Frosti calmed his horse, then removed the shirt from his eyes. He examined the bites on Raven’s-Mane’s muzzle and saw that they were not too bad. Adals came out to take charge of the stallion and led it over to the mare and its victory tup. The crowd yelled and cheered.
Colm lost sight of Frosti for a moment, then saw him kneeling beside the roan. The horse lay gasping on the ground. The Swede pressed his hands around the bites in his throat, trying to staunch the bleeding. Frosti took a great bundle of herbs and stripped them between his teeth. He tossed away the stalks and stems and chewed the leaves and flowers for a moment, then took the green wad from his mouth and pressed it into the roan’s wounds. The Swede examined the herbs and sniffed them, then he also began chewing the plants and packing his horse’s wounds. Neither man spoke as they worked on the roan.
Colm took it all in: the great stallion whinnying as he topped the placid mare, the excited crowd milling about and telling and re-telling the event they had just witnessed, and the two silent men ministering to the wheezing fallen horse.
“Well, that was quite the match!” Geirrid came up next to him.
Colm asked, “Was it you that got Frosti into the match?”
“Well, yes. I had too much money on that horse to watch him lose.”
“How did you convince Frosti to fight him?”
“I told Frosti that I would buy Raven’s-Mane from Adals after the match and give him the horse and he wouldn’t have to ever fight him again. And I told him that, if Raven’s-Mane faced defeat, he need not die in the ring.”
Colm nodded. “That was a good offer for Frosti.”
“Yes, well, Adals certainly got a good price for that horse. Even so, I made some money today.” He watched Frosti and the Swede work on the roan. “And perhaps Frosti will think a little better of me now. My, he is good with horses, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He’s the best that I’ve seen.”
“It’s too bad that he doesn’t know as much about sheep,” said Geirrid. “He could become a very wealthy man if he could cure sick sheep. Still, many will pay to have a good horse treated.”
Colm nodded. He thought the same thing. Frosti had skills that were valuable, but not worth enough to make him rich. He turned to Geirrid. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some beer.”
Geirrid smiled back. “I have a few more bets to collect, then I’ll meet you by the biggest barrel you can find!”
24. Iceland’s Outcasts
Mar stood before Colm, wringing his hands. “He is hopeless.” Colm stood waiting for the man to calm down. “He goes to tend the sheep and spooks the herd somehow. Imagine! He frightened a flock of sheep! A ewe and two lambs ran off the cliff. Three sheep gone!”
“I will replace them,” said Colm.
Mar caught his breath then went on. “He cannot tell good grazing from bad. He does not recognize when an animal is sick and has to be removed from the flock. He can’t tell a wether from a ewe!” Colm doubted this last but allowed Mar his say. Mar shook his head. “Frightened his own flock!”
“Well,” said Colm, “Let’s go speak to Eystein.”
The three men sat together on the grass near the grazing flock. Eystein’s head was bowed. “I am not meant for this work.”
Colm and Mar regarded him silently. Colm thought the man might begin weeping. He recalled Bjorn in his depression and how he had embraced death. He looked over at the cliff’s-edge, where a man might jump, and shuddered. “We shall find new work for you,” he said. “Come back to my farm and we’ll talk it over.”
Eystein heaved a great sigh. “All right. I’ll do anything that’s of use.” Colm wondered what, if anything, that might be.
Colm asked, “Is it your plan to leave soon?”
Geirrid said, “The last vessels of the season will sail in the next few days. I need to go with them before bad weather sets in. This sea can be a nasty place in winter.”
Colm nodded. He hesitated before he spoke. “You once told me that you would be glad to have Eystein as a ship-mate, was that true?”
Geirrid eyed his father. “Has he committed a crime?”
“No, no! It’s just that, well, some men are not meant to be farmers.”
Geirrid grinned. “Another of Iceland’s social outcasts! Well, I would be pleased to have him join my ship, if he wishes. We will sail into exile together!”
