by Anthology
So, priest, I am not unwilling to believe what you say about the White Christ. I have been in England and France myself, and seen how the folk prosper. He must be a very powerful god, to ward so many realms . . . and did you say that everyone who is baptized will be given a white robe? I would like to have one. They mildew, of course, in this cursed wet Iceland weather, but a small sacrifice to the house-elves should—No sacrifices? Come now! I’ll give up horseflesh if I must, my teeth not being what they were, but every sensible man knows how much trouble the elves make if they’re not fed.
Well, let’s have another cup and talk about it. How do you like the beer? It’s my own brew, you know. The cups I got in England, many years back. I was a young man then . . . time goes, time goes. Afterward I came back and inherited this, my father’s farm, and have not left it since. Well enough to go in viking as a youth, but grown older you see where the real wealth lies: here, in the land and the cattle.
Stoke up the fires, Hjalti. It’s getting cold. Sometimes I think the winters are colder than when I was a boy. Thorbrand of the Salmondale says so, but he believes the gods are angry because so many are turning from them. You’ll have trouble winning Thorbrand over, priest. A stubborn man. Myself, I am open-minded, and willing to listen at least.
Now, then. There is one point on which I must set you right. The end of the world is not coming in two years. This I know.
And if you ask me how I know, that’s a very long tale, and in some ways a terrible one. Glad I am to be old, and safe in the earth before that great tomorrow comes. It will be an eldritch time before the frost giants fare loose . . . oh, very well, before the angel blows his battle horn. One reason I hearken to your preaching is that I know the White Christ will conquer Thor. I know Iceland is going to be Christian erelong, and it seems best to range myself on the winning side.
No, I’ve had no visions. This is a happening of five years ago, which my own household and neighbors can swear to. They mostly did not believe what the stranger told; I do, more or less, if only because I don’t think a liar could wreak so much harm. I loved my daughter, priest, and after the trouble was over I made a good marriage for her.
She did not naysay it, but now she sits out on the ness-farm with her husband and never a word to me; and I hear he is ill pleased with her silence and moodiness, and spends his nights with an Irish leman. For this I cannot blame him, but it grieves me.
Well, I’ve drunk enough to tell the whole truth now, and whether you believe it or not makes no odds to me. Here . . . you, girls! . . . fill these cups again, for I’ll have a dry throat before I finish the telling.
It begins, then, on a day in early summer, five years ago. At that time, my wife Ragnhild and I had only two unwed children still living with us: our youngest son Helgi, of seventeen winters, and our daughter Thorgunna, of eighteen. The girl, being fair, had already had suitors. But she refused them, and I am not one who would compel his daughter. As for Helgi, he was ever a lively one, good with his hands but a breakneck youth. He is now serving in the guard of King Olaf of Norway. Besides these, of course, we had about ten housefolk—two thralls, two girls to help with the women’s work, and half a dozen hired carles. This is not a small stead.
You have seen how my land lies. About two miles to the west is the bay; the thorps at Reykjavik are some five miles south. The land rises toward the Long Jökull, so that my acres are hilly; but it’s good hay land, and we often find driftwood on the beach. I’ve built a shed down there for it, as well as a boathouse.
We had had a storm the night before—a wild huge storm with lightning flashes across heaven, such as you seldom get in Iceland—so Helgi and I were going down to look for drift. You, coming from Norway, do not know how precious wood is to us here, who have only a few scrubby trees and must get our timber from abroad. Back there men have often been burned in their houses by their foes, but we count that the worst of deeds, though it’s not unheard of.
As I was on good terms with my neighbors, we took only hand weapons. I bore my ax, Helgi a sword, and the two carles we had with us bore spears. It was a day washed clean by the night’s fury, and the sun fell bright on long, wet grass. I saw my stead lying rich around its courtyard, sleek cows and sheep, smoke rising from the roofhole of the hall, and knew I’d not done so ill in my lifetime. My son Helgi’s hair fluttered in the low west wind as we left the buildings behind a ridge and neared the water. Strange how well I remember all which happened that day; somehow it was a sharper day than most.
