buried in it.’

  He felt in his pouch and laid the ring and belt upon Leif’s chair. Then he said, ‘My mother, Thorgunna, Lady of the Islands, gave me the name Thorgils. She forgave you for not keeping your promise to return and marry her, but she put a gentle spell on you to make sure that you married no one else.’

  Leif nodded and smiled. ‘Aye, I know it,’ he said. ‘And you, Thorgils, are my son, are you not?’

  The youth nodded and then bowed before Leif. He said, ‘I am your son come now to take care of you for the rest of your days.’

  Thorhall by the fire stood and said, ‘Somehow I knew you the moment you turned on me, above the fjord, Master. I felt the magic come out of your eyes into my stomach and turn it as cold as ice.’

  Thorgils laughed for the first time then and said, ‘It took all the strength from me to lay that spell on you, baresark. I am truly glad that you did not come on at me then. I should have finished you, of course, but it would have left me very weak.’

  Thorhall came forward and took the young man’s hand and pressed it to his cheek. It was a very cold hand, but very strong. Thorhall said, ‘Tell me, Thorgils Leifsson, how many good men did you lose, bringing your crazy tarred boat all the way from the Hebrides?’

  Thorgils smiled thinly at him then and said, ‘None, old warrior. I came alone. I brought my mother’s thong and made the wind-knots in it to guide me. That is all.’

  Thorhall said slyly, ‘But you have no spells to deal with our Greenland reefs, is that it?’

  Thorgils smiled again, and it was like the ice breaking in the spring. He said, ‘I put the boat on to the reef after some thought. If I had sailed it up the fjord unaided, the good folk at

  Eiriksfjord would have stoned me to death. It was better to come in as a wrecked rover. You simple folk are used to that. You welcome wrecked seafarers.’

  Then Thorhall began to laugh and to slap his thigh. But Leif stopped him and said gravely, ‘You see now why I did not marry, to have an heir to the steading, Hunter? And you see why I have not married Gudrid off already? This is the right husband for her. He is not a Greenlander, and together they can take over Brattahlid when I am gone, and keep Freydis in her place. Fetch Gudrid straightway, Thorhall. These two must meet.’

  But when Gudrid came in, dressed in green robes and wearing a necklace of jet, she shrank a little from Thorgils touch. And after a time she excused herself, saying that she felt very cold and must go to her fireside in the bower to get warm again.

  And when she had gone, Leif said, ‘What was it, my son?’ Thorgils smiled sadly and answered, ‘It cannot be, father. She is a true Christian. Did you not see how she drew away from the ancient magic in me?’

  Leif said, ‘I am a Christian too, my son. Did you not know?’

  Thorgils nodded, then said, ‘Aye, father, but your religion is like well-watered voyage-ale, it is not all that strong. We shall get on very well together, I can tell. But Gudrid is not the wife for me, you must find someone else for her.’

  Word soon went out that Leif had found a son to take over Brattahlid when his days were ended, and it was not long before Freydis and her rabbit-toothed husband Thorvard of Gardar came hurrying to find out what this son was like.

  When Freydis saw Thorgils in his green kilt and red cloak, with the gold at his throat and arms, and his great dirk stuck proudly in his belt, she could not help smiling sweetly and making eyes at him. And the more coldly he treated her, the more she tried to catch his attention. At last, she said aloud to her husband, ‘If you were more like this Hebridean I should be better content.’

  Thorvard was very angry at this and stalked over to Thorgils and glared at him. ‘You may carry a dirk in your belt, boy,’ he said, ‘but do you know how to use it?’

  Everyone in the hall was silent then. Thorhall bowed his head so that no one should see him smiling.

  But Thorgils only stared palely and said in a gentle voice, ‘Aye, Rabbit-teeth, I know how to use it.’

  Then he stood quite still, like a block of ice, and did not say another word. Thorvard gasped as though he had fallen into the fjord, and then did not know how to go on. He gaped for a time, trying to get his breath, then he turned round and almost rushed out of the hall.

  Freydis went after him, and the folk in the hall heard the sound of many hard thumps before she came in again, red-faced and with her hair on her shoulders. She went straight to Thorgils and said, ‘I must ask you to pardon my husband, nephew. As you see, he is a man of violent temper. It is all I can do to stop him from going baresark at times.’

  Thorgils bowed and said, ‘You have my sympathy, lady. He is the sort of man I should not wish to offend.’

  There was another still silence and she shuffled from foot to foot, until at last she too made her way quickly from the hall. And when the folk had all g
one, Leif said to Thorgils, ‘Old Eirik is dead, but there is a man in Greenland again. You will keep them all in order, my son.’

