"It seems to me that Gudrun's tale is a fine one, for when I tell it, my breast swells for the injuries done to her, and her bold resolve in avenging herself." After this, they stopped talking of this tale, and Gunnar asked Pall Hallvardsson to show him some of the pictures and the words in his little book.

Now Nikolaus the Priest became very ill, and took to his bed for almost the entire winter. This illness was the occasion for even more frequent visits by Pall Hallvardsson, for he was sent by the bishop to care for the parishioners of Vatna Hverfi, which was a populous district. On one of these visits he brought with him a book of tales written in the Norse tongue, and he began to teach Gunnar to read, and Gunnar was a much more avid student than he had been many years before with Olaf. The result was that by the time Nikolaus the Priest was on his feet again in the spring, and Pall Hallvardsson stopped coming, Gunnar could read most of the book he had brought, and Birgitta, who was younger and sharper-eyed, could read all of it, so that between them they knew all of Pall Hallvardsson's tales better than he did. When this became known in the district, there was much talk, for everyone knew Gunnar Asgeirsson to be lazy and dull. Some attributed his new knowledge to the vision of Our Lady in the Gunnars Stead homefield, and others said that he was merely coming late to his wits. Most people talked about it for a little while and then forgot the whole thing, for, they said, knowledge of reading was small and useless knowledge, anyway, and without Olaf no books would keep the Gunnars Stead folk from starving as they nearly had done before.

In this winter there was a great sickness, and many people died. The course of the illness was swift, lasting only three or four days, and often it was the old people and the children who survived and those in the strength of their years who died. The first sign was always great vomiting, so that the victim could not keep the least drop of sourmilk or bit of meat inside, but must heave it all up as soon as he tasted it. Accompanying this was a great fever, so that the person seemed to be aflame within his flesh, and could not stand the touch of any hand on his cheek or even the weight of the lightest coverlet. In these signs it was not a little like other vomiting ills that came every so often, but much more severe.

One of the first to take sick and die was Thordis of Ketils Stead, and at her funeral, Pall Hallvardsson, who was still sharing the duties of Nikolaus the Priest, preached a sermon about Thordis' red dress and her lively ways, that had seemed to bode years of good health and prosperity, and had brought her nothing but the grave. And so, he said, are we all. And people of the district were much cast down by the weight of this sermon and there was much talk of the plague in Norway. Also at Ketils Stead, Geir Erlendsson died of the sickness, and then people began taking sick and dying everywhere in the district, usually one or two at each farmstead. At Gunnars Stead, Maria, the wife of Hrafn, died, and Birgitta and Olaf got sick, but managed to survive, although Birgitta was very weak, and stayed near to her bed for many days. Petur, the plague priest, also died, and two of the bishop's singing boys, and two of the other boys as well, so that services were not so elaborate as they had been. Pall Hallvardsson and the bishop himself also fell ill, but Pall Hallvardsson would take nothing but water from a tarn high in the mountains, and soon recovered, and so the bishop followed his example and recovered also.

The sickness did not depart from the Greenlanders until after Easter, and many farms were left with but one or two recuperating folk to work the fields, tend to the lambing and calving, and oversee all the spring work, so in this spring, a few farms were abandoned, as it happened never to be worked again, and on many others calves and lambs and kids were lost through neglect and the gra.s.s was left to grow in the fields however it might. In this summer, Gunnar first left his spinning and his lazy ways and worked long days in the fields doing tasks he was unaccustomed to and had little talent for.

Shortly before the morning meal, he would come to Olaf in his bedcloset and ask what was to be done that day, and Olaf would say, for example, that Gunnar should walk along the south wall of the homefield and replace any stones that might have fallen, and Gunnar would exclaim at what quick work that would be and go out into the chill morning light. But the walking would be heavy in the snow, and the stones weighty and difficult to fit, so that some he managed to put back would fall out again as he turned away. At last, toward mid-day, Birgitta would go out with his food and find him staring at a stone, seeking to find the proper turning for it with his eyes, and she would come in and say that he was doing well enough, and would surely finish very soon. Or he would be set to rake up the manure in the cowbyre, and he would rake it up under the feet of the cows themselves, so that they would flatten and scatter it before he was finished. When the gra.s.s turned green shortly after Easter, it was Gunnar who took down the last vestiges of the byre wall and carried the cows into the homefield. Hrafn and his sons, who did not take the sickness, a.s.sisted the ewes at lambing, but Gunnar had to deliver the three calves, one of whom presented hind legs first and was lost, but Hrafn and Olaf, who rose weakly from his bed, managed between them to save the cow. Now Olaf began getting up more frequently and coming out of the farmhouse, and then he began turning his hand to a little work, helping Gunnar here and there, more and more often, especially after Hrafn and his sons herded the sheep into the hill pastures and Gunnar and Olaf were alone on the farm, and the result was that when haying came around, Gunnar had not lain late in his bed one morning since the beginning of Lent, and there was much laughter about this.

When in the summer the representative and ombudsman of King Hakon and Queen Margarethe arrived in a ship from Norway, he found the settlement much depleted. The king's two farms, Foss in the south, and Thjodhilds Stead, in Kambstead Fjord, had fallen into great disrepair, and Kollbein Sigurdsson, for that was the name of this...o...b..dsman, was not a little put out to find that the Greenlanders could not rebuild his buildings and dig out his water system at once. He kept his great tapestries rolled up and his golden vessels wrapped and put away at Gardar, and worked his fields along with his sailors. He was a man of choleric temper who had left a prosperous district in Norway and come to Greenland after incurring the displeasure of Queen Margarethe herself, it was said, though the full tale of this did not get about quickly enough to suit the curiosity of the Greenlanders.

Many farmers in Vatna Hverfi district and in the district of Hrafns Fjord declared that there was much to be said for settling one's disputes within the district and being well out of sight of the king's tax gatherer, no matter how highly the king himself was held in respect.

Not long after the arrival of the ship, a man in sailor's clothing appeared at Gunnars Stead and declared that he was known there, but neither Birgitta nor Gunnar nor Olaf recognized his face or his name, although they gave him refreshment and invited him to stay for the night, as decent folk do with travelers. Margret was away in the mountains, gathering herbs, for Birgitta was with child, and the child, said Margret, did not seem to be thriving. As it was summer, Margret did not return until late, after Olaf and Birgitta had gone to their bedclosets. Only Gunnar was sitting up with the sailor, asking him of his adventures in Norway and elsewhere, and telling him of the deaths of Asgeir and Ingrid. They were sitting out of doors in the long rays of the late sun when Margret appeared carrying her bag and striding toward them. After a few moments, she stopped, turned, and disappeared. Some time later, she came up behind them, from the direction of the steading, and she set on the bench before them Gunnar's little boat, still neatly carved, but now missing two sailors and the high k.n.o.b of the bowsprit. Then she said, even before Gunnar could speak, "Good evening, Skuli Gudmundsson, welcome to Gunnars Stead." Now Gunnar, too, remembered who Skuli was, for the little boat had been his favorite plaything as a child, and he embraced the visitor.

