“Not that, you wouldn’t understand,” I said curtly, in a voice more Grandfather’s than mine. I tested it again. “No burning bush, no Angel of the Lord either.”
“The Almighty came into David’s heart,” he said.
“So he did. That was David. I have my own ways,” I said, then added slowly, “There will be a change of course. Into the wind.”
“Where away, Grim?” said Germanicus.
“Signal Malody,” I said. “Bring us about for the Falklands.”
I am aware now that my conversion from shepherd boy to shepherd, from follower to master, cannot be explained by this Norse fairy tale of a shape-changed sibyl, a talking albatross. I did not trouble my men and women—for that is what they had become, my people—with the scene, and it is not without hesitation that I relate it here. It is a secret long kept, once broken, never again until here. If it appears contrived, this is not intentional. I am not concealing, evading, beguiling. I believe wholeheartedly that albatross was Lamba Time-Thief. I continued shaken by the fact of it afterward, still am. I cannot now prove that she, it, that bird, was my mother. There is much about that self-consciously mysterious female who was my mother that I have already recorded that I cannot demonstrate as verified fact—that is, verified by other observers. For example, I have said that Lamba first spied me in her magic hand-mirror late in the evening of the spring equinox of 1973. This is not another’s opinion. It is my conjecture, based upon circumstantial evidence. She did have a magic hand-mirror. I saw it on her belt that night at Sly-Eyes’s party; Israel said he saw it on her belt the night she confronted Peregrine. I also know that Norse sibyls used such mirrors like the crystal balls of other pagan traditions, in order to see the future. Also, I do not know why she was moved to call out Skallagrim Strider’s name at my conception, nor why she persisted with his legend twenty-two years later at Sly-Eyes’s party. There was no significant connection between the Norse Fiddles and the Norse outlaws on Iceland. They appear as far apart as an elephant seal and a Norse wolf. Why, then, was Lamba moved to burden me with such an arcane, fantastic portent? There does not seem to be an answer—unless, of course, one accepts witches and ghosts and curses and magic as what they could all be: in history. In other words, Lamba really was a sibyl, she was able to thieve time, she did tell me the truth.
And while I am asking such unanswerable questions, why did Lamba choose Peregrine? (I pause to muse at this, and now see something I have never seen before: Did Lamba then have prescience that she had a bird’s shape inside her, and did Lamba see something avian and predatory in Peregrine? He was a man in desperate, angry flight. Or could it be, the joke of it, that Lamba heard Peregrine’s name called out at the mickey mouse club by Israel, and just pounced, albatross on falcon? If this speculation seems to mock Lamba, so be it; she mocked me in her selfish, spooky, presumptive way, never said she loved me, as I never said I loved her, still cannot.)
More seriously, most seriously, why did Lamba curse herself with the role of witchcraft? Abigail said it was her fear of Grandfather. Wise men might suggest that it had to do with the desertion of Zoe, Lamba’s twisted way of both emulating and defying her scold of a father. All credible, I admit. I declare now simply that Lamba elected herself, regardless of why. She said, I am this, I know this, what else either will follow or will not. Such conduct is arrogant, is dangerous, is also as rich a way as I can think of to plunge oneself into history.
This might be the deeper explanation of my transformation into despot for those aboard King James and Candlemas Packet. I knew who I was, and where I was from, and the faces of the people who had raised me healthy and good-natured. I had sufficient learning to judge this man just, that man less just. I trusted my own heart, and my heart’s desires. Yes, I could have known more, much more; I was deficient in Education, Genius, Gravel, Fortune, in every Thing, like the men who Lazarus had told me dared to lead early America into rebellion and republicanism. Still, there was a moment, on King James’s, quarterdeck, when I said to myself: now, Grim Fiddle, now, you have what you have, take hold, assume, ascend, lead. I felt charged. I felt magical. I elected myself. And it so happened that I believed that this moment was coincident with the coming of the albatross. I stepped onto the small stage of my destiny and spoke my first truly humorous lines in the comedy. Mother talked back, quip to quip, to quest.