“It is not exile. It is finding this man a place where he may be of use. I fear for him otherwise.”
“Fear for him?” said Geirrid, “Fear for him how?”
“I fear that he may give himself over to death. I have seen it before.”
Geirrid nodded. “So have I. You think of Bjorn, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Geirrid, “I have seen others who have chosen to die. Some attacked a stronger enemy, some jumped into the sea, and one knotted a rope around his neck.” Both men were silent for a time, then Geirrid said, “All right. I will speak to him and see if he will travel with me.”
“I will give him money.”
“There is no need...”
“I think there is,” said Colm. “I will give him some money for his interest in Mar’s farm. I will not give him the total value, mind, but enough so that he feels compensated and can travel without charity.”
“All right then,” said Geirrid, “Let us speak to Eystein.”
A few days later, Geirrid sailed away, taking Eystein with him. Gwyneth smiled at her son and kissed him as he boarded his ship, but she was pensive on the way back to the Trollfarm. She prepared supper and Colm thought she was bent over the kettle more than she needed to be. He saw the veins standing out on her forearm and realized that she was growing old. No use to say that, he thought, and instead spoke of Geirrid. “He will be back,” he said, “In another few years.”
“I think not,” said Gwyneth. “I think he means to find the center of the world, as he told us.”
“He will come back some day and settle down.”
“Who would come back here from the center of the world?” Gwyneth fiercely stirred the pot. “There are better places than this!” she said and Colm heard the crack in her voice. He rose and put his arms around her and they stood that way for a little while.
25. Frosti And Raven’s-Mane
After the Autumn Sacrifice, toward winter, Colm rode up into the meadow above Helgafeld. Frosti was there with the horses. Raven’s-Mane he kept penned in a stone enclosure.
Colm greeted him. “And how is the champion?” He gestured over toward Raven’s-Mane.
Frosti shook his head. He kept a smile on his lips but his eyes were bleak. “I think he will die after the first snows.”
“How so?”
“He cracked a bone in his foreleg and it hasn’t healed up.”
They walked over to the stone fenced pen and looked at the stallion. People had begun calling the horse Wolf-Tooth instead of Raven’s-Mane. But he looked gentle as he came over to Frosti and rubbed his muzzle against the man’s chest. Colm could see the swelling on his foreleg.
Frosti said, “I have tried all I know. I cannot keep him off that leg. I tied it up, he bit the wrappings in two. I confine the horse, he still gallops in small circles. The bone will not heal. I will keep him alive so long as I can, but I think he will die when it turns cold, as things tend to do.”
“But you will have him down at the farm then.”
“Even so. It will be cold enough.” Frosti shrugged. “And I doubt the farm will belong to Adals for much longer anyway.”
“Thorolf will not turn you out in in the winter.” Colm meant to talk to the godi to insure that.
“No. Thorolf is a decent man. But it is all the same. By the spring, Raven’s-Mane will be dead and Adals will lose the farm.”
“Well, remember what I said: come see me. I need a hand to look after my horses.”
Frosti grinned. “I have not forgotten. I will see you in the spring.” They slapped hands and parted.
>
It went much as Frosti said. Raven's-Mane died in winter, just before lambing time. Adals spent all that he had won horse-fighting and could not pay his debts. Now he no longer had a good horse that he could fight. Soon, he left the farm at Helgafeld, looking for work somewhere else. Thorolf did not press Braga for payment and she stayed on for a time, along with her daughter, before going to work for Orm Ketilsson and Marta Bjornsdottir. Frosti came by the Trollfarm in the spring. Colm set him to work watching his horses. “Tell me which are good and which are bad. Which should I breed and which should I sacrifice. Keep them healthy as you can.”
Frosti smiled and said that he would do his best. Colm had no doubt that he would.