Skuli grinned, and withdrew from his pocket the presents that he had brought from Norway: four ornately carved wooden cups, made, Skuli said, of olive wood from Jerusalem, and a small sharp knife with a silver handle Skuli had brought to Asgeir but now gave to Gunnar. To Margret, Skuli told the news of Thorleif and others she remembered. The tale of Thorleif was the unluckiest, for shortly after his return to Bergen from Greenland, he had fallen afoul of a group of merchants there known as the Hanseatic Brotherhood. These were Germans who hoped to take all of the Bergen trade for themselves, and who dealt harshly with other traders when they thought they could get away with it. This group of foreigners numbered three or more thousand, according to some, and they carried arms, refused to marry, and kept to themselves. When Thorleif returned from Greenland with his ship fully laden, his cargo had been so rich that the archbishop of Nidaros himself had insured its safety, but after the cargo was disposed of, Thorleif was at the mercy of this Hanseatic Brotherhood, who treacherously burned his ship to the waterline, and then, when he had another ship built with the money he had made from the Greenland venture, they raided the shipyard and cut the throats of the guards who were watching it, and destroyed it with axes, so that not one splinter of wood adhered to another. After this Thorleif was much discouraged, and talked of taking pa.s.sage to England, but then he died in the Great Death of the year 1362. At this tale, Margret was much cast down, and she and Skuli spoke of Thorleif's loud laugh and defiant ways, and Margret said that no ship had ever come again so full of treasures as Thorleif's ship. Skuli recollected the voyage of Thorleif and Hauk Gunnarsson to Markland, and Margret told him of the English monk Nicholas, and Hauk's death among the ice floes of the Greenland bottoms.

Skuli told of himself. After returning from Greenland, Skuli had gone back to his father's small farm and farmed for a year or two, but the work seemed stupid to him after his travels, and peasants to help with the work were hard to find and asked wages that only the best men in the district were able to pay, so Skuli's father had gone into the service of a prosperous cousin, and Skuli had attached himself to another man of the district, who was anxious to make his fortune with the new young king, Hakon, and Queen Margarethe, although she preferred Danes and Germans around her. Thus Skuli had spent many of the last years in great houses, doing what he was told, and he had married the daughter of another man such as himself, of no lineage, but serviceable abilities. Her name was Hrefna, and she had borne him four boys. But, unluckily, Hrefna had died in a more recent childbirth, of a daughter who also died, and the little boys had gone to Hrefna's brother, who had a large farm in the Trondelag, and was not dependent for his meat on the whims of others. Now he was in the service of this very powerful man, Kollbein Sigurdsson, who meant to make much of his Greenland service to the king, and after this journey, Skuli would go back to his father's farm near Bergen with some wealth and try it again, for his father had died and the farm now belonged to him.

By this time the sun had approached the horizon and begun upward again, and the birds, after a brief quiet, had started their raucous calling again. Gunnar had fallen asleep. Margret showed Skuli a place to sleep, but she herself stayed up sorting through what she had gathered and hanging bunches of plants from the beams of the farmhouse. It was said in the district that Margret knew many things about the qualities and powers of plants, though her knowledge was not so deep as Ingrid's had been. Soon Olaf rose, and Margret put his morning meat before him, with an extra measure of b.u.t.ter for his dried meat, and then she went to him and sat close beside him in a way that was unusual. Now Olaf looked at his wife and laughed and said, "Have you been trying your own potions, then, so that you have blinded yourself to my low brow and swarthy looks?" Margret had no answer for this, and Olaf went outside.

There was a man who had a large farm on the north side of Eriks Fjord, and this farm was called Solar Fell, because of the southern slope of the fields there. It was just across Eriks Fjord from the Gardar landing, and the folk from Solar Fell had more intercourse with the Gardar folk than they had with anyone else. It was a prosperous farm, and Ragnvald Einarsson, the master of this farm, had many folk, and six healthy sons. One day during the harvest, one of the sons, a grown man by the name of Vestein who had a reputation as a simple fellow, espied a lone skraeling in his skin boat, paddling up out in Eriks Fjord and playing with his bow and arrows. This Vestein began to shout to the skraeling from the sh.o.r.e, saying in the skraeling tongue, "Let's see whether you can hit me from so far away." There was at this time a large group of skraelings settled about halfway up Isafjord, behind Solar Fell, and so many of the Greenlanders who lived nearby knew something of the skraeling tongue, and these farmers were enriched by the goods the skraelings had to trade, for the demons seemed to hold their own goods very cheaply, and the Greenlanders' goods very dear.

When the skraeling paid little attention to Vestein, he jumped up from his net and began to call out more loudly, so that Ragnvald himself came out of the cowbyre. Vestein was now calling out and jumping around, and other folk from the farmstead stopped their work to look, until at last Ragnvald shouted to the skraeling, "Go ahead, since he wants it so, and take good aim!" and it is true that many fathers wish to teach their sons what foolishness is by allowing them to feel its effects. The skraeling nocked his bird arrow, and indeed he did take good aim, for the tip entered Vestein at the base of his throat, and he fell down dead. Ragnvald ran down to the sh.o.r.e and gathered Vestein into his arms, but he called out to the skraeling in the boat, "We cast no blame on you, since you have only done what you were told to do!" Nonetheless, many of the skraelings that had settled nearby went away shortly thereafter.

Of this incident there was much talk among the Greenlanders, and blame fell on all three parties, but especially on the skraeling, for being so ready to slay a Christian. Vigdis and Erlend said that the first victim of the skraelings might have been anyone, might have been one of their sons, or their folk, in fact, during the summer when the skraelings spent so much time at Ketils Stead. When Lavrans Kollgrimsson came to visit his daughter at Gunnars Stead, he reported that Vebjorn and Oli, Vestein's brothers, had spoken ill of their father in the hearing of many, and called him a coward for his speech to the skraeling, and some folk in Hvalsey Fjord and Brattahlid district were saying that the skraeling had shot his arrow at Vestein without provocation.

After a few days of talk, it was no little difficulty to sort out the actual case of things, and the talk had gotten into every ear, including that of Kollbein Sigurdsson at Thjodhilds Stead in Kambstead Fjord, and though it was the middle of harvest, Kollbein decided to take some men and make a visit to Ragnvald, for the sake of inquiring into this matter in the name of the king.

