The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Olaf was much impressed by the horse, and anxious to make the match with Mikla, but, he said, it would be some time before the mare would come into heat, for she was often later than other horses, and she had only just borne her new foal. About this Skuli was not disappointed, since he would thus get to keep the stallion that much longer, and he intended to do Thorkel the good turn of getting other breeding fees while the animal was in the area. The horse was not turned out with the others, but kept carefully in the horsebyre, and Skuli checked him three times every day for scratches and tiny injuries.

  Bit by bit in the course of his year with Margret, Skuli had come to view some things in a different light, and this was especially true since his coming to Vatna Hverfi. For reasons of economy, or simple laziness, Kollbein Sigurdsson neither came to Vatna Hverfi district nor sent messengers to his representative, and for much of the time there was no news at all from Foss and Thjodhilds Stead. Skuli’s tie to Kollbein and through him to the court of the king in Norway seemed to loosen, seemed to lighten, almost to disappear. Now he hardly remembered his dead wife, or even his children, or his land on the hillside near Bergen. His friendship with Margret seemed as much a marriage to him as his doings in the district seemed his business. He took as great an interest in the livestock of some of the farmers as he would have in his own, and was earnest in his advice. In the same way, Thorkel Gellison’s stud horse seemed to him to be his own while it was in his care, and he showed great pride in it.

  It seemed to Skuli that this life could last forever, or could shade gently into a similar one that included Margret as his acknowledged spouse, some children by her, ownership of a Vatna Hverfi farmstead, and a race of horses in the byre that were descended from Mikla and the gray stud. From time to time he suggested this to Margret, and she saw that in unguarded moments, he acted as if these impossibilities were already accomplished. Olaf, for example, was so friendly with Skuli that Margret could see that Skuli often forgot that Olaf was her husband. And now they were much thrown together by the planned breeding of the stallion and the mare.

  Gunnhild was a strong-minded and active child who consumed all of Birgitta’s attention and most of Svava Vigmundsdottir’s as well, for Svava had returned to Gunnars Stead just before the birth. The two women were much occupied in concocting enticing viands for the child, as well as in following her about and preserving her from danger, for Svava declared that she had never seen a child with such a penchant for things she was not allowed. Also in this year, Easter came early and was followed by the sudden breakup of the ice in the fjord and the early greening of the mountain pastures. Olaf and Gunnar were much pleased by this, and assisted Hrafn and his sons in taking most of the livestock, which now numbered six horses, eighteen cows, and a hundred and five sheep and goats, up into the hills. Twenty of the best ewes and their lambs were once again removed to Hvalsey Fjord, and this was a three-day trip. So it was that Margret was left alone about the farm to do as she wished, and so it was that she and Skuli often resorted to their accustomed trysting spot. Skuli seemed not to notice the coming of the child. Their habit was that Skuli left early in the morning on his gray horse, and Margret walked off some time later. When they met, the horse would be hobbled and left to graze as he might.

  It so happened that one day some travelers brought a tale to Vigdis at Ketils Stead that Thorkel Gellison’s gray stud was often seen wandering in the mountains north of Gunnars Stead, and one of these travelers made a verse,

  The gray stallion seeks mares where there are none,

  But the hirdman seeking wives knows where to look.

  Vigdis had borne many children, and the activities of Jon Andres were not so interesting to her as to exclude other amusements. So it was that she asked all of those who passed by what they knew of the goings-on at Gunnars Stead, and soon enough she knew who the wife in the verse might be. The verse itself she never repeated, but neither did she forbid her servants or children to repeat it. She had not forgotten how they had found the half-frozen, blindfolded cow in the lake, nor the insult intended, nor the probable perpetrators.

