Norseman Chief

by Born, Jason

  But my last child lived at the time of that clambake. She ran screaming with laughter barefoot in the sand despite the cold. She chased some other little urchin from the village who carried something of intense value – a stick. My child’s hair was long and brown, almost a blending of Hurit’s hair and my own. It flopped wildly while she ran, strands of it stuck across her face from sweat and grime.

  I do not want you to think that I disliked the little girl, but I hadn’t been close to her then. A part of me sulked, thinking that like all of my efforts to have a brood of children running around, this one more would likely end in death. But I treated her well enough. I would bring in a large icicle in the winter to show her. She would cry and scream. I would walk the doll of me in my cross tunic across her chest. She would spit-up.

  The girl caught the boy who carried the stick. He was called Taregan. Like a bear, she brought the boy down and swiped at him with her paw. Her laughter switched to a frown as quick as lightning while she retrieved that stick. She brought a large sheet of bark down on the boy who began crying. I made the bark shield for her to carry around to pretend she was in the shield wall protecting my old king, Olaf. She never met a king or saw a shield wall, but the girl wielded that bark with fury. My daughter stood victorious, marching away to torture some other unsuspecting child with her game. The boy went and cried to his father, who cuffed the side of his head for allowing a girl to get the best of him. I chuckled. My daughter’s name was Alsoomse. I called her Skjoldmo.

  Alsoomse was a melodic sounding name when the people said it in their tongue. The men from the Huntsman’s crew yet living at that point chopped the sounds of the name, making it less beautiful and more ugly or coarse. I had never known anyone by that name, but Hurit said that her grandmother was called by it. The word means independent which was fitting because the girl was nothing if not free-spirited. Skjoldmo means shield girl in my native Norse. Why I branded her as such should be evident.

  When we stood at one end of a long pit, with its steamy warmth wobbling the people and objects I saw in the distance, Etleloo asked, “How long?” to the nearest woman.

  She was on her knees at the edge of the pit and reached a naked arm into the hole. “Anytime now. Here see for yourself.” The woman tossed him one of the clams within her reach. Etleloo worked quickly on the shell, biting out the meat from inside. He showed his teeth while chewing sucking in air to cool his mouth from the intense heat.

  Soon he smiled while nodding. “Now.”

  Like the young, starving men who had lived only fifteen years of their lives so far, the two of us scooped handful after handful of the assorted mussels and clams into our eating bowls. In our wake we left a bare patch of the charred seaweed that had been placed upon the heated rocks while it was still dripping wet, fresh from the sea. The seaweed had heated up and steamed open while cooking the feast we were now eating. Before that, a great fire had burned for the entire length of the pit over top of the stones to bring them to an extreme heat, glowing bright red. Groups of men and women had then scooped out the ash and coals so the seaweed could be set down.

  Etleloo and I were fortunate that day because just as we threaded our way back to our driftwood seat, those young men I mentioned, those aged about fifteen years, noticed that the food was ready. Like a battle cry, one of them announced it and they moved as a herd to the pit, forgetting the games of skill they left in piles at the forest’s edge. Etleloo shook his head, likely thinking as I was, of our own younger days when the world was simple and we could live only to fill our bellies with food and hopefully fill our women with seed.

  We passed Hurit who walked with Etleloo’s wife. They had been talking about something, but they interrupted their conversation to look at their men. Hurit said what they were both thinking. “Husband, you are no longer among the boys who can pack away such amounts of food without it finding its way onto your belly.”

  Etleloo frowned. I said, “Well then after I am done eating all this, perhaps you shall ask some of the other women to come to our mamateek so that I may work it off.” Hurit smiled, pulled my completely grey beard down and kissed my cheek before walking off to pile her plate high with shellfish. Etleloo’s woman followed.