It was the case that most of the Greenlanders did not know what to make of Kollbein Sigurdsson. He always went about in bright clothing, as did the courtiers he had brought with him, and he kept things magnificently at Thjodhilds Stead, so that Greenlanders who visited there reported a great quant.i.ty of all sorts of meat, beautiful tapestries on the walls, and lovely furnishings lying here and there about the place. But, indeed, all was in great disorder, and in the midst of the magnificence, Kollbein always took folk aside and complained of how quickly his livestock were dwindling, or how poor the harvest from his fields looked to be, or how stingy the Greenlanders were with the sealmeat and reindeer meat they allowed him. And he always spoke of one thing, and that was the Northsetur, where men had once gained a wealth of walrus ivory, and narwhal tusks, and polar bear skins and white falcons. In addition to this, it seemed to the Greenlanders that he was always looking for amus.e.m.e.nt at other folk's tables. When he was invited, he never failed to bring most of his household.

On the evening of Kollbein's arrival (with five of his men and six horses) at Solar Fell, Ragnvald gave him a great feast and showed him over the farm, and Kollbein was much impressed with it. He spoke not at all of the matter of Vestein, but only of Ragnvald's numbers of sheep and goats and cattle, and of the drying racks that stood about everywhere, and of the magnificence of the steading, and of the good looks of Ragnvald's wife and his sons.

However, on the morning of the second day, Kollbein sequestered himself with Ragnvald, and again in the afternoon, until the time of the evening meal.

On the morning of the third day, Kollbein spoke at length to Vebjorn and Oli, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

On the morning of the fourth day, Kollbein spoke again with Ragnvald, and in the afternoon, he sat with one of his men, then took a nap.

On the fifth day, each man or woman who had knowledge of the incident came to Kollbein in the bath house, where he sat, and spoke about what he or she had seen.

On the sixth day there was a large feast in the middle of the day. The skraelings had moved off, and Ragnvald showed no inclination to pursue them, and so the result of Kollbein's visit was that Vebjorn and Oli apologized to Ragnvald in the presence of Kollbein. During these days, Kollbein's five men and their six horses all ate heartily of Ragnvald's stores and provisions, and many in the district said that by now Ragnvald had surely been sufficiently punished for having one foolish son in six.

In this fall, after the seal hunt, the farmers of Brattahlid district and Dyrnes district went to the bishop and gained permission for a great reindeer hunt on Hreiney, an island that stood at the mouth of Einars Fjord, and was teeming with reindeer at this time of year. Every fall, most farmers went to hunt the reindeer here and there in the pastures north of the settlement, or on the islands at the mouth of the fjords, but for a number of years there had been no great reindeer hunt, and the bishop had not given permission for the taking of animals on Hreiney. In this year, however, he listened closely to the farmers' tales of hardship, and declared that he shared their fears about the coming winter after so many deaths in the spring and such a poor harvest in the summer. He also ruled that one animal in ten would go to the church. Many thought that this was a stiff price, with the t.i.the on top as well, but others spoke glowingly of the abundance of reindeer on the island, and cared little for the price.

Gunnar and Hrafn the shepherd, who was not bad at hunting, were to go along to claim the Gunnars Stead share, and Olaf was to stay behind and care for the farm animals. Gunnar found all the tools on the farm, and all the weapons and knives, and arrayed them on the gra.s.s in front of the farmhouse for repair and sharpening. Many of these instruments had belonged to Hauk Gunnarsson-two small spears and one large one, three hand knives with long blades, although the blade of one of these was moon-shaped with use and sharpening, a large bow and eighteen long arrows, nine tipped in iron and nine tipped in sharpened bone, and a small bow and eight blunt arrows, for hunting birds, a hatchet, two larger knives, and nets of various sizes. There were also two other hand knives that had belonged to Asgeir, and two more small bows that had belonged to Asgeir and his father Gunnar Asgeirsson. The sheep-shearing knife with which Asgeir had killed Thorunn the witch could not be found. Hrafn had his own bow and arrows and a large sheep-shearing knife with a handle made of carved reindeer antler.

After sharpening and greasing the weapons, Gunnar and Olaf turned to the two Gunnars Stead boats. Both of these were ancient in age, and small enough, but both were put together of planks sawed from Markland timber, rather than of driftwood covered by sealskins. The better of the two had been taken apart and rebuilt just before the coming of the bishop by Asgeir, his steward, and a man from Isafjord named Koll the shipbuilder, who had a good reputation for this work, as well as for making barrels and house beams. Both boats were seaworthy enough to be rowed out of the fjord into the sea, and both would be taken on the hunt, for some farmsteads no longer had boats in good repair. For these two boats Olaf and Gunnar made seal tar, by digging a large pit near the bath house, and filling it with seal blubber, which they then boiled by dropping in burning stones. When this cooled, they smeared it over the bottoms of the boats to make them watertight and slippery. No one had carried pitch to the Greenlanders in many years, since the time of Thorleif, but many men said that seal tar was as good for this work.

Hreiney was the only place in Greenland where reindeer pits had been dug as they are in Norway, for the Greenlanders had many ways of killing a few reindeer, and reindeer were abundant near most districts. These reindeer pits were considered very valuable, however, and often in former times, men would go from Gardar to Hreiney and clear them out. This had not been done for many years. Most men in the district, however, declared that there would be little trouble with the pits, for they were well made and deep. Thirty-nine farms sent men and hounds to the hunt, and from Gardar set forth Pall Hallvardsson the priest and two servingmen who were skilled with game. There were forty-one small boats, almost all of them plank-built. At this, Gunnar exclaimed to Hrafn, "I had not thought the Greenlanders' were so well provided with boats. Thus it looked when Harald Harf.a.gri set out for England, do you not think so?"

"I don't know about that," said Hrafn, "but we will be badly off if we have Harald's luck."

It was now that time of year when the days are half light and half darkness, and the ice is beginning to form again in the fjords. The fleet of boats arrived at the jetty on the island, where the sea cuts deeply between Hreiney and Stone-ey, just as the sun was rising behind Einars Fjord. They drew the many boats up on the strand, and spread out to seek the largest herds of deer, but indeed, at this time of year, Hreiney is one large herd of deer from end to end, and they had not far to seek. Gunnar stared with amazement, for he had heard of such numbers only in tales of Markland and Vinland. The hunters were in high spirits, and some rushed in among the deer with spears, greedy to take them as soon as they could. It was in this way that the young man Thorbjorn Thorgilsson was injured, through the panicked trampling of the deer, so that he always walked lamely and his breath came with the sound of twigs sc.r.a.ping together forever after this until the end of his life. Others had better luck, and five deer were killed before Hoskuld Hrutsson, of Dyrnes, and Osmund Thordarson of Brattahlid, who had arranged the hunt, could find the old pits.