More grandly, perhaps it did not signify what election I chose for myself; I could have voted for fisherman, pilgrim, hermit. I elected to lead. I chose to lead as a king. Or it was chosen for me, or it happened and let another say that it did not. I declare: As Lamba said she was a sibyl, as Lamba committed her being and her only son, Grim Fiddle, to a quest for that portentous fancy of hers, Skallagrim Strider, so Grim Fiddle said he was master of those exiles, so Grim Fiddle committed himself and his charges to a quest for Grandfather, and whatever else that would follow. I laid claim; I gathered my due; I plunged into history, in pursuit of, and in obedience to, my albatross.
My Grandfather
I HAVE read over my account of my self-election and see that it wants clarity. It was not that as a despot with a tangible goal—my grandfather—I was without doubts. Mother might be able to change shape; however, there was no magic on earth, or in Longfaeroe’s Heaven, or in the halls of the Norse gods, that could sweep my mind of worry. Like that American revolutionary Lazarus told me about, I was filled with unutterable anxiety. And so I kept it that way, unspoken, to myself. From then on, I concealed my lapses in confidence, my quixotic ambivalences. As the Norse would say, I guarded my word-hoard.
This was not the same as imperial aloofness. It was that I strove to lead as if I did not waver. It was not an inhuman policy, instead most human. It is human nature, as I have witnessed it, that a people much in distress—I mean life-threatening panic, at elemental extremes—not only will follow a relentless, keen, bold, and, yes, cruel man, but also will demand that this man rule them absolutely, increasingly as if he were God’s prophet. The Presbyterianism that Longfaeroe preached, and that the South Georgians followed unquestioningly, interpreted the practice of this sort of despotism as if it were ordained before time; they called it predestination. This is not a reasonable theory, contains elements that must be regarded as defeatism. Yet, though it indicates a mind nearly overwhelmed by chaos, it also can be seen as a try for order. It is folly and it is bravery; such a contradiction always means high risk.
My experiment in despotism contained risk for me as well, for it is also my experience that a people in final peril will try to take control of their leader, not with sedition and insurrection, rather with feelings more insidious—by obliging their leader to assert a system of government that is plain tyranny. This exchange, of inexcusable cruelty by one man for obedience to a single-minded absolutism by the mass, becomes a dynamo of flesh. All else seems to flow with it and to fuel it. It is a false system of government—Israel had taught me that, and Lazarus had been quick to remind me—for it has within it the terms of its own failure: Man is not God, cannot know God’s plan; Prophecy is a fleeting pridefulness; Freedom surrendered is reason scorned. But while it works, or seems to, it is a wonder, to be celebrated as it celebrates the will of man to overcome the violence of nature. When it stops working, it is impossible to separate man’s brutality from man. It becomes then what it always was, no poetic image of a dynamo of flesh, rather a degradation of civilization, a blasphemy, a deceitful bargain with darkness.
I overstate the case, and I apologize, a result of my runecarving, too quick to pretty words, too slow to philosophize rigorously. I see now my purpose. I am looking for an explanation of my grandfather, even as I was then directing King James and Candlemas Packet in a search for Grandfather. He was the man I was becoming. I knew that vaguely then, know it completely now. He was no modest Presbyterian determinist. He was a vengeful, scornful, autonomous man of an ineffable Lord God. It was my belief then that there was a solution to my plight. I did not know what it was. However,
I did believe that finding Grandfather, perhaps just the effort to find Grandfather, would provide me revelation toward my end of solving the fate of me and mine. In my mind, in my word-hoard, Grandfather was enormous and mysterious and potent; he provided me with the closest analogy I possessed for the most awesome image in the Fiddle Bible, that of God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.