When we came down to the strand, the sea was beating heavy, white and gray out to the world’s edge, smelling of salt and kelp. A few gulls mewed above us, frightened off a cod washed onto the shore. I saw a litter of no few sticks, even a baulk of timber . . . from some ship carrying it that broke up during the night, I suppose. That was a useful find, though as a careful man I would later sacrifice to be sure the owner’s ghost wouldn’t plague me.
We had fallen to and were dragging the baulk toward the shed when Helgi cried out. I ran for my ax as I looked the way he pointed. We had no feuds then, but there are always outlaws.
This newcomer seemed harmless, though. Indeed, as he stumbled nearer across the black sand I thought him quite unarmed and wondered what had happened. He was a big man and strangely clad—he wore coat and breeches and shoes like anyone else, but they were of odd cut, and he bound his trousers with leggings rather than straps. Nor had I ever seen a helmet like his: it was almost square, and came down toward his neck, but it had no nose guard. And this you may not believe, but it was not metal, yet had been cast in one piece!
He broke into a staggering run as he drew close, flapped his arms and croaked something. The tongue was none I had heard, and I have heard many; it was like dogs barking. I saw that he was clean-shaven and his black hair cropped short, and thought he might be French. Otherwise he was a young man, and good-looking, with blue eyes and regular features. From his skin I judged that he spent much time indoors. However, he had a fine manly build.
“Could he have been shipwrecked?” asked Helgi.
“His clothes are dry and unstained,” I said; “nor has he been wandering long, for no stubble is on his chin. Yet I’ve heard of no strangers guesting hereabouts.”
We lowered our weapons, and he came up to us and stood gasping. I saw that his coat and the shirt underneath were fastened with bonelike buttons rather than laces, and were of heavy weave. About his neck he had fastened a strip of cloth tucked into his coat.
These garments were all in brownish hues. His shoes were of a sort new to me, very well stitched. Here and there on his coat were bits of brass, and he had three broken stripes on each sleeve; also a black band with white letters, the same letters on his helmet. Those were not runes, but Roman—thus: MP. He wore a broad belt, with a small clublike thing of metal in a sheath at the hip and also a real club.
“I think he must be a warlock,” muttered my carle Sigurd. “Why else so many tokens?”
“They may only be ornament, or to ward against witchcraft,” I soothed him. Then, to the stranger: “I hight Ospak Ulfsson of Hillstead. What is your errand?”
He stood with his chest heaving and a wildness in his eyes. He must have run a long way. At last he moaned and sat down and covered his face.
“If he’s sick, best we get him to the house,” said Helgi. I heard eagerness; we see few faces here.
“No . . . no . . .” The stranger looked up. “Let me rest a moment—”
He spoke the Norse tongue readily enough, though with a thick accent not easy to follow and with many foreign words I did not understand.
The other carle, Grim, hefted his spear. “Have vikings landed?” he asked.
“When did vikings ever come to Iceland?” I snorted. “It’s the other way around.”
The newcomer shook his head as if it had been struck. He got shakily to his feet.
“What happened?” he said. “What became of the town?”
“What town?” I
asked reasonably.
“Reykjavik!” he cried. “Where is it?”
“Five miles south, the way you came—unless you mean the bay itself,” I said.
“No! There was only a beach, and a few wretched huts, and—”
“Best not let Hialmar Broadnose hear you call his thorp that,” I counseled.
“But there was a town!” he gasped. “I was crossing the street in a storm, and heard a crash, and then I stood on the beach and the town was gone!”
“He’s mad,” said Sigurd, backing away. “Be careful. If he starts to foam at the mouth, it means he’s going berserk.”
“Who are you?” babbled the stranger. “What are you doing in those clothes? Why the spears?”
“Somehow,” said Helgi, “he does not sound crazed, only frightened and bewildered.
Something evil has beset him.”
“I’m not staying near a man under a curse!” yelped Sigurd, and started to run away.
“Come back!” I bawled. “Stand where you are or I’ll cleave your louse-bitten head.”