The pits, a series of seven, were overgrown with willow scrub, and partially filled with sand, but Osmund declared that they were serviceable enough. Now the men walked some distance in a large half-circle, so that they could come up in a line behind the beasts and move them toward the pits. At first it seemed that they would have little success with this plan, for the reindeer were so plentiful that no part of the herd would move toward the pits, but the herd simply seethed and turned upon itself. At last, however, one group became frightened and broke away, and the Greenlanders were able to turn them toward the pits with deerhounds and arrows. Soon the animals were running, and the Greenlanders and their dogs after them, shouting, waving their weapons, and making a great din. At the pits, another group of men was waiting, wearing their deerskin hoods, and hiding in makeshift blinds. Gunnar and Hrafn now hid with these men, near the lip of the first pit, which had been disguised with willow brush and turves. As the first animals of the stampede stopped here, they threw up their heads and tried to turn, but the rush behind them was too great, and they slid and toppled into the first pit. Others clambered after and over them, only to fall into the second pit, or the third. There was a great bellowing. Gunnar, Hrafn, and the rest of the men ran forward after the herd had pa.s.sed, and laid about themselves with spears, knives, and axes, trying to kill as many of the animals as possible before they could struggle to their feet and out of the pit, but always wary of the tossing antlers and the kicking hindquarters. Soon Gunnar, who was bruised and pummeled by the struggling of the deer, was standing in blood up to his knees.

This was the hunt on the first day. Because of the disrepair that the pits had gotten into, many deer who might have been taken got away. After the animals who had been killed were gutted and counted, it was discovered that there weren't even enough for one to each farmstead, with the bishop's price and the bishop's t.i.the, so Osmund and Hoskuld and Pall Hallvardsson took counsel among themselves and decided to try another way of hunting that had often been used in the western settlement, where deer were even more abundant than they were in the eastern settlement.

The next morning, before light, the men pulled half their boats into the water just beside the strand, and in each boat sat one man with a pair of oars and another with a weapon. Other men once again made a half-circle and came up behind a group of deer, this one a very large group with many head, and these they herded toward the boats, without letting them near the flat beach, but forcing them, with many yells and much clatter, to run over a high cliff near where the boats were waiting, so that the animals soon found themselves swimming in the sea. Now the men in the boats, and others with them, carrying clubs and spears and arrows, rowed among the deer and grabbed them by the antlers, jerking back their heads and cutting their throats or thrusting spears into their necks. The runners on land also got into the other boats and helped with this work. Soon the sea was boiling with the thrashing of the beasts, and red with their blood. Many deer were taken this way, although some were lost through sinking before they could be taken into the boats and carried to land. When all of these reindeer were counted, it was discovered that five would go to each farmstead and more than forty to the bishop, although some complained that the sea did not belong to the bishop, and so Gardar should only receive a price for using the pits. Others said that it was the island itself that belonged to the bishop, and therefore the reindeer on it, and anyway, there was small likelihood that the bishop, if asked to decide the case, would decide against himself.

Of the hunters, no one was killed, and only Thorbjorn was badly hurt, although three others had been gored or kicked by the struggling deer. The Greenlanders spent the rest of the day gutting the deer, and toward dusk, the fleet of laden boats made its way up Einars Fjord toward Vatna Hverfi and Gardar. Gunnar had little to say, but rowed with Hrafn at the rear of the flotilla.

Now for a few days all farm work was put aside so that the reindeer could be taken care of. Olaf stretched the hides fur side down on the gra.s.s of the homefield, and Margret hung strips of meat up to dry on the drying racks. The bones were boiled clean and stacked in the storehouse along with the antlers. The hooves were boiled for broth, and the heads skinned and singed like sheeps' heads, and the blood ran out and was made into blood puddings, and of these Birgitta was required to sup on twice daily, which she didn't mind, as she was especially fond of blood puddings. The meat from this hunt, and from the seal hunt earlier, was especially welcome to the Greenlanders in this year, for there were not as many sheep to slaughter as there had been, and when people visited from farm to farm they spoke of hunting in this way every year, for indeed, after the dozens of deer taken, Hreiney was still as full of deer as the ocean is of water after a dipperful is lifted out, and they remarked at the plenitude of game and sea animals in their land and gave thanks for G.o.d's bounty in the western ocean.

In these days the weather smiled on the folk preparing their deer, for the sky was high and clear and day after day the sun sparkled on the fields and on the blue icebergs floating in the fjords. A brisk, dry wind blew steadily from the east and the meat dried on the racks in less than a day. People were well able to work at night, for the moon shone brightly, unringed and full. Each night the northern lights waved and fluttered in the midheaven. On one of these nights, Birgitta Lavransdottir arose from her bed cupboard soaked to the waist with her waters, and Margret arose with her, and gave her a little sourmilk mixed with honey. Then they sat down with their spinning to await the coming of the pains, but after many hours and into the day they did not come. After the morning meal, Birgitta took off her headdress and brushed and arranged her hair, then she went to her bedcloset. Margret went outside to oversee the boiling of the reindeer bones, for these would later be of great use to the farmstead. With Birgitta she left Svava Vigmundsdottir, an old nurse who had come to Gunnars Stead from Kristin in Siglufjord, who was an ugly old woman indeed, with a humped back and one walleye, but knowledgeable about children nonetheless, and experienced at births.

After the evening meal, Svava said that Birgitta must be made to walk about, for sometimes this would bring on the pains, but Birgitta refused to walk, and indeed, it seemed as though she could barely stand upright. Then Svava said that once in such a case as this, she had seen a man go to lie with his wife, and soon afterward the pains had come on and the baby had been born, but Margret said that Gunnar and Birgitta would not like this, and she feared to ask them. While they were talking, Birgitta fell asleep and she slept until sunrise, but when she awoke, the pains still had not come on. At this, Svava and Margret lifted her from her bed and made her go back and forth between her room and Margret's, but they were supporting her, and her legs hardly moved.