Was my quest a search for justification, then, or was it a flight for release? Is it necessary to choose between redemption or escape? I still am not sure. It was why I did what I did. Measuring my life on King James’s quarterdeck, I saw that since losing Black Crane, I had been pitiable, wandering, selfish, pointless, contrary. The bad turn of being trapped with the Volunteers in Port Stanley, the good turn of being adopted by the Frazers, the bad turn of being damned by the Hospidar, the good turn of learning Germanicus’s discovery on Mead’s Kiss, all these inexplicable accidents, all of this luck, good and bad, all moved me toward a summary desire. I told the albatross it was my heart’s desire. Grandfather was that and more. He was my treasure. Beowulf, King of the Weather-Geats, slayer of Grendel and mother, finally slain as he slew the unnamed dragon guarding another sort of treasure, he would have understood my face. Grim Fiddle did not feel destitute, damned, or lost as long as it w-as possible his grandfather might be found.
I did not tell those on board King James that Grandfather was the only reason we were making into the wind, with difficulty, veering into the horse latitudes to approach the Falklands from the north-northeast. I let them presume I had a plan for resettlement on West Falkland. Toro Zulema thought that the Falklands must be ripe for colonization after six years of Pattie misrule; HalfRed Harrah and the sealers harbored a need for revenge on the Hospidar, boasted they would sail anywhere in the Southern Ocean to establish a base for an invasion of South Georgia; Jane and Violante and Annabel Donne nurtured the women with tales of a new start at Port Stanley. I overheard them and remained removed. I did not think that Germanicus was fooled by my silence; he knew of Grandfather’s marker, appeared ashamed for his deception of me, was willing to leave my will unchallenged. I had followed his father to the end. Germanicus owed me as much faith.
Two days out of the Falklands, the sea was pocked with ships in distress. There were many signs of a deliberate and ominous exodus. We had sighted lone craft more seaward. The ships in the sea-lane were closed up, ran in concert, as if with purpose. I made sure everyone of authority on board had as good a look as possible in the dirty weather. I wanted the fear to take hold in their hearts, and I wanted that fear tangible. I recognized the fleet of the damned. I was no longer reluctant to call it that. We were one with it.
A sudden blow that night cleared away the smaller craft, covered the nearby sea with wreckage. The next morning, we came about, having turned into the wind to ride the blow, and marked several large freighters well away to starboard as especially puzzling, neither flags nor radio traffic from them. The fleet continued that day to appear and fade in the fogbanks without a pattern, the wind tossing it up then pulling it apart. I no more understood the final reason for the fleet than I had six years before—where it had come from, where it was going—but I did know to keep my wits and not to permit the outrage to confound me. The fleet was an event that made war in one’s mind, and the prudent captain denied the resultant despair, kept on regardless. I had Germanicus signal Malody to close up for slow running as night closed on us, had Germanicus turn out ordnance and gun crews. I let them believe that I anticipated all. I did not figure on Candlemas Packet breaking formation before dawn, so that she was well away to our stern and running sluggishly in contrary winds at daybreak—no match for a slim cutter breaking through the fog from the southwest. We were half a day out of Port Stanley. I knew that cutter was a pirate, feasting on the best-trimmed ships. Germanicus’s seamanship saved Malody, getting King James up wind and in line to cut off the pirate’s retreat, so that it made north for other game. I had Germanicus break radio silence (that close in it had seemed best to appear helpless) to inquire why Malody had fallen behind. I put my glass on Candlemas Packet’s deck, had the answer and a verdict before Germanicus confirmed the worst. Sean Malody had chanced upon refugees adrift in an open boat during the night, had accidentally rammed them, and rather than keep on as ordered had paused at their cries to rescue. The fleet of the damned had breached his good sense.
I did not hesitate, saying, “Signal Malody to put them over.”
Germanicus did hesitate. I explained; he conceded. But we were not obeyed, or if so, it was too late. By the time we spied East Falkland’s shore at dusk—a dark horizon of a hundred hundred hundred campfires—the signal from Malody included a report of a child sick with fever. There were medicines. There was no defense.
