Erik the Red

by Tilman Roehrig

  “Well, it would be better for the child, that’s true,” he grumbled. He asked for time. It was a big decision and he wanted to think it over.

  Thjodhild felt a dizzying sense of relief. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Yes, Erik. Think of the child and of me.” With that, she started to trace the route back to the house, but after a few steps, she turned back. “May I tell Tyrkir about our plan?”

  “Yes. He should do some thinking, too. It would be a nice change.”

  As she walked along the narrow path toward the farm, Thjodhild patted her belly with both hands. “Since you can’t understand words yet, my child, just feel how happy your mother is.”

  Around noon, the lank manager came out to the burial mound. Since Erik’s conversation with Thjodhild, he had not only strengthened the bow of the stone ship but raised the side walls. “So that Father always feels safe.”

  “The mistress has a plan,” Tyrkir began. “I couldn’t have forged a better one.” Thjodhild wasn’t going to utter a single complaint to her parents about her husband. The harvest had been bad, so the cattle had starved to death. The winter storms had been fierce, so the house was no longer habitable. Tyrkir listed several other reasons she’d planned. When he was finished, he said, “Since we didn’t find happiness here, we’ll just have to walk a little toward it. Everyone can understand that.”

  “I think so, too. Maybe it’s better that way.”

  When would they leave? Soon, Thjodhild insisted. The child would not wait, and they’d need a home when it came. With that, Erik was decided.

  For the neighbors of Hawk Farm, it should look like a visit at first. Thjodhild had insisted on it. “Trust me, and our reputation will be preserved!”

  Erik agreed, because even Tyrkir thought that his mistress was more capable of handling people’s curiosity. The servants and maids had been ordered to break up the farm on Sharpcliff, to pack the family’s belongings in boxes, and to bring the valuable timber down to the beach. The actual move would take place on the second trip.

  Erik, Tyrkir, and Thjodhild set out one morning with only six oarsmen and a strong north wind and were already anchored at the Bocksfjord before sunset the same day. Without much baggage, the horses made good progress along the path. The couple carried only a few bundles of clothing and the family treasure in an ironclad, tightly sealed box. Thjodhild kept the three keys used to secure it safe on the large ring on her belt.

  Soon after the pass, the country opened to the west, and the first farms appeared. Erik and his wife greeted everyone they met, asked questions, and told stories. Admiring glances followed them. It was a visit of new beginnings. After a long winter, fresh green shone between the pale brownish, wilted grass. Hazel bushes, birches, and ash trees stood with swelling buds. And Thjodhild was more beautiful than ever. There was no cause for suspicion. The daughter of Hawk Farm was doing well with the stranger; the happy news soon spread all over the valleys.

  Yet soon after the first reunion, Thjodhild’s mother had grown suspect. “Tell me the truth, child.”

  Thjodhild leaned her forehead against the cheek of the old woman. “Don’t worry. I couldn’t have found a better man.”

  The next morning, Thorbjörn listened quietly to his daughter. From time to time, he glanced at his son-in-law, who stood next to her in front of the high seat, flinching as if being struck as she spun the chronicle of their misfortunes. Thjodhild had long since finished, and her father was still scratching his chin through his dense beard. Finally, he said, “Our family belongs together.”

  Not one scolding word, no probing questions. Only: Our family belongs together. And thus, the decision was made.

  Thorbjörn himself spread the rumor: At the request of her old parents, Erik would return to Habichtstal with his wife, because working side by side was the best thing for the future of the clan. The rich lords of the neighborhood nodded in understanding.

  Erik emerged from his troubles as if from a dull, stuffy cave, without loss of honor. And with this clear perspective, he could now look forward to renewed happiness.

  “Today I’ll show you your land.” Thorbjörn sat in the saddle of a pink-and-white stallion and rode with Erik and Tyrkir from Hawk Farm northward into a higher side valley. Servants followed, one of them guarding the pot aglow with embers, the others leading horses packed with brushwood and wood shavings.

  After about half an hour of riding, the farmer bridled the stallion and had a stake driven into the ground.