  I plopped down on the log with Etleloo working on his second or third clam by the time his seat found its place. We discarded our shells in a heap behind us. The heap was already quite large as we were adding to something that was started years and years ago during a similar feast. I sighed, looking around the beach at all the various piles of shells that had accumulated from these clambakes over the years.

  Etleloo took a break from shoveling his mouth full. “My woman will not be among those you bring into your home in order to work off your food. I don’t want you to get any ideas.”

  I looked toward his wife as she was stepping away from the pit. A fine woman, I thought. “I know she won’t be among them. I’ve already asked her and she declined. I suppose she does not want to be let down when she returns to your fire.” Etleloo laughed and pushed my shoulder.

  He was a fine man. Prone to anger, but fair. He had become my closest friend of the people since Ahanu died ten years earlier. Over the years we grew inseparable, hunting, fishing, and going to war together. He and I had led several battles against the Mi’kmaq village of the Pohomoosh in response to their stealth winter attack all those years ago. He and I defended our own village against some of the Mi’kmaq retribution attacks. We won most of these engagements, even when the Pohomoosh allied with other Mi’kmaq clans such as the Fish or the Eagle or the Skin Dressers, until after about two years, both sides tired of losing their young men and a truce – never a peace – was struck between Kesegowaase and the Pohomoosh chief called Luntook. Both sides quickly returned to pilfering traps and taking the occasional deer on each other’s lands. In other words, we returned to the same level of thievery that was tolerated before the war began.

  Despite what we thought was a win in that war, we had lost many good men. Thirty-six had died immediately during the various skirmishes. Another twenty-eight died shortly after the battles from some festering wound they received. At least a dozen walked around carrying fairly serious, permanent scars from the stone or wood of the Mi’kmaq weapons.

  And the battles did not spare my old Norse brothers. Three now sang their existences away in the mead hall with Odin, reciting the god’s poetry, after receiving terrible, blood-letting wounds during the war. Thorhall the Huntsman was one of these men. He died with a sword in his hand which is the way he wanted it to ensure his quick transportation to Odin.

  I saw him die on the bank of a river. His blade had been knocked free when a long spear was shoved under his arm by a wild-eyed Pohomoosh. After killing his attacker, I collected the sword and put the hilt into his immediately weak, pale hand. He panted some last words about seeing my second father, Erik, in the mead hall that very day. He made me promise, and I did promise him as he gurgled on his own blood, that I would not show our new allies anything I knew of the art of making iron or steel. He died then.

  What was left of his men eventually abandoned their small homestead in the wilderness and came to live among the people. It was the Huntsman who desired the peace and quiet away from others, so they had no more reason to stay. They were welcomed as friends, having shed blood from their own veins as a result of strikes from the Mi’kmaq’s knives, in the name of Kesegowaase, the chief. All of them took wives, some replacing Algonkin husbands who had died in the war. Even Halfdanr, the man whose fingers I separated from his left hand years earlier, found a young woman to lie beside. Several babies came to these men and their families, a little fairer in complexion and slightly larger than the other newborns of the tribe. Now, some years later, all the children and men blended in together fighting and playing like any family. Only occasionally did the people of Kesegowaase slip into old habits and call us tall strangers. Just as we sometimes called them skraelings when well-worn routines took precedence over m
ore recent practices.

  Among the low-hanging clouds which sat dark over the darker sea, some of our scouts materialized paddling distinctly decorated birch bark canoes. They were very close already as they bobbed up and down over the broad rolling swells. Six young, strong men sliced into the water with their lightweight pine paddles which pushed them home from their weeks-long journey over to Vinland. Once or twice a year Kesegowaase’s men would return to the wet lands around my old home to bring back some of the large moose or deer which inhabited its woods. When they saw us on the beach enjoying the food, they changed course from heading up river to the village and struck out directly toward us.

  Etleloo’s pace of eating picked up rapidly as the clams cooled so he did not notice the return of his people. I tapped his arm, pointing at the travelers, “They’re early.”