26. Ljot And Styr
Ljot and Styr were almost fourteen now and people had begun talking of their fighting one another when they got a little older. The boys found it hard to make friends, since everyone saw them as a feud in the making and people generally did not want to be part of such a thing, even if they were quite willing to be spectators. It didn’t help that women disliked Gunnora and would be pleased to see her unhappy and mourning a dead child or two.
Some boys of Ljot and Styr’s age were playing the turf game together near Gunnora’s farm one day while she attended to chores in the yard. Ljot caught the turf with his stick and sent it over to Styr. Another boy leapt to intercept it but fell on his face instead. The boys laughed and Ljot and Styr jeered at him. Red-faced, the boy picked himself up and said, “Laugh together now, but soon enough you’ll be using those turf-sticks on each other. That is,” he added, “If either of you has the courage to avenge his father!”
Everyone was quiet then and Gunnora felt her heart freeze with fear.
The boy snarled, “Of course, you’re probably too busy taking it in the bum from each other to worry about anything like that.”
Ljot rushed at the boy and hit him with his turf-stick. The boys all swarmed together, hitting each other. Gunnora took off her belt and ran over, pulling the boys apart and whipping them with her belt if they didn’t stop fighting. They were all still young enough to be intimidated by a woman her age and the brawl soon broke up. The boys backed off, muttering, leaving Ljot and Styr standing with Gunnora.
Gunnora, still breathing hard, said, “You are brothers! Brothers, I say! And my sons! If either of you ever harms the other, then he removes himself from my family!” But the boys both knew that Styr was Gunnora’s natural son and that Ljot was fostered. Gunnora saw the doubt in their eyes and thought she had to do something before the situation developed any further, but she could not think of any plan that would help. That day, she sent a slave over to fetch Colm.
“Gunnora wants to see me,” said Colm. Gwyneth said nothing but continued her weaving. Colm tried again, “Would you like to come with me?”
Gwyneth turned and faced him with wide eyes. “Why, no, why I would I want to do that?” Then she saw the hunted look in Colm’s eyes and decided to give up her advantage. “She did not send for me. She wants a man’s counsel.”
“But why? She has others helping her and plenty of good advice on the farm.”
“I expect she wants help with Ljot and Styr,” said Gunnora. “Everyone can see that may become a problem.”
Colm spread his hands. “I have no solution for it.”
“Even so, go talk to her, and to the boys, if that will help. If you can do anything to avoid bloodshed, then you should do it.” She went back to her weaving. “We are all better off when there is no fighting.”
Colm nodded and, a little later, rode over to Gunnora’s farm. Sure enough, it was as Gwyneth thought. “The boys are being pushed to murder one another,” said Gunnora. “I don’t know what to do.” She wrung her hands in despair.
Colm didn’t know, either. If the boys were a little older, then they might be sent abroad, but the way things were going, they wouldn’t live long enough to take on life as adults. Anyway, thought Colm, exiling two more was probably not the best thing for the community. “Let me think on this,” he said. “I will come up with something.” Gunnora thanked him profusely and Colm rode home, wondering if he really could discover an answer to this problem.
Colm sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally, Gwyneth asked, “Can you come up with a plan?”
Colm shook his head. “I don’t know. I think that I need to speak with someone wiser.”
“Thorolf?”
“Actually,” said Colm, “I had someone else in mind.”
The next day, Colm rode over to Thorsness to talk to Snorri the godi. He brought some silver as a gift.
“I don’t know if I should accept this,” said Snorri, “Until I know why you’re giving it to me.”
“There is a problem developing over my way,” said Colm, “And I hoped you might be able to advise me.”
“Sometimes advice is cheap,” said Snorri, “Sometimes expensive, but the price has little to do with its value.”
“True enough,” said Colm, “But I value your advice in this matter.” He outlined the problem. “There are two boys, raised as foster-brothers. Their fathers killed one another.”
“You mean Styr Egilsson and Ljot Thorgilsson who live with Styr’s mother, the widow Gunnora.”