  Sometime after this, Gunnar was sitting beside the small lake on the shores of which Gunnars Stead was situated, and he was repairing a seal net. Hrafn’s wife Katla came up to him and, looking down at him, repeated the verse that was by now common knowledge throughout the district. Gunnar said nothing and continued to repair the net. He sat there for most of the day, and by the time of the evening meal, the net was in perfect condition. He put it away and went inside to eat. At the table, he asked Birgitta where Margret might be. Birgitta replied that Margret had gone to snare ptarmigan in the hills. After this, Gunnar asked where Skuli might be. Birgitta replied that Skuli had taken the gray horse to the farm of Axel Njalsson, which was less than a short morning’s ride from Gunnars Stead. Now Olaf looked up from his trencher and looked at Gunnar. They finished their meal. Afterward they went to find Katla, and, somewhat frightened, she repeated the rhyme to Olaf. A little later, Margret returned with five birds. Skuli came back the next morning.

  The Gunnars Stead folk were still sitting at their morning meat, when Skuli came into the steading and Gunnar greeted him and said, “You are always here and there, my friend. Where do you next intend to seek the king’s revenues?”

  “I have not yet visited the farm of Stein Sigmundsson.”

  “That is a poor place,” said Gunnar. “I doubt that he is eager for your visit.” The two men laughed together. “You are such a good friend to us that we would prefer it if you lingered about Gunnars Stead, at least until the breeding of the mare.”

  “It would hardly be ill to partake of such meat and such talk as I am accustomed to at Gunnars Stead, that is the truth,” said Skuli, with a grin.

  And now Margret said, “Is not the round of your business of first consideration, Skuli Gudmundsson?” But Skuli laughed and stretched himself on the bench, and reached for the basin of sourmilk. “Indeed,” he said, “I have already done more business for Kollbein in this district than he has done for himself in all the other districts together.”

  Margret fell silent.

  After this, for a few days, everyone, including Margret, stayed about the farm buildings, and Margret declared that the storehouses were sufficiently stocked with hanging birds and drying herbs. She followed the child as she crawled from place to place, and related to Birgitta tales from Gunnar’s infancy, but indeed, Gunnhild was much unlike Gunnar except in looks. Birgitta was very proud of her, and carefully arranged the house and the yard outside the steading for her safety and entertainment, even though Gunnar and Olaf were much put out to find their tools and supplies hidden away in odd or distant spots. The child was never struck, or even spoken sharply to, and for this reason, perhaps, she was very merry. One morning, just after the morning meal, Skuli rode away on the gray stallion.

  After his departure, the morning went very slowly. With great effort, Margret listened to Birgitta and to Svava, although their talk did little but annoy her. She went to the storehouse and puttered among her herbs and the other provisions she found there. She spun a little wool and sat for a time at the loom. She followed the baby about, and walked around the periphery of the homefield, but there was little to do, and what there was she was not familiar with, as she had spent nearly every summer day in the hills since well before the death of Asgeir. In addition, there was some danger in falling too often under the gaze of Birgitta Lavransdottir, for Margret’s waist was growing rounder, and straining the seams of her everyday dress (concerning this, she was somewhat afraid to let the seams out, for the dress was so well worn that new sewing would immediately declare itself). In addition to this, every moment brought her the thought of Skuli in the hills, wandering about their favorite places, wishing for her as she wished for him.

  Now Margret went to her cages of birds, and began to speak to the birds while giving them water and sweeping out. She had six birds in three cages—two pairs of larks and one pair of wheatears.
As she looked at them, she thought, as she sometimes did when Skuli was not around and never did when he was around, of how miserably she had given herself to temptation, and how little she had resisted at every point, but gladly had gone into his arms the first time, and more gladly each time since. She thought what a sinner she had become in the eyes of the Lord, and how gaily she had embraced her sin, so that the last year had fled by so quickly that time seemed really not to have passed at all, and she seemed to herself exactly the same guiltless soul that she had been. At once she hungered for the year not to have passed, for herself to be again the truly guiltless person she had been, but not, she realized, so that she might resist temptation, only so that she might have again each moment of the last year. After this, she took each bird on her finger and spoke to it, then, when she was finished with this, she fetched her cloak, put it on, and went out into the hills. Skuli was there, waiting for her, and she expected Gunnar and Olaf, as well, but they were not to be seen. Now their meetings grew as bold as before.

  Soon, Ketil the Unlucky, who had grown into a clever man, but of sour and mocking temperament, made up another verse,

  The landless stranger in colored clothing has only

  The bushy hillside where he can plow the blond whore.