  He looked then returned to his food, mumbling through a full mouth, “They may have smelled the food.” I gave him a good natured chuckle as the canoes slid into shore next to the longest of the clambake pits.

  After pulling the boats up to safety, the scouts scanned the throng of villagers until they laid eyes on Kesegowaase who laughed at something with Hassun looking on. Nootau was there as well, but he had not been in good health for over a year. The old shaman would greet you with great pleasure and begin a bright conversation only to greet you again moments later. At first this was all very funny to the younger men, who more than a little cruelly counted how many times they could get him to say his salutations in a single talk. The day of the clambake Nootau wore a blank, specter-like face as if he stared at an empty world which was reflected in his own countenance.

  To a man all six of the scouts walked to Kesegowaase, none hurrying, but with purpose nonetheless. “There is news.”

  “Huh?” said Etleloo.

  “Come,” I said, leaving my bowl behind me. Hurit was right in that my belly was already full despite eating only half of the portion I had taken. Etleloo sighed but quickly came after me.

  “How many?” Kesegowaase asked when we came near.

  “Ah, Halldorr, how nice to see you today. It has been so long. Where have you been hiding?” asked Nootau. The group allowed me to answer the man respectfully for the third time today before Hassun, falling into a shadowed world of frustration about his station, ushered his father away.

  Nootau no longer sat on the council. At first his random musings were tolerated out of respect for his many years of contribution to the people, but even the old men only have so much patience. Quietly, and on a more frequent basis, Kesegowaase decided to begin the talks without informing Nootau. In his addled state, Nootau would only occasionally ask why there had been no council for so long. The men would tell him that perhaps one would be called tomorrow, a time so far beyond Nootau’s ability to recall the conversation that never was there a fear of injured feelings. Hassun would now sit in his place around the chief’s fire when council was called, though his opinions never carried the weight of his father’s.

  “Not many. We do not know for certain, but it cannot be too many. The large canoe came – only one – and left the same day. We saw it coming from a distance, but by the time we hid ourselves where we could observe any landing, the countless oars were back into the water. Men teemed aboard her while she sped away toward the icy north.”

  “Then why do you think anyone stays behind?” the chief asked.

  “We heard singing coming from the old camp of Halldorr. Since we remembered the will of our chief we came directly back here without first making contact with the strangers.”

  So the people of my fathers had returned. I had nearly forgotten about them. What, I wondered, could make them return after over ten years when they had clearly forgotten about Vinland? And why come, then immediately leave with only a few men left behind? But I didn’t need to ask myself all these questions. Kesegowaase and I had made plans for this very event in his first years as chief.

  “I’ll prepare my pack and Sjor Batr,” I said.

  “That is good. You’ll take Etleloo, Rowtag, and any six of the young warriors you choose.” Kesegowaase gestured to Etleloo. “His grey hair will help whoever it is feel at ease with our people.”

  Etleloo bristled at the chief’s humor, but I diffused my friend’s temper by saying, “And his axe will slice them from their groins to their skulls if they make a wrong move.”

  Surprisingly, Etleloo calmed himself rapidly. “I will go and serve my purpose, but I do not think it wise to go to sea in this leaky Sjor Batr of Enkoodabooaoo’s.” My canoe was quite old now, patched many times from rock, spear, or arrow punctures. But since I first sailed the seas as a child, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for any old boat and all the tales it could tell should it ever wish to share. I kept Charging Boar for many years after I could have afforded a new vessel ten times over. I marveled at the grand old specimen of Helgi’s boat called Leidarstjarna. It had been his father’s boat, likely carrying millions of merkur of goods across many thousands of vika across the sea. Kesegowaase ignored Etleloo. I did not.

  “I have known you to be brave in battle. Think of the journey in my canoe as a return to the trials of manhood.” I gave the man a wink.

