The Saga of Colm the Slave

by Mike Culpepper

  “So what did he say?” asked Ingunn.

  “He said that Gunnar has taken them!”

  “Really? Did he say where they were?”

  “Nearby. My cows are still nearby!” Ketil was seething. He rummaged through a chest and pulled out his sword. “But I’ll get them back!”

  “No use going off half-armored,” said Ingunn. “Go speak to Thorolf and get his aid.”

  “I don’t need any help.”

  “No, of course not. But you will later, when this becomes a matter of law. Suppose you go kill Gunnar now. Someone will demand wergild later. Then you will need Thorolf. Best to bring him on side now.” This was a long speech for Ingunn. She dropped her eyes to her work and closed her mouth though she felt like shouting.

  Ketil clutched his sword and stood stock still, breathing hard. He hadn’t reckoned the cost of wergild into his scheme. Killing Gunnar might cost him more than two cows. “I’ll go see Thorolf first,” he said. “A man shouldn’t act without informing his godi.”

  “That is wisdom,” said Ingunn. “You are a wise man to think of that.”

  Ketil rode to Thorolf’s farm and told him what had happened. “What were Spa-Gils’ exact words?” asked Thorolf. Hallvard stood behind him, taking it all in.

  “Just that. He said my cows were close by and that Brand didn’t take them. Oh, and he warned me about bad neighbors.”

  “Hmm. Do you think Gunnar is a bad neighbor?”

  “He took my cows, didn’t he?”

  “Well,” said Thorolf, “Let us look ahead to the lawsuit that may follow any action that you take. After all, best to know what rocks lie under water before diving in.”

  “True enough.”

  “The best thing would be to summons Gunnar for theft.” Thorolf held up his hand. “I know it’s not as satisfactory as slicing off his head but you may get to do that later anyway.” He waited for Ketil to nod. “But it’s hard to summons a man on what we know now. Let me find out more about where the cattle might be...”

  “He has them! I know it!”

  “Then we will find them and that will be all we need to summons him for theft.” Thorolf laid his hand on Ketil’s shoulder. “Let me look into this. I give you my word that you will have justice.”

  By now Ketil had cooled down and he was tired from all the riding around he had done that day, so he agreed and went back to his farm.

  Thorolf considered the situation for a time. He sent a man to see Spa-Gils and discover exactly what the seer said. And he decided to visit Colm the next morning.

  “You are a sensible, level-headed man,” said Thorolf, “And you understand priorities. It is important that peace is preserved in the community, no neighbor against neighbor here. It is better a criminal escape then have fighting and bloodshed.”

  “Yes,” said Colm. He wondered if Thorolf were hinting about Geirrid and Gudbrand. Thorolf was an intelligent man; he might have pieced out the truth of that matter. “Of course, that’s assuming that the criminal has learned a lesson and won’t re-offend. We can’t have people committing crimes all the time.” He looked closely at Colm.

  “No,” said Colm, “We can’t.” Sometimes Colm went for days without thinking of Edgar, then the man’s face would suddenly appear before his mind’s eye. At least he didn’t dream of him so much any more.

  Thorolf said, “So I want you to go up to the summer pasture there and find out what you can.”

  “All right,” said Colm, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Colm should have been flattered that Thorolf asked for his assistance but he was worried instead. He was a man of standing in the community – but he was still a freed man and would bear the stain of slavery for all his life. Nothing could wipe it out; only Geirrid might escape it, if Colm did well enough. So every testing of Colm affected Geirrid’s future.

  After Thorolf left, Colm took his time saddling a horse and packing some provisions. He was thinking all the while. “Are you going somewhere?” asked Gwyneth.

  “Up to the cattle shieling that Ketil and Gunnar share. I’ll probably be back by dark. Thorolf wants me to stop a feud.”

  “Oh, well, that certainly won’t take more than an hour or two. I’ll see you at supper.”

  Colm grinned. “All right, laugh. I don’t know what I can do but Thorolf has asked me and so I must try. Anyway, I’ll go up and have a look.”

  “Thorolf is a lucky man to have you around. You are good at working out these problems.” She glanced away, then back. “I mean that.”