  “Son-in-law, all the land you can see from this point to the Water Horn is what I’m willing to give you, as well as the hillside that goes down from this valley to the river, where you can build your farm. You’ll have plenty of space, and yet we won’t be far.”

  Erik shielded his eyes. Meadowed slopes rose to the mountains in the north and east. A stream meandered through the plateau, and in the northwest the view ended at a wooded hilltop capped by a bare rock peak, the Water Horn. “You are good to me.”

  “It’s not a gift.” There was a clear threat in Thorbjörn’s voice. “Our new contract now includes your ship.” In the event of a separation or divorce, Erik would have to pay out half the value of his wife’s ship in hacksilver, as had been established yesterday before witnesses.

  “I understand,” Erik grumbled.

  Stiffly, Thorbjörn stood straighter himself. His face hardened.

  Tyrkir watched him anxiously. What came now? The friends had expected a fertile piece of land and some meadows but never dreamed that the farmer would give away half his land. And now, why this sudden long silence? The old man was clever, and he had certainly seen through Erik’s lies about the marriage agreement by now. Did he want to see Erik repent? Was his goal not to help, but to teach a lesson? As long as his word was not sealed with an oath, he could still deny the new agreement. Great Tyr, the German asked silently, please help my master find happiness. There’s been enough bitter disappointment.

  And as if the prayer had been heard all the way to Valhalla, the gray-bearded man now spread out both arms. “Erik, who they call the Red, who is my daughter’s husband, the father of her child, receive my land, bless it as your own, and make it prosper.”

  Even before Erik moved, Tyrkir jumped off his horse with a relieved sigh. Soon he had an armful of brushwood and piled it on the ground. Erik came to his side, pushing shavings into the embers before igniting the fire. Over the flickering flames, he stretched his clenched fist to the sky. “Hear me, Thor! I dedicate my land to you.”

  And then the men mounted up again. They rode for a long time to the next hill. And when they could just make out the first fire behind them, they ignited the second. So it went, paying close attention to the distance, with each new fire in sight of the smoke plume of the last, and by evening they’d surrounded the high valley and had reached the birch- and ash-wooded hill below the Water Horn.

  In front of the thick forest, Erik pushed the fire once more into the layered woodpile. “Thor, my divine protector. Look here. This is now our land. Live here with my clan and me.”

  Thorbjörn dismounted and firmly laid his hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. “Let us be neighbors and friends. We are one family. We will endure any sorrows together. But it is now your duty to preserve our lineage.”

  Erik met his gaze. “You can trust me.”

  The old man nodded, satisfied. With a wave, he ordered the giant and Tyrkir to follow him. As soon as they entered the forest, a black fluttering army rose from the birch crowns as ravens croaked and screamed above them. “They are the guardians of our border,” Thorbjörn explained. “A long time ago, the mountain here trembled. That’s why the ravens curse every intruder, as if they fear that even too firm a footfall could shake the rock again.”

  Tyrkir watched the giant birds. For a while, they circled around the rugged Water Horn before they settled again in the branches. Not just guards, he thought reverently, but brothers of Hugin and Munin. Surely, they just told the two god-ra
vens, Odin’s omnipresent scouts, about us. And Hugin and Munin will now fly up to the golden high seat in Valhalla, settle down on the shoulder of Odin, and whisper into the ear of the God of All Heaven about who is now the young farmer in Habichtstal.

  A rushing sound tore him from his reverie. Before him, Thorbjörn and Erik slowed their pace, and shortly thereafter, they reached the bank of a deep blue, quiet spring lake. Although the picture was peaceful, roaring and gargling filled the air. The friends looked at each other uneasily.

  “Come,” Thorbjörn said. “I’ll show you how closely beauty and horror can live together.”

  Slowly, they walked along the shore, avoiding overturned ash trees, before coming to a chasm. Next to them, the lake plunged into the abyss. The water hit the fissured rock deep below them, splashed up, and threw itself as a spraying white wave down into the valley. From their position, they couldn’t make out where the waterfall hit the ground, only its deep rumbling. Only farther down in the plain had the elemental force turned into a foaming brook again.