  As we moved to assemble our party of men, the chief, whose daughter now tugged at his leggings, gave us advice. “I’ll not have my village in battle against these people. They are good as we can see from Halldorr and the others. But if battle comes, see that they do not know about our village so that our women and children may be safe from harm.” I merely nodded, not saying anything about the directions to this very village I left on the parchment stuck in the cooking chain of one of the longhouses in Leifsbudir all those years ago.

  . . .

  Right Ear, my old friend, was still living but he had to stay in our mamateek with Hurit and little Skjoldmo while I was gone to Vinland. I don’t know how old the dog was when he began living with me in Leifsbudir during Freydis’s reign of terror. He was, however, most definitely fourteen years or older by now. Right Ear had a hollowed out space where his right eye used to be after a fight with a wolf pack. I was afraid that I would lose him after that battle, but he lived and thrived, only changing the carriage of his head so that it tilted to the right when he ran. Now, in his advanced age he ambled slowly around the village, whining when his joints ached, and known by everyone in order to get the occasional scrap from someone’s dinner plate. He would spend the better part of the rest of the day chewing deliberately with the four or five teeth he had left in his mouth. I missed taking him on my trips, but we could not have a lumbering dog with us in case we met with trouble.

  We put to shore some distance south of Leifsbudir, near Tyrkr’s grape vines. I smiled silently when we snuck past the rocks and lake remembering that was where the former thrall had spent much time swimming with his white ass bare for all to see. I became a little melancholy as I wondered if he still walked the earth. I had not thought of him for years, but being so close to those memories made me think. Thinking, being dangerous when battle may be near, was quickly banished from my mind and I walked on concentrating on the sounds filling the forest around me as dusk began to settle its weight onto the landscape.

  It would do no good at ensuring a lasting peace to barge into Leifsbudir in the middle of night when the dark and shadows played tricks on men. No matter who sat in the camp that night, we would be viewed as invaders and so Etleloo and I and the rest of our party slept without a fire atop a sandstone ridge near my former village, planning on making ourselves known when the sun was high and the Norsemen’s confidence in their eyesight lofty.

  We ate a simple meal of dried, smoked fish then silently threaded our way to the longhouses. It looked like my old house by the lake was deserted and so we snaked along the brook to the other homes. One of these, in particular, was beginning to show signs of recent use and minor repair. But the tell-tale sign was, of course, the smoke that sifted through cracks in the roof and the smoke hole in the gable.


  In the years since Leifsbudir had been abandoned, scrub brush and pine trees began to fill in the protective gaps we had cleared in the forest. No longer was there a clear field of vision from the longhouse across a soggy plain. Instead we were now able to come so close that even Alsoomse could hit the houses with a well-aimed pebble. Etleloo had us spread ourselves out around the single, occupied home. I lay on my belly underneath a briar, using one of its thorns to scratch a recent set of flea bites around my waist. Hurit and I should move to a new mamateek, I thought, which was about the only way to temporarily reduce any such infestation. The thought passed and now we waited.

  We waited a long time. The sun had passed its zenith and still we neither saw nor heard any movement within. Perhaps we missed whoever lived there and they had left for an early morning hunt?

  Then, from inside the longhouse I heard a priest start a hymn. I knew it was a priest because he sang in Latin and none of Greenland’s residents other than a priest would have known the language. Rowtag and I exchanged glances when he did not recognize any of the words from the man. I assured him that all was well by showing my palm as if patting a baby.

  Still I waited. I waited to hear the other voices join in the song. They would likely be as all the other church services I had witnessed. Men would mumble and hum as if they actually understood the Latin words they used in order to pacify the priest. None came.

  The first hymn ended and after a short pause where I heard some pots and pans bump one another, the same voice began a new hymn in earnest. I could take no more of this so I stood. “Priest in the house! I am one of your people. I am Halldorr. I come to visit you in peace with some of the local peoples who are allies.” It felt strange to use my native tongue. The words came naturally, but I had to think a step ahead to make them form correctly.