“Yes,” said Colm. He was impressed that Snorri knew of these people, but then he thought that was what made Snorri a good godi: he kept his mind open to all things and thought hard about what to do. He had a reputation as a careful and far-sighted man. Still, he was not much past twenty. He had been godi since he was sixteen, after his outlawed uncle, Gisli, had been killed. Gisli had murdered Snorri's father as he lay beside his wife, Gisli's sister. Colm took a breath. Now came the delicate part; he did not want to anger this powerful young man. “I think you can see the problem that may be developing here.” He paused. “And I think you may have some special experience in these matters.”
“You mean, because I did not seek vengeance for my uncle?” Colm nodded. “But I might have sought vengeance for my father, instead,” said Snorri, “If there were any of his killer’s family left alive. Well, aside from my mother, of course.” Colm nodded that he understood. Snorri went on, “It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, there is little profit in vengeance.”
“Yet there were many who pressed you to seek vengeance.”
Snorri shrugged. “Even now, some try to insult me but I ignore them.”
“Well,” said Colm, “That is the advice I seek: how do I instruct these young men to ignore the pressure and taunts from those who wish to see them fight?”
“There are always people like that,” said Snorri. “Fools whose lives are one excitement after another. Left on their own, they would chase one another in circles like fly-blinded sheep until they went off a cliff.”
“So, how do Ljot and Styr avoid being herded to their doom?”
“First, they must understand that good sense must come from within themselves. Colm, you cannot hope to bring good sense to everyone in the area, but you can call it up from within your own self and foster it in your friend. So that is your first goal: make these boys see that there is no use in their fighting, that whoever dies, the other one will suffer.”
“All right,” said Colm, “I see that. I will try to make them understand.”
“The second thing they must do is learn to ignore the taunts of others. I suppose they have few friends?”
“None, outside of one other.”
Snorri nodded. “So those prodding them to fight are not friends and they need to understand that. Then they need to face these taunts. Mockery is a good counter and, if there is fighting, make certain that they are on the same side.”
“The other boys call them bum-buddies.”
“So some called my uncle Gisli before they died.”
“Are you counselling these boys to kill those who provoke them?”
“No, but a bloody nose or two might be useful.” Snorri shrugged. “They have to learn to ignore the insults. That
is all I can say.”
Colm nodded. “All right. This is good advice. I will try to apply it.”
“Good. Here, take back your silver.”
“I got what I came for,” said Colm. “I am pleased to give you a gift.”
Snorri smiled. “I would rather give you a gift. I would have you as my friend.”
“Well, I am your friend, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” said Snorri, “Well, you may have heard I am having a few problems with the people over at Mavahlid, west of here.”
Colm had indeed heard about this. Suddenly things became very clear to him. He understood what Snorri wanted from him. “I don’t know these people myself. I’m sure that you can resolve any problems you have with them.”
“I believe so, too,” said Snorri, “At least so long as others stay out of things.”
“Well, I know of no one interested in getting involved in this matter.”
Snorri gave a wide smile. “That is very good to hear.” Then the two sat chatting for a time until Colm judged that he could leave without discourtesy.
Colm rode directly over to Thorolf’s farm. Thorolf and Hallvard received him with open hands. It was getting dark and one of Thorolf’s slaves ran over to the Trollfarm to tell Gwyneth that Colm would not be home that night.
Colm said, “I may have made an error today and I want to speak to you about it. I may have indebted myself to another godi and I hope that there is no trouble between you and him.”
“Who is it?”
“Snorri, the godi over at Thorsness.”
“I have no problems with him,” said Thorolf. He looked over at Hallvard. “How do we stand with Thorsness?”
“All is well,” said Hallvard.
Thorolf turned back to Colm. “Since these young men are of an age, I have had Hallvard be my emissary there. But tell me what happened.”
The Saga of Colm the Slave Page 22