  Thorgils said, ‘Thank you, father. I shall always do as you wish me to do. I shall care for you as my mother would have done. That is why she sent me, to give peace to your life in these times of trouble.’

  After that, no more was said. They were the happiest father and son in the North.

  16. Karlsefni

  When Freydis found that Leif was beyond her reach and that Thorgils was like a calm and steadfast watchdog that could not be bribed with a bone to let the thieves come in, she turned her attention towards Gudrid and made her life a misery.

  At last Thorhall went to Leif and said, ‘Master, Gudrid is either weeping or praying all the time now, and that is no way for a young woman to live her life.’

  Leif answered, ‘I would to God I could find a husband to protect her, but I have considered all the families I remember in Iceland, and I cannot think of anyone there who could stand up to this vixen, Freydis.’

  Thorgils was polishing a bronze brooch by the hearth and paused in his work to look up and say, ‘Rack your brains no further, Leif. A ship from Norway is rounding Cape Farewell now, with a stout east wind in the sail. It will bring good news to you and to Gudrid.’

  Leif put down his cup and stared at the young man.

  ‘Tell me the name of the shipmaster,’ he said, smiling bleakly.

  Thorgils answered, ‘I do not play at silly games, father. The power I have is not to be used like that. All I will tell you, since you seem to be in some doubt, is that he will wear a sheepskin dyed red, and that the top of his right forefinger is missing. Will that do?’

  Then he bent over the brooch again, without waiting for Leif’s reply.

  And at sunset, two days later, a great black-painted trading-ship pulled into the haven at Eiriksfjord and when the plank was set down, a man wearing a red sheepskin jacket and holding a black staff in his maimed right hand stepped ashore. He looked round smiling for a while, then said to Thorhall who was there to meet him, ‘I am the Icelander, Karlsefni. I come from Norway to visit Leif Eiriksson and to trade with him.’

  Thorhall bowed his head slightly and said smiling back, ‘We were expecting you. Will you follow me up to the house?’ Karlsefni nodded pleasantly and said, ‘Leif must have good spies out. We only rounded Cape Farewell two days ago, with an east wind in the sail.’

  Thorhall said gently, ‘We who live up here come to know all the winds and the tides. We can judge how long it will take a ship to get up the fjord, more or less.’

  Karlsefni scratched the side of his fine nose and said, ‘It is good to be among such sharp seafarers. The old spirit has died out in Norway, I fear. And soon it will be gone in Iceland. As for the English, they never had it, with them it was only a dream. But up here a man can find sea rovers still, I think. Men who would sail to the world’s edge.’

  Thorhall coughed slightly at this and Karlsefni said, I do not suppose that you have been to this Vinland they are all

  talking about in Bergen and Bremen?’

  Thorhall shrugged his shoulders. ‘Only twice,’ he said. ‘Mind that hole in the ground, master, you could fall into it

  with all that hay lying over it. I must get it filled in before the winter makes the ground too hard to dig.’

  Karlsefni gazed at him in astonishment and did not say another word all the way up to Brattahlid. There Leif greeted him well and said, ‘I am glad that you have come, with such a great store of provisions too. Here in the settlement we expected to go hungry before the winter was out. Our harvests have not been good, and the nets have not brought in many fish.’

  At that moment Gudrid came into the hall, dressed in a new linen robe and wearing the best of her ornaments. It was plain to all who saw this meeting that Karlsefni could not take his eyes off her.

  And late that evening he said in private to Leif, ‘Lord, I am not one who makes up his mind lightly, and when I ask for a thing I mean that I want that thing above all others. I have good holdings in Iceland and am well-respected there.’

  Leif nodded and smiled. ‘I know what you are going to ask,’ he said. ‘What do you think the lady concerned will say?’ Karlsefni said, ‘I think that she would listen to my proposal. Have I your permission to ask her?’

  Leif said, ‘I will come with you to her bower, so that all may be done properly in our Greenland way.’

  The upshot was that the two were married by Leif in due course, and the wedding feast was the best the settlers had ever known. Karlsefni had brought great stores of malt, grain and flour, which he shared generously with all who came to the feasting. The celebrations went on long after Christmas, and there was much singing and chess-playing and story-telling.

  Even Freydis so far forgot herself as to sing in the hall before the folk; though a quarrel almost arose there because she could not keep her eyes off Thorgils as she sang, and this angered her husband, Thorvard of Gardar. Especially since he could do nothing about it.

  Hut Karlsefni turned this quarrel aside by asking for news of Vinland, and all who had been there had something to say. And when the story had been told, Karlsefni said, ‘That is the land of heart’s desire. With my new wife, I would be happy to settle in Vinland for the rest of my days. Have I your permission, Leif, to take as many of the Greenlanders as wish to come with me, and to form a new settlement there?’