  The Greenlanders are getting careless

  When they trade their horses and their wives

  For so little.

  Soon after this verse was made, Hrafn and Olaf began shearing the sheep in the summer pastures. Katla went with Olaf to visit her husband and help with the washing of the wool. When Olaf returned, he took Gunnar aside and had speech with him on this matter, and recited the verse to Gunnar. He also declared that Hrafn had threatened to find himself another place unless this matter were seen to, for it was a great shame to all the folk of the steading to have such verses going about, and the master and the husband powerless to do anything.

  Now Gunnar thought silently for a few minutes. Then he said to Olaf, “My Olaf, I am well known to be a lazy man, and what a lazy man likes best is for each morning and evening and nighttime to pass as each before it has, and to turn his lazy hand always to the work that he has turned it to before, to watch, with his lazy gaze, the same cows, the same sheep, the same horses, and the same folk going from place to place about the farm, from sunlight into shade and back out again, as they always have. A lazy man must always shrink from a new task, especially from work that he has no practice in, such as killing and burying a friend.”

  “But I have never been lazy, and I, too, am unsure of undertaking this task.”

  And the two men sat there, and they did not hesitate to weep, but after they wept, they went to their store of tools and chose two axes, and sharpened them carefully, and then they set them beside the door of the farmstead, and called out the farm folk and told them the news. When they had finished speaking, and repeated both of the verses, Birgitta, who was holding little Gunnhild in her arms, said, “It is obvious that the two of you are such cowards that you need the permission of your servants to do what needs to be done.” Then Olaf mounted Mikla and Gunnar mounted his old horse, Noddi, and they tied their axes to their saddles and rode away.

  Margret and Skuli were sitting side by side on the hill, talking. Skuli wore his blue and green court suit and Margret the red silk dress she had made herself, and worn from time to time since. The gray horse grazed a little way off, and was brightly visible, because of the way his shining coat cast back the sunlight, from a long way off. Margret was little surprised to see Gunnar and Olaf, as she had been anticipating them for some time, but she was surprised to see that Skuli greeted their appearance with expectation not unequal to hers. He stood up and whistled to the gray horse as he was in the habit of doing with his own horse, but the stallion paid no heed, and walked farther off. Skuli walked toward him, making low clucking noises, for his only weapon, a knife, was fixed to the saddle. The horse trotted away. Now it was easy to see that Gunnar and Olaf had caught sight of Margret’s bright dress, for they began to gallop up the slope. The stallion lifted his head at the sound of hooves, then whinnied loudly and began to trot toward his fellows. A few minutes later, Olaf caught the horse and tied him to a twisted birch tree. Gunnar and Olaf came forward at a trot. Skuli walked forward, then stood still in the middle of the slope.

  He was wearing his green cap, and his bright hair lay smoothly on his shoulders. Now as Olaf neared him, with Gunnar a little behind, he raised his ax and dealt the Norwegian a hard, glancing blow on the side of the head. As the man fell, Gunnar finished him off with another blow to the back of the neck. Blood spurted forth into the willow scrub. Now Gunnar and Olaf approached Margret, and their horses and legs were spattered with fresh blood. With his hand, Gunnar wiped some of this blood on Margret’s cheek, and turned away.

  Olaf dismounted in front of his wife. “Now,” he said, looking her up and down, “my eyes are opened, and I see that this shame will soon bear fruit.” And then he spat in her face. After this, he turned and galloped after the other man, and the first thing they did was to go to Ketils Stead, which was the nearest farm, and announce the killing of Skuli Gudmundsson, as was required in the laws.

  Kollbein Sigurdsson was much angered by the killing of Skuli Gudmundsson, and sought the counsel of many prosperous farmers in trying to decide what action to press and where to press it—at the Thing, under his own jurisdiction as representative of the king, or at Gardar, under the jurisdiction of the bishop. Skuli Gudmundsson, he said, had been one of his finest-looking men, and the retinue was much meaner without him. Many of the farmers around Thjodhilds Stead considered that the wisest course was to support Kollbein in the matter, and seek full outlawry for Gunnar Asgeirsson and Olaf Finnbogason. But the farmers who lived farther away, and the bishop as well, considered that Gunnar and Olaf had been within their rights, and that it was Skuli who had risked outlawry in pursuing his liaison with a married woman.