That stopped him, for he had no kin who would avenge him; but he would not come closer. Meanwhile the stranger had calmed down to the point where he could talk somewhat evenly.
“Was it the aitsjbom?” he asked. “Has the war started?”
He used that word often, aitsjbom, so I know it now, though I am unsure of what it means. It seems to be a kind of Greek fire. As for the war, I knew not which war he meant, and told him so.
“We had a great thunderstorm last night,” I added. “And you say you were out in one too. Maybe Thor’s hammer knocked you from your place to here.”
“But where is here?” he answered. His voice was more dulled than otherwise, now that the first terror had lifted.
“I told you. This is Hillstead, which is on Iceland.”
“But that’s where I was!” he said. “Reykjavik . . . what happened? Did the aitsjbom destroy everything while I lay witless?”
“Nothing has been destroyed,” I said.
“Does he mean the fire at Olafsvik last month?” wondered Helgi.
“No, no, no!” Again he buried his face in his hands. After a while he looked up and said: “See here. I am Sardjant Gerald Robbins of the United States army base on Iceland. I was in Reykjavik and got struck by lightning or something. Suddenly I was standing on the beach, and lost my head and ran. That’s all. Now, can you tell me how to get back to the base?”
Those were more or less his words, priest. Of course, we did not grasp half of them, and made him repeat several times and explain. Even then we did not understand, save that he was from some country called the United States of America, which he said lies beyond Greenland to the west, and that he and some others were on Iceland to help our folk against their foes. This I did not consider a lie—more a mistake or imagining. Grim would have cut him down for thinking us stupid enough to swallow that tale, but I could see that he meant it.
Talking cooled him further. “Look here,” he said, in too calm a tone for a feverish man, “maybe we can get at the truth from your side. Has there been no war you know of? Nothing which—Well, look here. My country’s men first came to Iceland to guard it against the Germans. Now it is the Russians, but then it was the Germans. When was that?”
Helgi shook his head. “That never happened that I know of,” he said. “Who are these Russians?” We found out later that the Gardariki folk were meant. “Unless,” Helgi said, “the old warlocks . . .”
“He means the Irish monks,” I explained. “A few dwelt here when the Norsemen came, but they were driven out. That was, hm, somewhat over a hundred years ago. Did your kingdom once help the monks?”
“I never heard of them!” he said. The breath sobbed in his throat. “You . . . didn’t you Icelanders come from Norway?”
“Yes, about a hundred years ago,” I answered patiently. “After King Harald Fairhair laid the Norse lands under him and—”
“A hundred years ago!” he whispered. I saw whiteness creep up beneath his skin.
“What year is this?”
We gaped at him. “Well, it’s the second year after the great salmon catch,” I tried.
“What year after Christ, I mean,” he prayed hoarsely.
“Oh, so you are a Christian? Hm, let me think . . . I talked with a bishop in England once, we were holding him for ransom, and he said . . . let me see . . . I think he said this Christ man lived a thousand years ago, or maybe a little less.”
“A thousand—” Something went out of him. He stood with glassy eyes—yes, I have seen glass, I told you I am a traveled man—he stood thus, and when we led him toward the garth he went like a small child.
You can see for yourself, priest, that my wife Ragnhild is still good to look upon even in eld, and Thorgunna took after her. She was—is—tall and slim, with a dragon’s hoard of golden hair. She being a maiden then, the locks flowed loose over her shoulders. She had great blue eyes and a heart-shaped face and very red lips. Withal she was a merry one, and kindhearted, so that she was widely loved. Sverri Snorrason went in viking when she refused him, and was slain, but no one had the wit to see that she was unlucky.
We led this Gerald Samsson—when I asked, he said his father was named Sam—we led him home, leaving Sigurd and Grim to finish gathering the driftwood. Some folks would not have a Christian in their house, for fear of witchcraft, but I am a broad-minded man, and Helgi, at his age, was wild for anything new. Our guest stumbled over the fields as if blind, but seemed to rouse when we entered the yard. His gaze went around the buildings that enclose it, from the stables and sheds to the smokehouse, the brewery, the kitchen, the bathhouse, the god shrine, and thence to the hall. And Thorgunna was standing in the doorway.
