Avalon

by Anya Seton

  The merchant watched and made a decision. "It's not impossible, sir," he said. "Not impossible to find the lady — after

  a few days' sail, of course. Maybe a week. Ari Marson will set out tomorrow for Iceland. He's returning with some timber they've commissioned, mostly oak which of course they can't get there. Nor for that matter, many trees bigger than a shrub. There used to be pine, in my childhood, but I understand that's mostly been cut down."

  "Where is Ari Marson?" Rumon interrupted. "I'll go with him."

  Rafn inclined his head. "For a certain recompense, sir — and you may trust me to be fair — I'll arrange this matter for you. Tonight I offer you the box bed. And may Odin help you to a lucky voyage — though of course no good Christian would call on those false half-gods. I only jest."

  Rumon was not Hstening. He was swamped by tiredness and relief. A few more days, and this time he would find Merewyn — in Ultima Thule, the faraway land on the edge of the world.

  Rumon sailed from Limerick when the tide turned next morning. He had paid off his Padstow crew and was pleased by their cordial waves from Rafn's wharf as Ari Marson's ship ghded down the Shannon. Rumon had slept dreamlessly for seven hours in the box bed, yet been aware that Merewyn's warm body had lain there so recently. He felt her thoughts near to him, and was certain that by now she knew that he was coming to her. Had not Finian said that there were ways of knowing things without ordinary means? And it was true. He sensed it. God would protect her, and she would be waiting for him.

  Ari's trading ship was roomy, yet crowded from the load of timber aboard: the chickens which ran about wildly; and the pigs; and casks of ale. There was a brazier amidships for cooking. And the twenty-man crew slept where and how they could. But Rumon, who had paid well for his passage, was given a pallet in the quarter-decked bow, and the privacy of a wool blanket hanging around it. The ship's name was Thorgerd — for Ari's fat, sharp-tongued Icelandic wife. Not that Ari was sentimental about his wife. She was much older than he was.

  But she had given him three sons, and some recognition was customary.

  Ari was thirty-five — sturdy and well made, like his ship which had been built in Norway and was so limber that her oaken strakes could yield and weave through any buffeting. Ari's massive, yellow-fuzzed hand clutched the steering oar with certainty as his blue eyes squinted ahead down the river, or at the mast where his men had hauled up the great square sail. The sail had originally been painted in a neat red latticed pattern, but many a voyage had faded it to an orange blur. There were no embellishments on Ari's ship, no painted ravens, no carved dragon prow, no rows of gaudy round shields along the gunwhales — these features belonged to the Viking ships, the raiders who might plunder, murder, and bum as much as they liked for all Ari cared. He preferred a peaceable way of life, and was content with modest profit from his cargos.

  There was a small wooden image of Thor and his hammer pegged inside the prow, because this too was customary, but Ari had never invoked it, nor often called an Aegir, God of the Sea, to quiet his nine turbulent daughters — the waves. Ari was a cautious skipper, and storms he had met he weathered without supernatural aid.

  That this routine summer voyage between Ireland and Iceland was to be an extraordinary adventure, and change Ari's life forever, naturally never occurred to him.

  They sailed comfortably out of the river Shannon. They rounded Loop Head into the Atlantic. Ari, with a casual squint at the sun, steered north by northwest. In two hours the sun turned a dirty red, and then disappeared behind dark scudding clouds. The wind and the waves came up fast. The wind blew directly from the north. The sail flapped violently, then swiveled as far around as the lines would let it. Despite Ari's struggle to keep on course, the ship veered south and wallowed in the troughs. They shipped water, the chickens squawked, the pigs squealed, and the crew began to bail with their leather buckets.

  " 'Tis only a squall," shouted Ari to his second in command, an able young Icelander named Jorund. "We'll row 'till it's over."

  "Can't, Master," shouted Jorund. "Couldn't get all the oars in without swamping us. Besides we need bailers."

  Ari considered a moment. The row of oar holes beneath the gunwhales were each closed by small sliding panels, through which green water would pour if they were opened. The oars were mostly used anyway for coastal waters and fjords. In the ocean Ari depended on his sail, with which he could sometimes beat into the wind. Not this time. The wind from the north strengthened to a gale.

