B0046ZREEU EBOK

by Elphinstone, Margaret

  The skraelings stood still and looked at the two men facing them. They stared round, and saw our company waiting further back, with their naked swords in their right hands and the sheltering dunes behind them. Then one skraeling copied Karlsefni’s gesture and spread his hands wide, palms outwards. He stepped forward within two swords’ length of Karlsefni and Snorri. I couldn’t hear, but I could see that he was speaking. I saw Karlsefni shake his head. The skraeling spoke again, and Karlsefni said something in reply. The brown man gestured with his hands and spoke louder, and that time I heard him. He had a voice like a man, though there was no sense in it. I heard Karlsefni answer: ‘I don’t understand. Can you speak Icelandic? I don’t understand.’

  They seemed to give up at the same time. Karlsefni shrugged, and at the same time the other man spread his hands in a similar gesture of hopelessness, and I think everyone was startled by the way they echoed each other, because on both sides I heard men laugh. And then the skraelings seemed to relax, because they came forward, right up to where our men were standing. They didn’t try to speak or touch them, but they stared, and muttered, and pointed things out to each other. They couldn’t take their eyes off the drawn swords. Our men watched them like wary dogs, and kept their weapons ready. I realised I had my hands twisted together, and my whole body was tense, willing the men to keep control of themselves. It only needed one wrong move, I knew, for the taut thread to snap, and I didn’t trust the spinners of it. The fates hunger for battle, and the possession of the dead, but these men were mine, and I prayed to a more merciful God that I should not have to lose them yet. The odd thing was, Agnar, that it was our own men that I was afraid of. It didn’t occur to me that the skraelings would change their mood, or suddenly attack. I knew nothing of their nature, but I knew my own people very well, and I knew they couldn’t be trusted to keep the peace.

  Perhaps the skraelings sensed the same thing, because suddenly one of them spoke, and in a moment they had all retreated to the boats. They were afloat again before we quite realised what was happening. The strange oars were shipped, and the whole fleet rowed quickly away until they reached the headland beyond our lagoon, and disappeared from sight.

  It may not sound to you like an alarming incident. No blood was shed; no one was hurt; but that first encounter changed everything, and I don’t think any one of us slept so well again after it as we’d done before. Of course we all discussed the strange people interminably, and I think we all knew we hadn’t seen the last of them. Snorri wanted us to leave as soon as possible, and abandon all thoughts of a winter camp. If we’d listened to him, his son would have lived, but then no one knows what might have been, and for all we know, an untimely death may save even greater suffering. Only fate sees everything; there is one face of providence that I trust, and one that seems to be arbitrary and capricious. But perhaps when we cease to be mortal, we shall see what the gods see now, and we’ll find that the two faces are really one.

  Inevitably the skraelings came back. Since the first encounter, we’d kept a watch, and so we saw them as soon as they came into view round the headland. There were so many boats that the sea looked as if it were strewn with sticks of charcoal, and when the skraelings swung their flails the noise was terrifying. Such an alarming approach must, we assumed, mean an attack. Our men ran to arm themselves, then waited at the top of the dunes. We seemed very few compared to the massed boats before us, but it was close to high tide, which meant if it came to a fight we’d be able to rush them from above as they came ashore.

  My boy was awake, and I stood at the door of the hut, holding him in my arms. I thought he’d catch my fear, but he seemed quite unaware of it, as he wriggled to get free so he could be off and see what was happening on the beach. I’ve never felt so vulnerable, knowing he trusted me completely, and yet I couldn’t do a thing to protect either of us if our little warband were to be killed. Even if I could escape into the forest, I could never get away from Vinland, so I’d be better dead than free. I couldn’t begin to think about being captured. In all the stories I’d heard of foreigners being taken, they’d kill the baby first and rape the woman, and then maybe kill her too and maybe not. That’s what our own people did abroad; I didn’t know if the half human creatures I saw in front of me would be the same. I had my knife on its cord around my neck. I knew what I ought to do if I could, if the day went against us. I didn’t dare to imagine it clearly. I just felt icy inside and not able to think. My hands were cold and sweating, and I hardly seemed to have the strength to keep hold of my boy. I just concentrated on trying to quiet him and not letting him fall. When your worst fears seem to be coming true it’s more like a dream than reality. I suppose it’s a way of keeping sane to half believe you might wake up and find you’re not really in that world at all.