Their gazes locked for a little, and I saw her color but thought nothing of it then. Our shoes rang on the flagging as we crossed the yard and kicked the dogs aside. My two thralls halted in cleaning the stables to gawp, until I got them back to work with the remark that a man good for naught else was always a pleasing sacrifice. That’s one useful practice you Christians lack; I’ve never made a human offering myself, but you know not how helpful is the fact that I could do so.
We entered the hall, and I told the folk Gerald’s name and how we had found him.
Ragnhild set her maids hopping, to stoke up the fire in the middle trench and fetch beer, while I led Gerald to the high seat and sat down by him. Thorgunna brought us the filled horns. His standing was not like yours, for whom we use our outland cups.
Gerald tasted the brew and made a face. I felt somewhat offended, for my beer is reckoned good, and asked him if aught was wrong. He laughed with a harsh note and said no, but he was used to beer that foamed and was not sour.
“And where might they make such?” I wondered testily.
“Everywhere,” he said. “Iceland, too—no . . .” He stared before him in an empty wise.
“Let’s say . . . in Vinland.”
“Where is Vinland?” I asked.
“The country to the west whence I came. I thought you knew . . . Wait a bit.” He frowned. “Maybe I can find out something. Have you heard of Leif Eiriksson?”
“No,” I said. Since then it has struck me that this was one proof of his tale, for Leif Eiriksson is now a well-known chief; and I also take more seriously those yarns of land seen by Bjarni Herjulfsson.
“His father, Erik the Red?” went on Gerald.
“Oh yes,” I said. “If you mean the Norseman who came hither because of a manslaughter, and left Iceland in turn for the same reason, and has now settled with his friends in Greenland.”
“Then this is . . . a little before Leif’s voyage,” he muttered. “The late tenth century.”
“See here,” broke in Helgi, “we’ve been forbearing with you, but now is no time for riddles. We save those for feasts and drinking bouts. Can you not say plainly whence you come and how you got here?”
Gerald looked down at the floor, shaking
.
“Let the man alone, Helgi,” said Thorgunna. “Can you not see he’s troubled?”
He raised his head and gave her the look of a hurt dog that someone has patted. The hall was dim; enough light seeped in the loft windows that no candles were lit, but not enough to see well by. Nevertheless, I marked a reddening in both their faces.
Gerald drew a long breath and fumbled about. His clothes were made with pockets.
He brought out a small parchment box and from it took a little white stick that he put in his mouth. Then he took out another box, and a wooden stick there from which burst into flame when he scratched. With the fire he kindled the stick in his mouth, and sucked in the smoke.
We stared. “Is that a Christian rite?” asked Helgi.
“No . . . not just so.” A wry, disappointed smile twisted his lips. “I thought you’d be more surprised, even terrified.”
“It’s something new,” I admitted, “but we’re a sober folk on Iceland. Those fire sticks could be useful. Did you come to trade in them?”
“Hardly.” He sighed. The smoke he breathed in seemed to steady him, which was odd, because the smoke in the hall had made him cough and water at the eyes. “The truth is, well, something you will not believe. I can hardly believe it myself.”
We waited. Thorgunna stood leaning forward, her lips parted.
“That lightning bolt—” Gerald nodded wearily. “I was out in the storm, and somehow the lightning must have smitten me in just the right way, a way that happens only once in many thousands of times. It threw me back into the past.”
Those were his words, priest. I did not understand, and told him so.
“It’s hard to grasp,” he agreed. “God give that I’m merely dreaming. But if this is a dream I must endure till I awaken . . . Well, look. I was born one thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-three years after Christ, in a land to the west which you have not yet found. In the twenty-fourth year of my life, I was in Iceland with my country’s war host. The lightning struck me, and now, now it is less than one thousand years after Christ, and yet I am here—almost a thousand years before I was born, I am here!”