  Ari grunted and bawled out orders to lower the sail while he clenched the tiller of the great steering oar. "Four oars to be put out on either side to act as a sea anchor," he shouted. "Fourteen men to bail; see that the cargo of timber doesn't shift, and lash down everything you can!" Then Ari tried to keep his ship steady across the mounting waves while they hurtled south, ever south.

  Too bad, he thought, without much concern. It'll take us a day or so longer after this blows off. But there was food and ale enough aboard. Ari always saw to that.

  By next morning the wind had hardly slackened, yet a rain Hke icy needles stung their faces. A rain from the north, mixed with sleet. Ari gave the tiller to Jorund while he went forward to rest for a while under the quarterdeck. Here he found Ru-mon, whom he had forgotten. "Bit of a blow outside," said Ari, seizing a hunk of bread and cheese. The old Norse was very like English and Rumon usually understood these Icelanders.

  "We're being blown away from Iceland?" Rumon asked. He was pale and composed. He had been seasick in the night, but he was not now. He was thinking of Merewyn, wondering if her ship had been caught by the same storm.

  "Oh, we'll get there," said Ari. "I'm a lucky man and I always bring my cargo in."

  He looked aft towards Jorund at the steering oar and saw something beyond him in the ocean. A greenish-white crest bobbing in the waves. Iceberg, Ari thought, a calf. But I've never seen them so far south. The iceberg drifted out of sight, and the wind howled louder.

  A tremendous following wave crested and then crashed over the stern, drenching Jorund, whose steering oar was wrenched from its socket while he clung to it desperately as long as he could. The whole ship was awash, the tethered pigs half drowned, and three chickens floated away in the sea, their squawks rapidly stilled.

  "We will consider —" said Ari in a loud reassuring voice, "that the fowls are a sacrifice to Aegir, who will now be appeased."

  His men nodded. The rowers held their oars as steady as possible, the others at once started bailing. There was a slight lull. The Thorgerd skimmed southward with the waves. Ari sloshed back to the stern and said to young Jorund whose face was glistening wet, "The steering oar's gone? Aye, I see it is. We'll fit in the other when we can. In the meantime there's nothing to do but go where Aegir's fierce daughters send us, until they tire of the sport."

  "And where will they send us, Master?" said Jorund, who had made quite a reputation as a skald — or bard — during the long black winters at home in Iceland. It was thus that he had won his pretty wife, Katla, whom he loved.

  Where will the nine daughters waft us —over the

  wild widow-maker The white horses are galloping — would they waft

  us to Valhalla?

  '"''We are not warriors," said Ari, who had scant use for poetry. "And I think only warriors are taken to Valhalla. Go forward and eat, Jorund." He scanned the sky. The freezing rain had dwindled, but the wind whistled faster around them. "You

  might rub a little ale on Thor," he said. "For Aegir seems not yet appeased, and my father always told me that Thor was more powerful than any god, even Odin."

  The days and nights blurred for Rumon. There was a time in which the air grew warmer around them, times when the sun came out, and dried them, and seaweed floated past them. The wind dropped, and Ari raised the sail, but the blurred orange canvas slatted feebly, for there came a dead and oily calm, while great westbound swells rolled beneath the ship. She floated over them easily. Now all the men rowed, but they
made Uttle progress. They also fished and caught two dolphins which were devoured down to the bones. The new steering oar was fitted. Constantly Ari tried to steer north, navigating by the few days in which sun and stars came out. Later they killed the last pig and the remaining chickens — eating them raw, since there was no means of cooking. The brazier had been carried away by an assaulting wave.

  One day the air grew colder again, the skies blackened and the northeast wind began to blow. Ari ordered that the useless sail be lowered. He looked up at the sky and ordered that the rowers cease. "It is fate," he said. "If we are 'doomed by the Norns to fall over the edge of the world, then we must go. For I don't know where we are."

  Rumon, who had been taking his full share of the rowing to relieve one or another of the crew, looked down at his thin, blistered hands. One of the blisters was bleeding on the oar.