  But the skraelings hadn’t come to fight. They came ashore just as they’d done before, carrying no weapons. The leaders stood at the foot of the dunes, and spoke to us in their outlandish tongue, making wild gestures, and beckoning our men down. Others were unloading the boats behind them. It was so different to the nightmare: the cold knot inside me unfroze, and only then did I feel my heart thumping and my whole body trembling. I took a deep breath and crept forward to see better. Snorri was quiet now that he could see, watching the scene below him with round-eyed wonder. The skraelings were spreading stuff out on the beach, and pointing emphatically. Furs. They had furs, Agnar. It was so unlike what I expected I found instead of shivering I was trying not to laugh, and I had to swallow hard to stop myself from giggling like an idiot. It was like when Thorstein came home from the hunt and laid all his spoils at my father’s feet. There were deerskins, sealskins, huge brown bearskins, foxskins, wolfskins and some strange pelts I didn’t recognise which we were told later in Norway were some kind of cat, but at the time I’d never heard of such an animal. The furs looked so rich and strange and incongruous, piled on the beach in that empty land beyond the end of the world, and I found I wasn’t thinking of Thorstein so much as Thorgeir the packman and his son Einar, who had once dazzled my eyes and my judgement with beautifully made objects from far countries. Everything fell into place then, like waking from a horrible dream. Karlsefni, who was after all a merchant, understood at the same moment, for he suddenly sheathed his sword, dropped his shield in the sand, and spread his hands wide in the gesture he’d used to reassure the wild men before. Then he jumped down the dunes, sliding in the loose sand, and stood alone, face to face with the skraeling leader.

  Everything happened very quickly after that. Our men were jumping down the dunes, laughing like fools at the unexpected change. I looked down and saw men and skraelings mingling on the sand, black and fair, all talking too loudly and waving their arms, each group trying to force understanding on the uncomprehending other. I began to perceive a pattern sooner than they did, because standing outside I could see it all, and each man down there only knew what was happening to himself. The skraelings, every one of them, were confronting one of our own men, and pointing at his sword, sometimes even reaching out to touch it, apparently quite unaware of its deadly bite. Our men were trying to hold their swords away, protecting the naked weapons with their shields as best they could. I thought at first the wild men were saying the weapons should be put away. In fact one or two men did sheathe their swords, but that wasn’t it. The skraelings just grew more excited and pressed in closer. One of them gripped Thorbrand’s scabbard, and tried to pull it from his belt. Thorbrand pushed him roughly back. Both sides began to shout and push. Thorbrand whipped out his sword again. I screamed out: ‘Thorfinn!’, and startled the baby so he jumped in my arms.

  Karlsefni swung round. ‘Gudrid! Go back! Go back at once!’

  ‘You’re not seeing!’ I shouted down to him. ‘It’s the swords! They want your swords!’

  He looked about him, and understood at once, now I’d told him. He hesitated, but I could see, and he couldn’t, and that was why I could think faster. ‘Thorfinn!’

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nbsp; He looked up, and I told him what to do. ‘Something else! Offer something else! Quick!’ I saw him take that in, but I was faster. We didn’t have much, after all, and I could see them, all dressed in skins as if they were wild animals themselves. ‘Cloth!’

  He was bewildered for a second, but then a moment later he’d sent men hurrying to the huts. All we had was what we’d needed for ourselves: sailcloth, blankets, cloaks, awnings. Our men brought down all they could find and spread it out on the sand. It wouldn’t have worked, I don’t think, if Karlsefni hadn’t had a red cloak which was heaped in among the rest. As soon as the skraelings saw the colour their attention was caught. They seized the woollen cloak and stretched it between them, stroking it and marvelling over it. I don’t think they’d ever felt wool in their hands before. They ran their fingers to and fro over the weave, then spread the cloak out again, and seemed to be exclaiming over the colour.