  Leif said, ‘They are all free folk here, brother-in-law. They can decide for themselves. I would not want the farms here to suffer from not having enough folk to tend them; but no one can force a man to stay if he wishes to go somewhere else.’ Freydis jumped up then and said, ‘Why am I always left out of things? If Gudrid goes to Vinland, I too shall go. I see no reason why my husband Thorvard should not start his settlement there too, if this Icelander is allowed to.’

  Leif said, ‘No one is denying you, Freydis.’

  Indeed, he was glad that she wished to go from Greenland. Then she said, ‘And while we are at it, you cannot leave Brattahlid, now that you are the chieftain here, so you will not need those houses you built beside the lake in Vinland. As your sister, I shall claim them before this stranger does.’

  Now Leif’s face grew very red and he clenched his fist about his meat-knife. He said firmly for all to hear, ‘Those huts are mine, Freydis, and shall never belong to any other man. If you want houses in Vinland, then you must build them yourself.

  But, in the meantime, I will gladly give you permission to live in them until your own are made. And you shall share them equally with Karlsefni and his folk. That is my word.’

  Thorhall was drinking ale with his friend Bjarni in a comer by the wood-fire. He said with a grim smile, ‘That woman will be t he death of many men, my friend, before all is over. Sec, she promises gaily enough now, but once she is beyond Leif’s reach, she will change.’

  Bjarni laughed quietly and said, ‘We are not boys, old one.

  We can fend for ourselves, hey? She will not bring the doom on us, will she?’

  Thorhall said, ‘When my doom comes, it will come from something stronger than a red-haired woman with a whiplash for a tongue.’

  Just as he spoke a spark flew from the fire into his beard, and set it smouldering. Bjarni laughed to see him beating the fire out, and said, ‘That is an omen of some sort, but what it means I do not know.’

  Karlsefni watched this and said to Leif, ‘That is a strange man, that black baresark who sets his beard on fire. I am not sure that I would want to take him to Vinland.’

  Leif said, ‘He is a strange man, to be sure, but my dead father put his trust in him and so must you. He knows every rock and inlet between here and my huts in Vinland. He can find food when an eagle can see nothing to eat. This Thorhall could make or break your expedition, however well you plan it.’

  Karlsefni said quietly, ‘But he is a heathen, is he not?’

  Leif nodded. ‘Aye, a heathen,’ he said. �
��And so was my father - but he founded Greenland, all the same. It does not seem to me that Christ is a better voyager than old Red Beard Thor. I have heard some seafarers say that they pray to the one on land and to the other at sea. Perhaps you should do the same, brother-in-law, on this venture of yours.’

  Then he laughed and called for more meat and bread. Karlsefni went to his wife Gudrid and said, ‘I am not sure that Leif is as good a Christian as folk make out.’

  She smiled and answered, ‘He is good enough for me, husband, and so he must be good enough for you.’ So Karlsefni said no more.

  17. The Great Sailing

  When spring came, the great sailing began. There had been no other expedition like it from Greenland. Leif and Thorgils watched from the fjord-shore as the longships went out, each with its tow-boat trailing behind on the level waters. Sheep and cattle cried out mournfully, their voices echoing weirdly along the fjord. But from one barge came the deep-throated bellowing of a bull.

  Leif said, ‘That is Karlsefni’s beast. It knows no master. That bull would try to overthrow a great church, if it stood in his way.’

  Thorgils smiled. ‘That is what it will do, father,’ he said. ‘ That bull will ruin a land. It will set the world back for twenty generations.’

  Leif turned to him and said sternly, ‘Come, come, lad. I spoke only in a sort of joking. No beast could do what I said, and what you said still less.’

  Thorgils said, ‘I shall not answer you. You must look down from the Heaven you pray for and see what I mean, a long time hence.’

  Leif turned from him in annoyance and watched the ships.

  Karlsefni led with three vessels, long red cloths floating at the masthead; and beside him sailed Freydis, Eirik’s daughter, with another ship steered by the brothers Helgi and Finnbogi.

  Thorhall came behind, in a longship that Thorbjorn Vifilsson had brought from Iceland; and alongside him rode his old mate Bjarni Grimolfsson in his own craft. Karlsefni’s own party was of sixty men and five women; but all told the expedition numbered one hundred and sixty, including a number of husbandless girls. Leif had not thought it wise to take these last people, because on a long voyage certain quarrels can break out among shipmen by reason of such folk. But Freydis was staunch on this and said, ‘These girls must live somewhere. So, if their parents sail to Vinland, will you take on the duty of feeding them and clothing them and finding them husbands, and then paying for their wedding-feasts?’