Now the girl began to toss her head and mutter, and her cheeks became very red and warm to the touch. When they laid her in her bed, a foul odor rose around her, so that Margret was not a little reluctant to raise her shift. When Margret gave her sips of cool water from a cup, she eagerly took some, but then tossed her hand so that the rest flew onto the floor. Gunnar now came in, looked at the girl on the bed, and went out again. After a while, he came back with the "wife" of Nikolaus the Priest and two of her servants. This woman went up to Birgitta at once and undid the top of her shift. Then she placed her hands on Birgitta's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and began to rub vigorously, although Birgitta cried out and shook her head and tried to push her away. When the priest's wife no longer had the strength to do it, one of her servants stepped in for her, and then Margret, and then the wife again. Svava held her hand on Birgitta's belly, and the other servant stood by the girl's face with a bit of cloth, wiping away tears and sweat. After some time, Svava felt the belly go rigid beneath her hand, and then again a little while later. But the women did not stop their rubbing, for Nikolaus'"wife" said that if they did, the pains would stop, too, and the baby would never be born-she had heard that some babies had to be cut out of their mothers, though of course she had never seen this.

It was well into the night when Svava declared that she could just see the top of the baby's head for the first time, and almost morning before the baby was born, a boy as small as a puppy, his nostrils flaring and his chest heaving like a horse that had just run itself into a sweat. The "wife" took one look and whispered to her servant, who ran for Nikolaus the Priest. Margret bent down and asked Birgitta if she wanted to see the baby, but Birgitta could not speak, and lay there with her eyes closed, so Margret walked back and forth with the baby, who heaved and trembled and sometimes gave out little cries. Svava blew gently in its face, and after a while, they carried it out to Gunnar and asked him what the name would be, and he said Asgeir. And then the priest arrived just as the baby lay still in Margret's arms, and he baptized him with the name Asgeir Gunnarsson, and then after a moment he blessed him and prayed over him, and then wrapped the baby up tightly in a piece of wadmal and laid him in his cradle, and Gunnar bent down over him, and then stood up and said that they would bury him near the farmstead, where other infants had been buried in past times, and that he and Olaf would do this in the morning.

Now folk left the steading, and Gunnar went to his bedcloset, but Margret and Svava could not sleep and sat down at the table for some refreshment, and Margret said, "Do you remember the birth of Ketil the Unlucky?"

"Nay," said Svava, "but you may say that most children are unlucky for the women who give them life. I have seen enough hard births in my time. They are ill to speak of."

"Kristin has four children, and there are folk with more than that."

"Even so, I have taken care of others' children since I was twelve winters old, and it is no accident, nor the result of my ugliness that I have never known a man, because more often than not, a Christian woman gives up her life to her child, if not the first, then a later one. Hafgrim Hafgrimsson has three children about him now, and the woman hardly lay down for the births, folk say. These skraelings are different, and it matters not whether they are baptized."

"But folk will be married, and then they must have children."

"Nay," said Svava, "it seems to me that folk wish only one thing above all, and that is to have goods for themselves, to hold and to keep, and then they are surprised at the cost of these goods, for this cost is either almost more than they can pay, or more than they can pay." Now she fell silent for a s.p.a.ce, and then she gazed at Margret across the table and said, "I have gone from steading to steading all my life, and never taken things for my own, and I have no regrets."

After this, it was many days before Birgitta Lavransdottir was able to get up on her feet again. Svava went back to Siglufjord and a servant of Nikolaus the Priest came in the days to help take care of the girl. When Margret spoke of the baby, and its death, Birgitta looked at her for a long time, and then said she was little surprised, for on the day of Svava Vigmundsdottir's coming, she had seen Margret run off and come back with a strange woman, and then, as quickly as an eye blink, the woman had turned into a blazing fire, and Margret had put her hand in the fire and brought it forth burning like a torch, and Birgitta had been so afraid that she had fallen down in a faint. Since then she had had little hope for the baby, and was grateful enough to G.o.d that he had spared her life, for she had looked forward to death with certainty. Afterwards, Margret and Birgitta did not speak of these things again, and neither mentioned this to Gunnar. At Yule, Birgitta was strong enough to be churched again, and she went forth on her own two feet, wearing the gray cloak she had received at her wedding, and leading her husband, at her left, and her father Lavrans at her right. And that was the tale of Gunnar's firstborn son.

The folk at Gunnars Stead were much diverted at this time by the visits of Skuli Gudmundsson, whose duties on the king's farm at Thjodhilds Stead were rather light. Skuli had much to say, about the court in Norway where he had lived for many years, and about Kollbein the ombudsman, and he had a way of telling these stories that made their subjects seem foolish. Margret sometimes teased him, wondering in what sly ways he spoke of Gunnars Stead when he was at Thjodhilds Stead, but Skuli knit his brows and feigned ignorance of this.

He also told them what sorts of things folk were wearing at Queen Margarethe's court, for, he said, the court always dressed in a rich and colorful way even when they had no meat for the table and no wood for the fire. Queen Margarethe herself, Skuli said, was low and dark, not at all pretty, though all of the courtiers said she was, but she had an attentive way about her that showed she knew where to step. King Hakon was more handsome, like his father Magnus, and in Skuli's view, this caused folk to pay attention to him when they might better be watching the queen, and indeed, this very thing had overtaken Kollbein the ombudsman, who had been a tax collector in the Trondelag and had made a rich man of himself. He had purchased two estates for next to nothing, though they were much improved with good byres, rich chapels, and water systems in excellent repair. It was the queen who noted the richness of these estates and compared them to the relative leanness of the tax collections for these years. Although Kollbein had in fact purchased these estates for much less than it appeared, and probably had not cheated the treasury, he had spent so much time flattering the king and so little flattering the queen, that the queen had turned a displeased ear to his protestations when he made them, and sent him off to Greenland as his punishment, placing some Danes upon his farms as "stewards."

"We should pity him for these hardships," said Margret, "but folk only laugh at him."

"He knows not what to do with Thjodhilds Stead and Foss," said Skuli, "though they are goodly pieces of land. He chatters on and on only about bearskins and walrus tusks. And he has slaughtered nearly all the sheep that the Greenlanders gave him. It doesn't seem to the sailors that the Greenlanders will be so generous again. We all look forward to empty bellies."

Now Olaf spoke up, and said, "This Kollbein is the king's tax collector, is he not? He must know that there are farms in other districts, and that generosity has little to do with it, come to that."

Formerly, Skuli had spoken of his dead wife, and especially of his four sons, but now he did not do this as much, because, perhaps, of the recent death of the baby Asgeir Gunnarsson. He acted very kindly toward Birgitta Lavransdottir, and carved her a small round box with a lid out of the base of a large reindeer antler. Around it marched the figures of a polar bear and a seal and a man with a bow and arrow. For Margret, he carved six sharp needles out of bird bones, and they were very cleverly done, so that the eye of a needle was hardly wider than the body, although big enough to carry seal-gut thread. Although these gifts were remarkable to the Gunnars Stead folk, Skuli hardly paused in his talk while he made them. In return, Margret and Birgitta sewed Skuli a pair of purplish stockings from the thickest and warmest Gunnars Stead wadmal, woven by Gunnar himself, and Skuli was considered by the folk at Gunnars Stead to be an old and good friend.