Our council that night was vitriolic. I put my court to the test, making sure the women spoke their minds at length, because I had seen on South Georgia how vital they were to morale and common sense. Germanicus spoke for me, another technique I had learned from Grandfather and the Hospidar, to have one’s senior subordinate hold forth until the factions can present a consensus. It was also a notion I had from the ancient Norse, those protracted arguments in the halls of Asgard: Thor of Thunder versus Loki the Sly-One versus Frigg the Queen, terrible Odin standing silent and acute. Our wrestling was appropriately tumultuous. Germanicus asserted that Candlemas Packet was finished unless a quarantine was organized on board and the sick were put over in a boat; he also told them that Sean Malody had made a mistake, there was nothing we could do to repair it. Lazarus and Jane challenged Germanicus. I took note that Lazarus’s power was lessened while we were at sea; his wordy learning could not overwhelm Germanicus’s quiet militance. Jane said I was rash. Lazarus used the word monstrous, but he did not join in Jane’s demand that I prove the fever. Our chief medical attendant, Annabel Donne, and Magda Zulema said they would never agree to a similar quarantine on King James. Toro Zulema wavered, an important detail, since most on board Candlemas Packet were from his camp. The council closed without agreement. I did not speak. Next morning, Malody reported another case of fever, despite a quarantine.
Baffling winds and a heavy fog closed on us. I had Germanicus pass very careful instructions by radio to Malody, also a sailing course well seaward of Adventure Sound that would permit us a rendezvous with him along a fifty-mile track. Then King James stood in for Mead’s Kiss on a choppy sea, another blow coming. Several times we came upon freighters twice the size of King James, making on a course south. Germanicus had no explanation for the obvious increase in activity south of the Falklands, saying that on his raid two years before he had seen many beastie boats, all small, scattered. Now there seemed a pack, and a purpose, and urgency. There also was incessant gunfire, or thunder, or deep foghorns. We lived on alert. Our immediate enemies were hysteria and superstition. Sailing into such a murky vista did not shake me. The fear on board King James might have. I fought it with Norse magic, demanding from myself what I was not sure I could do, to show myself, as the Norse would say, girded by elves.
This introduces an important development for me on King James; I found myself turning more and more to my sense of how my Norse ancestors might have faced such peril. My choice of imagery changed accordingly. It shifted from the poetry of Longfaeroe’s Psalter to the poetry of Norse myth. Bluntly, Beowulf replaced the Bible, not completely, just enough for me to take comfort in a challenge that would have come easier to seafaring warriors than to men standing guard on the watchtowers of Jerusalem. As the Norse would say, I ate a diet of certainty. I stood watch as long as I could bear the fatigue and hunger, as a Norseman would have done; I rested only briefly on a mat I had set up under the inboard steering, leaving Iceberg at my place on the quarterdeck, my icon, as a Norseman would have done; I concerned myself with posture, right-thinking, clear-thinking, highhanded and firm rule, as a Norseman would have done. With Norse fatalism I told myself that events would either bear out my presumptions or would not, and thrash
ing about beforehand was contrariness and weakness. In all, I tried to be as I thought Beowulf might have been on the deck of his wave-cutter. I also tried to be someone more familiar, of course, on the deck of his Angel of Death: impossibly removed, intractable, visionary, surefooted, iron-fisted, larger than life, and—when it was time to command—thunderous.
We broke through the dirty weather at dusk, found an empty sea, poor visibility. We rode out the high sea through the night, launched a longboat before dawn, Motherwell leading my landing party. At Mead’s Kiss’s waterline there was wreckage and a battered trawler, still seaworthy, no guards, bullet holes in the wheelhouse. There were remains of dozens of craft, stripped for firewood. Motherwell challenged a small figure that emerged from a rusted shell, and it faded into the shadows. We moved up toward the weather station. I knew what gray stone marker Germanicus meant, and knew the way. Davey Gaunt and Wild Drumrul scouted ahead, told us there was a camp there, many bodies sleeping under lean-tos. Motherwell directed a weapon’s check, though we were less anxious about combat with them than contamination by them.
The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica Page 31