  So, he thought. We don't know where we are, and I don't know where Merewyn is either. He still thought of Merewyn, though she had receded during these days of hour-to-hour survival. He had drunk pig blood as greedily as the rest of them. And when Ari Marson ordered the last keg of ale broached, he was as excited as they were. But it was the last keg.

  "We have aboard —" continued Ari in his flat, emotionless

  voice, "a foreigner. I know that he has done his best, but I feel he is unlucky. I have always before had a lucky ship. This foreigner is a Christian. That means he worships that helpless god who was nailed on a tree, killed by his own race. Perhaps it is because we carry this passenger that Thor and Aegir are angry with us. I suggest we throw him overboard as a sacrifice."

  Some of the crew murmured agreement, not all — for they knew that Rumon had paid for his passage — and not Jorund who was by nature sympathetic and had taken a liking to Rumon.

  "Master —" said Jorund, looking squarely at Ari, "there may be truth in what you say, but we are Icelanders and stick to bargains. I propose that we give the foreigner's god a chance. Let the foreigner pray aloud to his god, and give him a day or so more to see whether there is any result."

  Rumon understood most of both speeches, and his heart thudded. I was nearly drowned once, he thought; is it to be complete this time? And he realized that though he had said a few prayers during this long ordeal, they had been perfunctory. Nothing had seemed important except that constant physical battle against the sea — and hunger. "The helpless god nailed to a tree" seemed as shadowy to him, as it did to the Icelanders, who were all looking at him expectantly.

  "I'll try," he said. Then he stood.

  He took off his golden crucifix, and held it up in his right hand while he steadied himself on the gunwale with his left. He began in a voice which faltered at first and startled the crew, for he spoke in Latin, the first words which came to him. "Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison . . . Quia tu es, Deus fortitudo mea: quare me repulisti?" As he went on his voice gathered power and became as compelling as ever Dunstan's was. It could be heard above the wind. Nobody knew the strange language, but it impressed Ari. There might be strong runes in such an incanta-

  tion and there was dignity in the thin figure whose dark eyes gradually became fixed as he gazed on the golden cross he held up before them.

  Rumon prayed for half an hour, when the wind grew wilder and a wave broke over the stern. They all sprang as usual to the bailing buckets and Ari remarked that the foreigner's god certainly wasn't helping yet. However, being a reasonable man, he would wait a day or two as Jorund had asked. Though even if they ever got a favorable wind, he did not see how they could reach Iceland without provisions. A day and night passed, while the northeaster kept blowing. Though this storm was not as violent as the one off the coast of Ireland, neither sail nor oars could beat against it.

  By the following morning, Rumon was given black looks by the crew. Everyone was starving, and the ale — though rationed by Ari — was gone. "Throw him overboard," somebody muttered, and a growling chorus echoed it. Ari nodded and sighed. While he raised his hand in the gesture which would have finished Rumon, Jorund suddenly cried, "Wait! Look!" They looked, and overhead there were sea guUs mewing while they circled the ship.

  "Ah . . ." said Ari, staring at the gulls. "Is it*possible?" He then ordered the smallest and lightest of the crew to swarm up the mast. The youth came down, red with excitement. "There is land. Master," he stammered, pointing to the west. "Far off — I see trees."

  Ari wrinkled his weatherbeaten forehead. "So? Then put up the sail and we will also roiv for land."

  The crew ran to obey. "Land ..." they shouted. "Land-ho!" and some of them stared at Rumon in a frightened way. For what land could be here? Was this foreigner a wizard? Had he made his god invent a phantasm?

  In two hours they all knew that the land was real. They passed salt marshes and there were forests ahead of them. The

  sweet smell of white pine and wildflowers drifted out, since the sea wind ceased to blow. There was also a fjord, or possibly a river ahead. They pulled onward, while Ari, tasting the water at intervals, announced that it was getting less salty. So it was a river. The men cheered. Soon Ari said that he thought they might risk drinking, and a bucketful was dipped out and passed around.

  Unused as they were to drinking water, all were grateful. It grew hot as the forested banks closed in, and the sun glared down. Food next, Ari thought, but what and how? This was a vast wilderness of a kind he had never seen. He looked with awe at the crowding trees, recognizing pine and birch, but there were many others. Amongst trees there must be wild beasts to eat, and to make valuable pelts for barter. If indeed the silent land was inhabited by anything — except birds. The sea gulls followed them, and in the forest he could see flashes of yellow and blue amongst the branches. The birds might be edible, if there were means of snaring them. At least we'll go ashore, thought Ari, and see what we find. He was about to give that order when Rumon, who had been standing in the bow, gave a startled shout and gestured.