  We had hardly any dyed cloth with us, but perhaps that was better: certainly the skraelings treated it like something rare and precious. In the end Karlsefni cut the cloak in strips with his knife and divided it among the leaders. By that time they were working over the rest of the pile, and pulling out material that they fancied. The swords seemed to be forgotten. I think they’d have recollected them sooner if we hadn’t produced another novelty. That was our luck; it hadn’t occurred to any of us that milk could be unknown to creatures who appeared in human form. Karlsefni sent two men for buttermilk because it was all we had to offer, and when it came he demonstrated how our strange guests might dip the cup in the barrel and drink.

  The skraelings stared at the yellow liquid in the barrel and muttered among themselves. They watched Karlsefni drain the cup and fill it, and offer it to their leader, telling them they were all welcome to drink from it. The man took the cup and drank, and exclaimed in surprise. He seemed pleased with the taste, for he went on to drink the lot, dipped the cup again, and passed it on. The skraelings crowded round, and of course there wasn’t enough to go round, but the whole business seemed to satisfy them. They behaved with an odd decorum, as if it were some kind of ceremony, and afterwards they seemed much less wary. I wondered if they shared our belief that it’s wrong to betray a man after you have offered him food and drink. They seemed to assume that this new drink was worth more than solid goods, and raised no objection when our men went through the furs, taking whatever they liked.

  My baby was beginning to grow restless; grown men might bargain with milk as if it were silver coins, but my Snorri had no false values. I carried him back to the hut, and sat in the shelter of the doorway. I began to feed him cold broth with a spoon, while I listened to the clamour of voices from the beach.

  What happened next haunts me still. It was nothing dreadful in itself, nothing at all compared to the terror I had felt when the skraelings came back, but of all the things that happened in Vinland, it stays with me as the most unsettling. I shall see her face until I die.

  I’ve been a lonely woman, Agnar: lonely for my own kind, I mean. I’ve never lacked company: father, husbands, sons, friends, servants; I’ve never been alone or neglected. Yet in a way I was alone among them all. In most families there’s a group of women at the heart of the household. Not in mine. I had no mother, I lost Halldis, and neither of my husbands took me home to a house of women. I’ve never had a woman for a friend. Other women do, I know. Maybe it’s something you have to learn young, but for some reason I’ve never had the trick of it. I don’t know what it is I fail to do.

  At Hop I didn’t set eyes on another woman for over a year. Or did I? Was it something I dreamed, or hoped for, or imagined, or was it real? It was a hot afternoon. I’d had a bad fright, and I felt limp and tired. I was still used to sleeping in the day, partly because of the heat, and partly because my son used to wake two or three times every night. So in spite of the skraelings still there on the other side of the dunes I felt sleepy, as I quietly gave my son his dinner in the leafy shade of the doorway.

  I’ll tell you this bit just as I remember it happening, but be warned, Agnar, I can’t swear to the truth of it. All this summer I’ve tried to describe things to you as they were, though you must realise that if you had anyone else’s version it would probably be different from mine. We all have our point of view, but quite apart from that there are some things I can’t be too sure about. I can’t explain to you what Vinland is, for example – what kind of place, or where it belongs in the scheme of things. In Rome it seems not to exist, or only as a place inside my mind, because I’m the only one here who has ever experienced it. I wish I had someone I could talk to about it. It’s hard to make sense of the past when there’s no one left who shared it with you. Maybe one day you’ll be an old man in Iceland, and you’ll think of a long ago summer in Rome that no one lived in but you, and you’ll feel the loneliness I feel now; you’ll see all this inside your head, but when you try to tell anyone about it you’ll hear the words coming out thin and small and distorted, and even as you speak you’ll know your story is as useless as a shadow. That’s my difficulty now, you see, and this bit I’m about to tell you is the heart of the problem. Or perhaps it’s not important at all; maybe after all it was only a dream.

  I was sitting in the doorway, as I said, when a shadow fell across me. I looked up and saw a woman standing there. I knew she was a woman, although she didn’t wear a dress. She had on a deerskin tunic like the skraelings wore. She was shorter than me, and much darker. Perhaps it was because I was taken by surprise, but although she had all the characteristics of a savage, I saw quite clearly that she was not one. Perhaps it was because she was alone, not in a crowd. I don’t know what it was. I found myself looking at her as if she were a person I might know, and just for a moment I wasn’t even surprised. I almost seemed to recognise her.