Pall Hallvardsson, too, continued to visit, and Skuli's stories sometimes aroused him to remember ones he hadn't told before, about his childhood among Belgian priests, and the things he had learned there about singing and illuminating ma.n.u.scripts. From time to time, though, he and Skuli discussed the Great Death and the sinfulness of cities, where unprotected folk pa.s.sing through the ways at night were as likely as not to be beaten and stripped of their possessions, if not killed, and where such abundance of food as the Greenlanders knew except in the severest winters was never known to anyone but the highest folk.

"As for abundance," said Margret, from her great loom, "anyone who has come to the Greenlanders after the time of Ivar Bardarson, and since men stopped hunting in the Northsetur, has never known abundance. It took a whole summer's day to carry all of the Greenlanders' goods out of the bishop's storehouses when Thorleif departed for Norway, and this was not only wealth, but also meat and sourmilk and blubber and eggs and other good things to eat. Thorleif himself said to my father Asgeir that the ship sat so low in the water that the sailors would have to eat their way to Bergen."

"That was a fat trip, indeed," said Skuli, with a laugh, "not like our crossing with Kollbein Sigurdsson, for all that he is the king's representative. It seems to me that the queen must have purposely stinted him on money for provisions so that the sailors would grumble the whole journey." And so the talk went on many evenings, while Margret and Birgitta wove and spun, and Skuli carved this and that, and Gunnar repaired such furnishings as needed his attention.

Once, in very early winter, when Margret was in the hills above Vatna Hverfi laying partridge snares, a man came upon her suddenly, and gave her a fright. He was wearing a shirt and hood of very thick sheepskin that fell forward over his face, so that she didn't know him, and when he stepped out from a willow cleft, where he had been doing something, she jumped back and gave a cry. As she stepped back, her foot rolled with a loose stone, so that she would have fallen, except that the man caught her elbow and held her up.

There was a man at this time living above Vatna Hverfi district, who had committed the crime of killing his cousin over a horse fight, and had been outlawed for three years by the Thing, although in Greenland outlaws were allowed to live at the fringes of the settlement, sometimes among the skraelings and sometimes not, since there was no going abroad as there had been in the old days. This man was named Thorir the Black-browed, and so, when Margret regained her balance, she said, "Thank you, Thorir Sigmundsson," and backed away from him, for it was not known how he had been enduring his time of outlawry. Nonetheless, although she was afraid, she took three fat ptarmigan from her pouch and laid them side by side on a flat rock at her feet, saying, "You would do me a great favor by accepting these poor birds, Thorir Sigmundsson." Then she backed away, slowly, not taking her eyes off the outlaw and feeling her way with her feet. The man neither looked at her, nor picked up the birds, and after a while she was out of his sight and she ran the rest of the way to Gunnars Stead.

The next evening, when she came into the farmhouse from the dairy, the three birds, all neatly plucked, were lying on the bench beside the fire. Margret went at once to the door and surveyed the homefield for signs of the outlawed man, for there were many reasons why such visits were not a little to be feared, and the fact that they were contrary to the law was not the least of these. Vigdis, the wife of Erlend, for one, would be glad of something new to bring against the Gunnars Stead folk. Aside from this, an outlawed man living above Isafjord had gained entrance to an isolated farmstead and stolen a great deal of food from both the kitchen and the storehouse, although the tale that he had killed a member of the family had turned out to be false. But there were no signs of anyone except Olaf and Skuli, who were standing near the cowbyre. Margret took the birds outside around the house and buried them in the midden with a spade.

After that, Birgitta came from her bedcloset, and the two women prepared the evening meal of reindeer meat seethed in broth, sourmilk, and dulse mixed with b.u.t.ter and spread on dried meat. Soon Olaf came in and sat before his trencher, and looked at it once, and said, "What more is there to eat, then? I am looking for a good roast ptarmigan."

Birgitta laughed. "You may look for it as hard as you please, but you are not likely to find it until we have all eaten our fill of reindeer meat."

Olaf looked around again. The roasting spit was standing upright, unused, near the fire. The only birds in the room were the wheatears and larks in Margret's willow cages. "Well," demanded Olaf, "where are these birds Skuli Gudmundsson has brought us, plucked and bled? I laid them on the bench myself."

Now Margret looked at Skuli, who laughed heartily in his beard. "Indeed," he said, "I have heard that from time to time a ghost may come between a gift and its recipient, and so it is considered the better course to place it in the hands of the one you are giving it to."

Olaf growled, "Anything is possible, but truly I have been looking forward to roast fowl all afternoon."

Later that evening, Margret went to Skuli, and said that it ill behooved him, especially as one of the ombudsman's men, to consort with outlawed men and in reply, Skuli went outside and carried in a large sheepskin shirt with attached hood, and declared to Margret that she should admire the thing, poor as it was, for one of the young women at Thjodhilds Stead had sewed it for him, and he expected to be very warm in the winter. At this, Margret reddened and turned away, and what had befallen the three birds on the bench remained a mystery that the Gunnars Stead folk talked about for a day or so afterward.

In this fall, Gunnar and Hrafn counted a hundred and sixty-two sheep and goats, thirty-four cows, and four horses, including Mikla, that now belonged to Gunnars Stead. Also in this fall, Hrafn brought home a new wife from another farmstead in Vatna Hverfi, named Katla. In age, Katla fell somewhere between Birgitta and Margret, but much of the time she spoke nonsense, and so the Gunnars Stead folk considered her silly. She was good-natured, however, and worked well if someone stood near her and helped her keep her mind on her tasks. Now Hrafn came to Gunnar and asked if one of the outbuildings could be put in good order for himself and his new wife. The boys, who were now eleven and nine, would continue to sleep off the cowbyre, as Hrafn had done when married to Maria. Maria had been born at Gunnars Stead in Asgeir Gunnarsson's time, and had preferred to sleep in the farmstead where she always had slept, but this was not suitable for a stranger, Hrafn explained. Now Olaf and Gunnar went around to all the buildings with Hrafn, trying to choose a large enough one that would take only a little fixing up, for Gunnar did not care to hire anyone to help with this work, although neither he nor Olaf was especially clever at building.