  The time of the Thing came quickly upon the heels of the killing, but the four days of the assembly went by one after the other and no action was brought against Gunnar and Olaf, although Kollbein kept busy going from farmer to farmer, and talking, always, in a quiet earnest voice. Every farmer, except Kollbein’s nearest neighbors, declared that yes, the killing might be considered deplorable by some, but that, on the other hand, the killing of a Norwegian should not necessarily come between Greenlanders, especially the killing of a thief who came to a farmstead as a friend. None of the arguments Kollbein advanced concerning Skuli’s position as his representative in the Vatna Hverfi district, and his position as representative of the king, impressed the Greenlanders with their power, and Gunnar’s and Olaf’s supporters thronged Gunnar’s booth, which was new and made of distinctively marked almost white reindeer hides, and they also appeared to be everywhere about the Thing. Now it happened that on the morning of the last day before the Thing was to break up, the booth was gone. Seeing this, a neighbor of Kollbein suggested that Kollbein might have luck with his suit if he brought it before the court when the defenders were absent.

  Although the Greenlander spoke in jest, Kollbein took him at his word, and hastily presented the suit at the end of the last day. He asked that Gunnar Asgeirsson and Olaf Finnbogason, of Gunnars Stead in Vatna Hverfi, be declared outlaws, with all their property confiscated, for the killing of Skuli Gudmundsson, hirdman and representative of Kollbein Sigurdsson, himself direct representative of the king, and he asked, as was his right, that the presiding judges, of which there were thirteen—three from each district to the north and south and one from Gardar—vote on the verdict at once, before the adjournment of the session. His supporters felt that this was cleverly done, and might win what was generally considered to be a very weak case. The judges had just begun to speak among themselves, when a large group of men, led by Thord of Siglufjord and Thorkel Gellison of Vatna Hverfi, and including Gunnar and Olaf, charged onto the law field and demanded a hearing. The tale of Margret Asgeirsdottir and Skuli Gudm
undsson was then told, and the judges declined all penalties, and Kollbein Sigurdsson was greatly discomfited by what he called outmoded practices, for the Thing had long wielded no power in Norway or even in Iceland, where the power of the king ruled. After this the Greenlanders were much pleased, and showed even less respect for Kollbein, and some farmers even went so far as to dictate to the ombudsman concerning the ordering of his lands and livestock, and to deny him new animals when he had disposed of his others in a foolish way. The notion of taking down the new white booth and hiding above the Gardar law field on the last day in hopes that Kollbein would submit his suit had been Gunnar’s and folk considered it very clever.

  One day just after the Thing, Gunnar set out with Margret in the Gunnars Stead boat. They took with them five ewes and some household goods. At the end of the morning, they arrived at Gardar, but they did not stop to talk, only carried their goods on their backs and herded their sheep the short distance across Gardar peninsula to where the bishop kept his Eriks Fjord boat, which they borrowed. Now they rowed for most of the rest of the day, until they could see the red stone buildings of Brattahlid across the fjord to the north, and a gray glacial river to the south. The sheep lay still in the bottom of the boat, and though from time to time Margret sought Gunnar’s face, he would not look at her. When they came to a small landing place, Gunnar sat quietly in the boat while Margret took all of her belongings out and set them upon the pebbly shore. Then she led forth the ewes. As soon as they were unloaded, Gunnar pushed the boat off, and began to row away, and as they parted, neither looked at the other, nor made any valediction.

  This farm belonged to Gardar, for the lineage that had owned it had died out two generations before. In addition to the tithe, Margret was obliged to pay another tenth of her yearly produce as rent. In exchange for this, Pall Hallvardsson, Jon, or Audun (who was one of three Greenlanders who had been made priests by the bishop) was to row out to her three times each year, at Easter, at Yule, and near St. Michael’s mass, and confess her and give her communion. These arrangements were made by Gunnar with Jon, and were considered unusual, more unusual than either adultery or killings.