  Ari looked ahead; the rowers lifted their oars and turned. As they reached a bend they saw a patch of cleared earth near the water's edge. On it grew many tasseled green plants, and a profusion of golden fruit, almost as round and big as shields, running along vines. There were people working in the plot, prodding at the dirt beneath the green plants, gathering the golden fruit. The distant figures might be women, since they all had long hair and shifts.

  Ari approached cautiously, and noted, drawn up on the bank, a slender birch-bark craft of a shape new to him.

  "Ho!" he shouted. "Vinur! Vinur!" — which meant friend.

  The work party turned, dropping their implements and fruit. From the ship you could see them gaping, and their hesitancy.

  They moved close together. Ari and his crew waved, making open-handed signs of peace. At length one figure came down the bank as the ship drew nearer.

  It was an elderly man; hair shaven back behind the ears, as had been Poldu's, and grizzled strands hanging below his shoulders. On his long buckskin shift a large black Celtic cross had been embroidered with porcupine quills. He made the sign of the cross in the air, then watched in silence as Ari's crew expertly moored the ship, winding one line around a large tree and letting down the anchor.

  By the three Saintes Maries, Rumon thought, staring at the man, can this be a Christian? And he looks white, not like the others. At least his little eyes seemed Hght, and his skin far paler than his three co-laborers, who ivere women. You could see their sagging breasts outlined. They all had brown faces painted with red stripes on the cheeks.

  Ari let loose a flood of Norse, explaining that they needed food. That they had no idea where they were. That they implored help, which would be paid for.

  The man continued to stare at them and shrugged.

  Rumon leaned over the bow. "Christe eleison —" he called tentatively, and held up his crucifix.

  The man started, and touched the black cross on his shift. "Per omnia saecula saeculorum," he said in a deep guttural tone.

  Then Rumon was s
ure. Finian's stories came back to him. Of the Irish monks who had fled ever and again before the Vikings to different unknown lands beyond the seas.

  "Culdee?" caUed Rumon.

  The man nodded, while eying Rumon narrowly. He again made the sign of the cross in the air. Rumon did the same.

  Ari, Jorund, and the crew watched this interchange with awe. For it did seem that the foreigner's god had accomplished something. They all waited for Rumon to speak.

  "Where are we?" he asked in Celtic.

  The man knit his brows; the accent was strange to him, but

  as Rumon repeated, he caught the meaning. "Great Ireland," he said waving his arms in a wide circle, "and country of the Merrimacs." He pointed to the Indian women who were whispering in the field.

  "Culdees live here too?" asked Rumon.

  The man nodded, pointing to the north. "We live in the old caves," he said. "From whence comes this big ship?" He indicated the Thorgerd.

  "Blown across the seas many days — weeks — " answered Rumon, suddenly wondering how long they had been on the endless voyage. Weeks, certainly. How many?

  "Food!" Ari interrupted, banging his stomach and pointing to his mouth. "Tell him we must have food." And he jumped ashore.

  The old man looked at the ravenous crew who were all coming ashore, and made a wary gesture of assent. "There is plenty of food in this land," he said. "Always plenty. Follow."

  He led them around the planted patches and up'a hill into the forest where they presently came upon an Indian village where a fire was blazing under a spitted deer. The Indian women tagged along after, tittering behind their fingers at these big light-haired men who stumbled up the trail as though they had never been on land.

  Other women and several children emerged shyly from the long bark-covered tribal house as Thorgerd's shipload approached. One of the women squeaked and ducked into the shelter. The children stood solemnly watching, their shiny jet eyes round with wonder. The Culdee said something in their language, and two young boys went off running into the forest. The women obeyed the other command. They cut hunks from the roast meat and gave them to the pale-face newcomers, who gulped avidly. Another woman brought a stack of flat corn cakes which had been baked on hot stones. Still others brought pottery vessels full of water.