  She spoke to me. I didn’t understand. She spoke as if she thought I could understand if I wanted. She didn’t babble or speak too loud, like the crowd down on the beach, but spoke to me insistently and slowly, so I could tell she was using real words. The only foreign language I’d ever heard in my life then was Latin, and that only read or chanted. But she was speaking to me, and in a hazy way I felt so close to knowing what she was saying, that I realised then for the first time that all languages make sense to someone. I’d realised the skraelings understood each other, of course, but I hadn’t thought of their speech as anything but an uncouth babble, just as it had never occurred to me that ours must sound as nonsensical to them. The woman was pointing to me, and she seemed to be asking a question.

  I gave her the most likely answer I could think of. ‘My name is Gudrid,’ I said very clearly. ‘What is yours?’

  Then I understood she wouldn’t know which bit was my name from that, and I repeated ‘Gudrid’ once or twice more. ‘What is your name?’ I said again. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Gudrid,’ she replied, like an echo.

  Just as she spoke there came a clash of metal against metal, then a sudden scream, and the yells of fighting men. My visitor vanished; I never even saw her go. I leapt to my feet, dropping the spoon, and Snorri wailed in protest. I ran to the edge of the dunes, and saw the last of a brief struggle, and the skraelings running to their boats and launching them so fast they looked like basking seals diving back into the sea after being disturbed.

  I looked down on the knot of men left on the beach. They stood with drawn swords, apparently too bewildered by the sudden flight of the skraelings to think of pursuing them. The beach around them was piled with furs, and with the woollen cloth that the skraelings had bargained for and not had time to snatch up and take away. There was something else lying down there that was not just a bundle of skins. I looked closer and saw the dark-skinned body, raddled with blood from a great sword wound across the neck. Just for a moment I saw quite clearly what this meant. A man had died because of us, here in Vinland. I hugged my innocent baby to me, and I seemed to hear an echo of the sound which had never been heard in this country bef
ore, the clash of sword on sword, and it seemed to me that it was the crash of a door closing on us. I knew for certain then that we were shut out.

  NINETEEN

  September 18th

  We should have gone away at once, and if my word had prevailed we would have. I couldn’t have cared less if the skraelings thought that we were cowards, or that they were victorious. What could it matter, when their thoughts were completely unknown to us? When I think about it, Agnar, I don’t even know what my own child thinks, or my own husband. If you start worrying about other people’s thoughts there’s no end to it. But you must keep me to the point, my dear. What is it I’ve got to tell you about? It all seems very remote this morning. I think when this winter’s passed I’ll go home. Did you hear the wind in the night? It made me realise the wind so seldom blows here, and when there is a breeze in summer it’s still stuffy. I’m glad the year has turned. I’ve never looked forward so much to winter before. This morning, when I saw the first brown leaves blowing across the wet courtyard, and smelt the west wind with the salt still in it, I felt as if I could breathe again. I slept better last night, and I dreamed I was in Iceland.

  * * * * *

  I’m tired, Agnar, and it was all so long ago. Sometimes it seems like yesterday, so vivid in my mind that I almost believe I could open my eyes and it would all be there again. One of the best things about growing old, you’ll find, is remembering things that have been lost for fifty years. It’s my childhood that comes back to me most clearly, but I told you about that, didn’t I?

  * * * * *

  Oh yes, we were talking about Vinland. My son was a baby then. He was born there, you know. Yes, of course, I did tell you about that. He was a healthy baby. I think it was a good place for him. All a small baby wants is its mother, and Snorri had that more than most children. There was no one else to look after him, you see. I wasn’t like that with Thorbjorn. Thorbjorn was conceived in Norway and born at Glaum, and though I loved him and looked after him well I wasn’t with him all the time. There was a thrall called Inga who looked after him. He loved her. I used to watch them going up to the milking ring together, hand in hand, to see the cows being milked, Thorbjorn in his short tunic, and his brown bare legs and feet. When boys first come out of long clothes I find their little legs very endearing. Thorbjorn used to go off with Inga, and he never made a fuss or used to cry for me. As soon as he was weaned he slept with his elder brother. His security was in Glaum, the house and all the people there, and that was a burden off my shoulders, but all the same, I always felt there was something I gave to Snorri, and he to me, which Thorbjorn never had.