  Colm nodded. He noticed Gagarr in the yard and an idea came to him. “I’ll take the dog.”

  “Gagarr? Go ahead. I’ll tell the chickens to watch the place. They’ll be about as much use.”

  So Colm slung Gagarr across the saddle and rode off. Gagarr was startled at being put on a horse but soon was grinning with excitement. When they were far enough from the Trollfarm that Colm thought Gagarr wouldn’t run back, he put the dog down to run alongside. Colm reached the cattle byre about midday.

  The two women, Arnfrith and Berta, were in the shed. “What can you tell me about the day the cattle disappeared?” asked Colm.

  Arnfrith shrugged. “It was like any other day. We milked. The cows went up to pasture. We worked here.”

  Berta’s mouth twisted. “Yes, some of us worked...”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Berta, “That I was here in the shed all the afternoon, working.”

  “And you were alone?”

  Berta shrugged. Colm turned to ask Arnfrith where she had been but the girl’s face suddenly widened with distress and she ran out of the shed, clutching her belly. Outside, she puked on the grass. Colm thought he knew what that meant. “How long has this been going on?” he asked Berta.

  “About a week or two.”

  “So that would make her, what, about two months pregnant? A little more? Less?”

  Berta shrugged. “Why ask me?”

  “And you’ve been up here almost three months.” Berta nodded. “So,” Colm went on, “Skeggi and Arnfrith, is it? Or Arnfrith and Brand? Or both?”

  “Just Skeggi so far as I know,” said Berta, “But who can tell with girls these days? She could have been polishing every cock from here to the Hebrides!”

  Colm walked outside. “How long have you been pregnant?” Arnfrith shrugged but didn’t speak. “Is it Skeggi?” Arnfrith nodded. “So that’s where he was the day the cattle disappeared, right? The two of you were off together.” Arnfrith shrugged again, then burst into tears. Colm tried a few more questions but could get nothing out of the girl.

  Colm walked his horse up the path that the cattle took to go to pasture. He looked down the cliffs and crevasses along the way, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The path was bounded by a rockface on one side and a drop off on the other. The rockface decreased in height as the path climbed. Colm rounded a huge boulder and was above the face. A small meadow sloped away on one side, a cliff dropped off on Colm’s right. Ahead, Colm saw a new rockface thrusting from the meadow, above the path. Gagarr raised his nose into the wind and began growling. Colm looked about, but could see nothing. “Come on,” he said to the dog, and went on up the path. Above the second rockface, a vast pasture opened out. Cattle could be seen grazing here and there. This was rich grass and fairly flat land except, of course, for the drop off on the other side of the path. Colm looked about and located Skeggi, sitting on a boulder above the meadow.

  They made their greetings, then Colm said, “Well, Skeggi, what can you tell me about the day the cattle disappeared?” Skeggi looked away, then started on some story about an errand. Colm cut him off. “You were lying with Arnfrith, right? Somewhere back down the path. In that little sloping meadow? Or closer to the shed?”

  Skeggi gave up trying to lie. “Near the shed.” He was thin and some ribs showed through a hole in his shirt. Pimples peeked through the froth of fresh beard that curled from his cheeks.

&nb
sp; “So you weren’t with the herd at all?”

  “Brand didn’t mind. He could look after the cattle himself without much trouble. So I met with Arnfrith and left Brand to this work.”

  “So you didn’t see what happened to the cattle?”

  “I came up the path about the time the cattle were going back to the byre. Mikla-Tit wasn’t leading them, which was strange. I let them all go by and counted. Mikla-tit and another cow were missing.”

  Colm knew that Skeggi was lying about counting the cattle – Berta had done that – but he let it go. “And Brand?”

  “He wasn’t with the cows, either.”

  Colm led his horse back down the path. So perhaps Brand had run off with the cattle, no matter what Spa-Gils said. But that hardly made sense. A man of Brand’s age was unlikely to think that stealing two cows was worth the penalty. Better he stayed with the master that had provided him food and shelter for years. So where were the cattle? Colm looked around. And where was Gagarr? The dog had wandered off somewhere. Colm turned his face toward the cliffs. Oh, no! He shouted, “Gagarr!” And heard a bark in the distance.