  Erik pointed to buildings and stables below the steep slope. “Who farms there?”

  “Valtjof, our neighbor. He chose a good place for his farm.” In winter, the mountain protects him from the ice storms from the north, and in summer, the warm winds from south and west gather down in the basin. “Fruit and grass grow abundantly in his soil.”

  “Valtjof?” Erik asked, and the blood rose to his face. “His brother Ejolf—that lout at the wedding party—”

  “Mind yourself,” Thorbjörn warned. “You’ve forgotten. I demand that you stand by your word.”

  “Don’t worry,” Erik muttered.

  Ejolf Dreck. With that name, Tyrkir once again grew worried. Jealousy is a wound that never heals, he thought. The pair hadn’t thought of the rival for months. Tyrkir sighed. From now on, we’ll have to learn to live with him.

  Leif

  Thorbjörg took care of her daughter by day, and often by night, so much so that Thjodhild sometimes wasn’t sure which of them was looking forward to the baby more. Thjodhild enjoyed the weeks on Hawk Farm while her husband and Tyrkir sailed up to Hornstrand.

  After loading all their belongings, Erik planned to take the longer route around the North Cape. “Believe me, sometimes you get to your destination faster by taking a detour,” he had asserted. After sailing the big northern arch, he wanted to enter the Breidafjord from the west, and then feel his way through the island belt and reach the inner Hvammsfjord. From there, the loads could be transported more easily and by the shortest route to the newly chosen farmstead. “You’ll see. By late summer, a fire will be burning in our own hall.”

  Thjodhild had not doubted him for a moment. After the hard months in solitude—after all the disappointments—she knew that Erik would keep his word.

  “Wait with the child until I am back.”

  It was a promise she could not make when they said their goodbyes. “I do not know enough to promise that.”

  Goddess Freya would determine the time. That was Thjodhild’s firm belief, and also what she’d been telling herself in recent days. Under Thorbjörg’s supervision, the sauna had long since been prepared to become a birthing house, and Thjodhild had moved there when the first pain came. Every morning Thorbjörg had come to her daughter’s bedside. She’d spread oil over Thjodhild’s rounded belly, firmly but tenderly, as if she were stroking the unborn child while at the same time making sure it shifted to a comfortable position for the birth. She always hummed a melody that Thjodhild remembered from her own childhood.

  One morning, the experienced woman gently checked below. “The contractions will come more regularly today.” Seeing her daughter’s helpless face, she added with a smile, “You can help. Your child wants to come into the light. Think of nothing else now.”

  She let Thjodhild get up. While both walked in the sunshine in front of the sauna house, the old woman told of the night she’d given birth.

  Her voice lured the contractions—Thjodhild felt a painful wave, which soon withdrew and then returned after some time. “Breathe, my girl, only we women have the strength to give new life.”

  As the contractions came at ever-shorter intervals, Thorbjörg led Thjodhild to a mortar full of grain and handed her the pestle. “Crush them! But not with violent blows—the flour should remain coarse. From this, I’ll bake you a sweet child’s bread after the birth.” With that, she left the daughter alone.

  Thjodhild’s arms rose and fell, and she felt each time how the pressure in her pelvis became more painful. A contraction took her breath away, and she cried out against her will. But before fear seized her, her mother returned with two old maids, and together they led the groaning young woman into the warm room.

  As if through a veil, Thjodhild saw the space covered with moss and a cloth. “Kneel down, my little one!” Arms lifted her body with each new wave. Thjodhild noticed her mother’s serious face, her calming voice, nothing else until this one great pain stopped all time.

  A little scream, bright and demanding, roused her from her exhaustion. It is true, Thjodhild thought as she opened her eyes. She lay on soft furs, saw the ceiling beams above her, nothing else. Her abdomen and thighs were being rubbed with a damp, cool cloth. Why is Mother silent? Why don’t I hear anything from my child? Thjodhild tried to stand, but she was only able to rise a little before she sank back wearily. She felt tears well in her eyes.

  “Mother. Where is it?”