Soon a building was chosen, of about ten ells long and eight ells wide, that had once been used as a storehouse in the time of Gunnar Asgeirsson, the father of Asgeir. The masonry in this building was still in good repair, and turves could be easily cut nearby. In addition, the east wall of this house was built into the side of a hill, so that the only real difficulty would be replacing two rotten beams under the roof. When Olaf stuck his finger into them, the wood crumbled away into powder. Now Gunnar had to bethink himself where he might get two stout beams, and what he would have to pay for them. The next time that Pall Hallvardsson and Skuli were visiting, Gunnar leaned back in his seat after the evening meal and declared, casually, that he was thinking of building, if he could find the wood to build with. Pall Hallvardsson said that he had heard that others were thinking of building, too, not only Kollbein the ombudsman, who was always thinking of something, but a farmer of Eriks Fjord, who wanted to put up a new storehouse, and a farmer near Gardar, who wanted to add two rooms to his house. He didn't know about the men of Vatna Hverfi or the southern districts, but it was common knowledge that wood was in short supply, and that old houses would have to be taken down before new ones could be put up. Gunnar made no reply to this, and afterwards, they spoke of other things.

Now, whenever Gunnar met another farmer or went to church, he mentioned casually that he was thinking of building, if he could get the wood to build, and one by one he began to hear of who else wanted wood and who had wood to trade, and there were more of the former than there were of the latter. After this, Gunnar and Olaf went around to the Gunnars Stead buildings again and tried to decide what could be torn down, so that they could use their own wood, but the buildings not in use were so old that their beams were much like the two beams in Hrafn's house, so that some bargain had to be made with someone, and many Gunnar asked in the district declared that it would have to be made with Erlend, for indeed, Erlend still had six great beams of wood from Markland that had never been used, and this was more than any other farmer had, but Gunnar said that he would not go to Erlend.

Now Lavrans and his servants came from Hvalsey district to visit with Birgitta, and Lavrans declared that a farmer in his district had one beam of wood in excellent condition that he would trade for four good heifers bred to the Gunnars Stead bull, and Gunnar asked if Lavrans had seen the wood, and Lavrans said that he had, and that the man was not lying about its soundness, although it was only about eight ells long. Gunnar agreed to the deal, if the man, who was a prosperous farmer with many servants, would send the beam to Vatna Hverfi and take the heifers back himself, and Lavrans guaranteed for this.

Now Gunnar heard that Erik Thorleifsson had found wood to build his storehouse from a farmer in Isafjord, and that he had traded for eight beams, enough for the storehouse and more, and Gunnar said angrily that this seemed rather greedy to him, but Pall Hallvardsson said that the tale was that he had paid six cows apiece for the beams, and that they were old and not especially sound. After this, there was news from Thord Magnusson of Siglufjord that a beam could be had in Alptafjord, but Gunnar declared that he knew of no way he could get it in one of his own small boats, and the farmer who owned the wood had no boat. Now there was no news for a while, and Hrafn came to Gunnar and said that Katla was complaining day and night of sleeping beside the cowbyre, and Hrafn asked that Gunnar go to Erlend and get the wood from him, but Gunnar did not agree to do this. Instead, he and Olaf and Skuli repaired what they could of the new building, hoping other news would come.

It was getting well toward Yule, and the ground began to be frozen with h.o.a.rfrost every day, although there had as yet been no snow. The cows were still grazing in the homefield, and had not as yet been walled into the byre. On one of these days, Gunnar looked out to see Vigdis approaching, and he turned to Olaf and said, "A strange ship is sailing in the Gunnars Stead waters."

Now Olaf looked out, and replied, "It is an ill-omened ship to be sure, and a switch in the wind is unlikely to carry it away."

Margret came out of the storehouse, and went up to Vigdis and took her into the steading. A little while later, Gunnar wandered past the door to the steading, which was closed, and feigned stumbling, so that he b.u.mped against it. Margret opened it. Inside, Vigdis was sitting on a bench, drinking a cup of sourmilk. In front of her were various other refreshments. Margret glanced at Gunnar and lifted her eyebrows. Gunnar entered and sat down. Vigdis looked him up and down without smiling or scowling, and finished her milk deliberately, not forgetting afterwards to wipe her upper lip with the sleeve of her gown. At last she said, politely, "It seems to me that I have heard of the death of the child Asgeir Gunnarsson."

Gunnar nodded.

"It is an unlucky year for children."

Gunnar nodded again.

Now she pushed the cup away from her and the other things to eat and looked at Margret, but said to Gunnar, "There is a tale in the district that you are thinking of building and that you have found beams in Alptafjord."

"Indeed, there is a sound beam to be had in Alptafjord, for a small trade."

"Alptafjord is far away, though."

"Not far from the bird cliffs where my father used to take us for eggs."

"Egg laying time is even farther away."

Gunnar shrugged.

Vigdis looked at him. "It's fine to be indifferent when you can. The tale is that Katla is not indifferent."

"There are bedclosets at Gunnars Stead that go empty at night. Katla doesn't need to ask the neighbors to find out such things for her."

"Five cows is not a lot for a beam that is close at hand."

"Does someone in the district need a beam?"

"There is a half-built house on a farm in the district that could be weathertight before Yule."

Now Gunnar settled his back against the wall of the farmhouse, and let his eyes close. After a long time, he said, "We have a new building on our farm, just by chance. But we don't need any beams." Then he was silent for a long time, as if he had fallen asleep. After a while, Vigdis motioned to Margret to help her to her feet. As Margret did so, Vigdis said, "It is my opinion that the Gunnars Stead folk have done little in this matter to make friends, and all in the district know how Gunnar Asgeirsson cherishes ancient disagreements." She glanced once or twice at Gunnar, but his eyes did not open. Margret accompanied her a little way on her walk back to Ketils Stead. Soon, Gunnar returned to the new building, and set about helping Olaf put turves into place. The ground was too frozen, now, to cut new ones, and Olaf declared that it was a bad time of year for such work. That evening, after eating, Gunnar declared that if Hrafn's sons were old enough to sleep alone beside the cowbyre when their father was across the field in a new building, then they could sleep alone there if their father and Katla were sleeping in Ingrid's old bedcloset, and Hrafn agreed that this was so, and in this way Katla and Hrafn moved into the farmhouse for the winter.

Now Yuletide came on, and since the ground was hard and good for traveling, and there had as yet been snow only to the north, in Isafjord, many more souls than usual went to the cathedral at Gardar for the Christmas ma.s.s and feasting. Since the fjords were frozen over, many traveled on skates made from reindeer bones, and others traveled on horseback, and the horses were turned out in the giant Gardar homefield. Of the Gunnars Stead folk, only Olaf and Hrafn's sons stayed behind to look after the livestock. Olaf declared that Gardar was too busy for him, and too full of the bishop. Then Margret said that she, too, would stay behind, but went after all, because Birgitta Lavransdottir wanted her to.