  Colm went on back down the path until he came to the small meadow. Gagarr came running up to him, barking. “What is it?” Colm looked into the meadow. Gagarr began growling. “Hush, hush.” Colm listened carefully. There was a sound, a low moaning, from somewhere. He was afraid. Perhaps it was a troll or some other creature come to destroy him. Gagarr ran back into the meadow, still barking, and Colm cautiously followed him.

  The meadow was narrow, trapped between mountains, and sloped in a gentle grade away from the path for about a hundred yards until it dropped off into a canyon. Gagarr stood on a small rise about three quarters of the way down the meadow. When Colm mounted the rise, he saw what had excited Gagarr.

  There was a gash in the meadow, a gap revealing a hole beneath the turf. Colm could see movement in the hole and heard a cow lowing. He started to clamber down then stopped to study the situation. He saw a cow’s head raise as it moaned. Above the cow, a half-circle of grass was missing – grazed away no doubt – and Colm could see that turf protruded in a thin lip over the hole. He went around to the side of the rise and crawled forward toward the opening. He punched the ground ahead of him as he moved. He took his time. Colm knew what to expect but he was still surprised when the sod caved and folded under his punch. He cut into the turf as deeply as his knife would allow, then inserted both his hands and pulled the cut apart. The grass ripped away and flopped on either side like cloth. A face stared up at Colm and he started.

  Colm pulled back on the grass until he opened the turf all the way to the loose gravel at the side of the hole, then he lay on the solid earth and looked down at the face below. Open eyes, clouded and opaque, stared back up at him. Now Colm could see the flies that swarmed about the face and caught the stink of death rising from below. He pulled away the turf to reveal the edge of the pit all the way along until, at the far end, it abruptly closed in a tumble of rocks, gravel, and loose soil. This hole had been slashed from the earth by erosion or ancient glacial action and now was slowly filling up with gravel and soil washed down from the meadow above. The hole had become narrow enough so that a mantle of turf hid most of the opening.

  Colm rose to his knees and shielded his eyes from the light. He could see a cow standing, raising its head and lowing from time to time. Colm thought it was Mikla-Tit. Another cow lay on its side, moaning weakly. One of its legs seemed bent and was probably broken. Under the cow lay the man’s body, just his head and lower legs visible. Brand, thought Colm. He rose to his feet, caught his horse, and made his way quickly down the mountain to the cattle byre.

  Berta and Arnfrith were inside, working at separate chores. Colm thought a minute, then went to Arnfrith. “I need you to go down the mountain to your master’s farm. Can you ride?” Arnfrith nodded and Colm led her to his horse. “Tell Gunnar I have found the cattle. Tell him to fetch men and tools. We’ll need rope and shovels. Can you remember that?” Arnfrith repeated it back for him. She hitched her skirts up above her hips and Colm helped her mount the horse.

  “What about my master?” asked Berta.

  “Walk down and get him,” said Colm. He knew that meant Gunnar would get the message before Ketil. “There is a dead man, too. Brand, I think.” He nodded toward Arnfrith to remind Berta that this was Gunnar’s man who was dead. But perhaps it would be just as well not to have Gunnar and Ketil both here unsupervised. “Tell Gunnar to send for Thorolf, too,” said Colm. The women left and Colm made his way back up to the meadow.

  Gagarr stood at the edge of the hole, barking at his master. “All right, Gagarr, I hear you. Now, hush!” Gagarr continued to bark while Colm studied the situation. The hole was about eight feet deep and he thought that he could climb down at the far end in the gravel scree and, more important, climb out the same way. So he walked carefully to the end of the hole and put one foot past the turf. Loose soil and gravel collapsed under him and Colm sat down and slid into the hole in a flurry of stones.

  The base of the pit was firm and Colm stood upright. Now the death-stink was stronger, along with the acrid stench of cow piss. The prostrate cow raised its head a little but it was obviously far gone. Mikla-Tit stood facing the other direction; the fallen cow’s rear legs and Brand’s feet lay beneath her. There was no room for the cow to turn around; she could not make it out of the pit. Colm wondered if she had dropped to her knees during her trial but when he saw her swollen bag, he doubted if it was possible for the animal to do anything but stand. Mikla-Tit was so hefty with milk that her udder dragged the ground.