  “Soon, my girl. Soon.”

  She heard the bright cry again, followed by indignant whining. Thjodhild breathed out a sigh. Yes, it is really true. And when her mother bent over her and put a rosy warm being between her breasts and said, “You have a son. He is so beautiful,” she felt all the distress and pain of the past hours flow away from her. With her fingers, she felt for the wet hair and found shoulders and arms. “I want to look at him. Please!” Immediately, pillows were tucked behind her back. She took in a wrinkled little human with tiny eyes in a wrinkled face. “But he looks so old,” she whispered in horror.

  The women smiled and laughed. Thorbjörg sat down next to the bed on a wooden block. “That’s the way it is, my girl. So the circle of life begins. In a few days, the skin tightens, then the little one grows into a man, has strength, and believes that he always will, but later on in old age, he will again be as weak and wrinkled as he is now.”

  Thjodhild gently stroked the baby’s tiny clenched hands and silently compared them to his father’s fists. “I wish you a life full of happiness, my child,” she whispered.

  Only at the beginning of June did the ship enter the bay at the bottom of the Hvammsfjord. A storm had stopped Erik for two weeks. Tyrkir had been injured. While jumping into the cargo hold, he’d stumbled over a rope and sprained his right foot.

  “You’ll never be a sailor,” Erik mocked.

  “And what would you be without your pilot? We’d only go around in circles.” But the pain had remained. The first boatman had had to take Tyrkir’s place at the dragon’s head because his swollen foot had made standing on the swaying planks torture. Now Tyrkir was glad finally to be able to return to land.

  From the ship, he spotted young men on the shore. They were laughing and yelling. Some raced their horses on the shallow pebble beach while others faced off half-naked and measured their strength wrestling. As soon as the boat approached, the men ceased their wild play. A distraction! Three of them waded into the water to help pull the knarr farther onto the beach, but a shrill whistle at their backs made them halt. “We won’t touch that tub!”

  Tyrkir squinted. The order had come from one of the riders—Ejolf Dirt! He sat in the saddle, his blond hair held back with a headband, his angular face pale with rage. “Come back now. We don’t help strangers.”

  By then, Erik recognized the man, too. He watched silently as the three boys turned and, shortly after, left the beach with their leader and comrades. “Well, I could have done without that welcome.”

&nbs
p; “Just forget him.” Tyrkir snapped his finger. “Ejolf and his cronies weren’t here at all.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not blind.”

  “Excuse me, Master.” Tyrkir gave a small shake of his head. Blind? It would be better, he thought, at least when it came to that Ejolf and those precious idlers.

  Halfway into the high valley, servants paused their work in a meadow and waved with their rakes before coming to meet the ship. One asked, “You are Erik, the husband of Thjodhild of Hawk Farm?”

  “What about my wife?”

  “She is well. Be glad you have become a father. Of a son!”

  For a moment, Erik froze, then he swung off his horse with impressive speed as he usually did only in battle, and stormed toward the servant. “Say that again!”

  “Father . . . as I said.” The man took a few cautious steps back. “People everywhere are talking about it.”

  Erik punched his fist in his left hand and turned to Tyrkir. “Did you hear? I’m a father! That’s what I call a good woman.” He pulled a piece of hacksilver from his belt pouch and handed it to the messenger. “Here, take it! Happiness must be paid for. Otherwise, it won’t last long.”

  From that moment, the men’s progress felt painfully slow. Erik couldn’t ride ahead to see his son since Tyrkir was unable to work with his injury, so the young father had no choice but to lead the trek past Hawk Farm and to their destination.

  Finally, they reached the slope close to the Water Horn. The crates were unloaded. While the timber was to remain on the cart, two carved beams for the high seat were carried by Erik himself to the place where the new house was to be built. “Come closer! Hurry up!”

  As soon as the servants and maids had gathered around him, he called down Thor’s blessing on this spot. But his impatience shortened the solemn moment.

  He pointed to the nearby meadow creek. “Pitch our tents there,” he ordered the women. “And you, Katla, take care of the food. There are still enough supplies.”