Now it happened for the first time that many of the Greenlanders got a good look at Kollbein Sigurdsson and his retainers and sailors, who sat together near Kollbein's high seat. Margret saw that Kollbein was a dark man with a round face and small round eyes, who dressed in furs, like the bishop, but wore them casually, half thrown off his shoulder, rather than for warmth. Skuli, Margret saw, sat next to him, and repeatedly, Kollbein turned to Margret's friend and asked him who those present might be. Once or twice his eyes fell on Margret herself, and once she saw Skuli's lips make the words "Margret Asgeirsdottir," but although her friend was looking right at her, his glance did not distinguish her in any way. Kollbein's gaze slid quickly past Gunnar, but lingered on the more prosperous farmers, such as Erlend Ketilsson, until it was almost a stare. Birgitta Lavransdottir, the sharp-eyed, was watching Kollbein, too, and now she whispered to Margret that the ombudsman looked as if he were counting Erlend's head of cattle as they filed into the byre for winter. Erlend and Vigdis were regarding, with smiles, the bishop and Jon the Priest, to whom they had brought six Ketils Stead cheeses.

In fact, the gifts brought by the Greenlanders to Gardar made a great array, though there was an especially large number of things of humble home manufacture-lengths of wadmal, sheepskins, and some fancy weaving in the form of bands for the decoration of vestments. This was not a year in which the benches of Gardar Hall were piled with bear hides and walrus ivory and silver from Ireland and ma.n.u.scripts from Normandy and York and silk from Italy and wine from France, as they had once been, when Greenlanders traveled widely in every direction. Even so, the farmers and their wives nodded and gaped at the collection and spoke, as they had done after the reindeer hunt, of the richness of their home.

Now the bishop stood and made his blessing over the feast, and his voice, though unusually low, was still penetrating, and his eyes, when he looked out over the a.s.sembled guests, blazed forth with their usual light. "Lord," he breathed, "bless especially the bread and wine the safe arrival of Kollbein Sigurdsson has brought us. And bless Kollbein himself, who is the honored representative of the great King Hakon, his wife Queen Margarethe, and the old King Magnus, who sometimes seem to forget their loyal subjects in Greenland, but this year have remembered them so fittingly. And we beg, oh Lord, thy special blessing also for the meat of the reindeer from the great hunt on Hreiney, which reminds us all of your abundance everywhere in creation. For the other, more usual fare, we also ask thy blessing, for this is the meat that thy souls live by, from day to day, sometimes plentiful and sometimes spare, but always sufficient unto our needs." And at this point the bishop seemed to fall back into his high seat, and the voice of Sira Jon rang out, "For this and all our blessings, O Lord, we thank thee." Here Margret craned her neck for a look at the bishop, as did everyone around her. But the bishop weakly motioned all to begin, and soon the hall was resounding with the clamor of the feast.

Soon it seemed to Margret, with the pa.s.sing of the basins and the bread that the hall had grown very hot and smoky, and that the voices of Gunnar and Birgitta beside her were at once too loud to bear and too soft to be understood, for truly she was like her uncle Hauk in this, that she did not care for feasting and large groups of folk. She stood up and found her way outside.

The great Gardar homefield, hard and glistening with frost, spread down to the strand and the pale, luminous ice, and Margret took some deep breaths of the fresh air. And now she turned and discovered Skuli approaching, and he was dressed in his blue and red court dress and his hair was neatly done up in blue and red bands. He seemed to Margret very fair, as fair as he had seemed to her many years before, when he had stayed at Gunnars Stead and carved for her a spindle in the shape of a grinning face, which she shrank from using, but kept with her in her pocket for many years. As he approached her, he seemed to her much fairer than Olaf Finnbogason, and that distant time much closer to the present than all of the intervening years.

Now Skuli came up to her and stood near her, and said, "Margret Asgeirsdottir, it seemed to me that you grew pale in the hall, and left the feast suddenly. Are you ill? Have you been made ill by the bread? Indeed, it is ill enough bread."

"Nay." Now she turned away from him and looked out over the Gardar homefield, toward the giant cowbyre, where many Gardar cows were cozily walled up, waiting for spring. At this, Skuli stepped back and said in a more usual voice, "Gardar has prospered in the years since the coming of the bishop, though others have not, I know."

"It is true that others have not, and folk lay the blame here and there. But it seems to me that the bishop is like a storm or an act of G.o.d, whose coming might be for good or ill, and I have no bitterness against him, though my Gunnar may. It is something not often talked about."

Now, as they looked, servants came out of the storehouses, carrying hay to the cowbyre on large hides, dragging them over the frozen ground. Skuli remarked that the Greenlanders' way of transporting feed still amused him, but Margret interrupted him. "Know you the tale of Olaf's return to Gunnars Stead?"

"Nay."

"It happened one day that this Audun, who is now a priest, came from Gardar to get Olaf, who was to continue his studies for the priesthood and be made a priest by the bishop, and Olaf had to go away after many years at Gunnars Stead. On the first day of Olaf's departure, our folk milled about like sheep, not only Gunnar and Birgitta, who was but a child then; I myself barely remembered how to serve the meals and stir the whey, things I have done since I was five winters old. Gunnar had sat down at once and told a story, and Birgitta and the servants spent the whole morning listening to him. I went into the hills to set snares and gather herbs, but my snares tangled and I gathered nothing." She looked at Skuli. He was very handsome. She went on, "Now I was in despair, for I saw that the great farm of my fathers had fallen into the hands of fools, and that Gunnar and I and Birgitta, a guiltless child, would quickly starve. And we went on at this rate for two more days, so that little was done, though good luck would have it that the beasts were still grazing in the hills. It does not seem to me that we would have had the wit even to feed them, had it been a different time of year.

"And then on the third day, the priests Jon and Pall Hallvardsson came to us, and I knew at once that they were coming about Olaf, although they spoke for a long time of another matter. And we had this bit of luck, that Pall Hallvardsson, who was a friend, spoke first, and asked me directly if I was betrothed to Olaf, and I saw in his glance a message that Olaf was as unhappy at Gardar as we were to have him there, and so I said I was. And one of the servingwomen slipped out and carried this news to Gunnar, so that when Jon spoke to him, he, too, attested to a proper betrothal. And so, a day or so later, Olaf returned, and we didn't starve after all, but prospered, even in this year, when hardly anyone in the eastern settlement can say the same."