  Colm stepped over the fallen cow’s forelegs and squatted beside Mikla-Tit. He grasped her teats and began milking the animal. It was difficult at first; milk had curdled and thickened in her udder. Colm worked the foul-smelling bloody curds from the animal and eventually got milk streaming from her teats. He milked her straight onto the ground. She lowed in relief and gratitude.

  After milking Mikla-Tit, Colm looked to the other cow. He could not see how to milk her while she lay on her broken rear leg. There was blood on her udder and flies crawled over the milk that had expressed there. Unable to reach the turf at the edge of the pit, the cow had not eaten in days. The cow was going to die. Colm thought about cutting her throat, but he did not want to excite Mikla-Tit. These were close quarters and an excited animal could crush him.

  Colm crawled back out of the pit. The loose earth flowed like water as he clawed at it. He was breathing hard by the time he managed to haul himself up onto the turf. Even Gagarr had difficulty scrambling out of the hole. Colm lay on his belly and grabbed a handful of the dog’s fur, helping pull the animal out. The two of them sat there, looking down at the cows and the dead man. Colm tried to understand what had happened. Had this cow wandered off and Brand gone after and the two fallen into the pit together? Her leg broken and him underneath? Or had they been uninjured in the fall and then, when Brand tried to lead the animal out had her slip in the loose soil and collapse on him with a broken leg? Either way, Colm hoped that the man hadn’t lain here, crushed beneath this cow, for a long time before he died. And what of Mikla-Tit? Had she come back after the missing cow or had she, herself, been at fault by leading the animal into this ungrazed meadow? Anyway, perhaps others would look at this tableau and come up with another story.

  It was late afternoon when Colm glimpsed people on the path at the far end of the meadow. He shouted and waved and Gagarr barked until the men noticed them and rode into the meadow.

  Gunnar greeted Colm and took in the scene in the pit. Colm showed him where the lip of turf grew over and looked deceptively like good footing. Gunnar called over a man with a turf knife who cut away the grass all around back to the edge of the hole. Then there was much discussion of how to get Mikla-Tit out. Ketil arrived then and stared down at the cattle. “How did this happen?”

  Colm said, “I think the cattle came into this little meadow because it was untouched g
razing. They went into the hole and Brand was hurt trying to get them out.” No one came up with a better story.

  Thorolf rode up soon after with Hallvard riding right behind him. Immediately Thorolf took charge. He had men dig away at the side of the pit so that it was no longer a sheer wall but sloped at an angle down to Mikla-Tit. A man went into the hole and wound ropes under her belly. Cloth was put under the ropes for padding. The man was pulled back up out of the hole. Then the rescuers took the ropes around Mikla-Tit and tied some of them to horses. Strong men took hold of the others. Slowly they dragged Mikla-Tit from the hole. The cow complained all the while but, when she was once up out of the pit and onto the grass, raised her head to the sky and gave a little dancing kick with her hind legs that made men laugh.

  The rest of the herd was coming down the path now, heading for the byre, and some men led Mikla-Tit to the other cattle. Skeggi was with the herd. He walked slowly across the meadow and stared down into the hole. He didn’t say anything.

  A man picked up an axe and started to climb down into the hole but Gunnar stopped him. “It’s Ketil’s cow,” he said. “It’s up to him what happens.”

  Ketil turned red but he grabbed the axe, slid down into the hole, and killed the cow. His peg leg gave him trouble and he had difficulty standing. He tied a rope around his waist and men pulled him out as he lay on his back. Then they hauled out the animal’s carcass, sliding it out the far end where men scrambled in and out of the pit. Brand’s body pulled to the side as the cow was dragged across it. Colm saw that the man’s lower abdomen was crushed and some of his entrails protruded. Gunnar said, “That was a good man.”

  Skeggi hung his head. He knew the words were a reproach to him. Ketil’s face stayed red. Gunnar slid into the hole and wrapped a cloak around Brand’s body and slung it over his shoulder. He grabbed a rope that men threw down to him and hauled himself out of the pit, hand over hand. It was quite a show of strength.