by Anya Seton
The next morning they saw agitation on Erik's ship — wav-ings, pointing gestures. They looked ahead and saw a great expanse of bluish ice high in the air.
"That couldn't be Greenland," said Sigurd in a flat tone.
"Erik told us," answered Ketil, unperturbed, "that the first landfall would be icy. I think he called that glacier Blausark. One must sail around the south and west to reach the green."
"I did not understand that there ivere glaciers," said Sigurd. "We have plenty of those in Iceland."
Ketil did not answer, because some trailing misty wisps suddenly coalesced into fog, and Erik's ship disappeared. So did the ships behind the Bylgja.
"The horn —" said Ketil calmly to Sigurd. "Blow it with all your strength. Break out the rowers. Get the sail down, and keep a sharp watch in the bow. I haven't —" added Ketil with
relish, "seen a fog as thick as this since we were off the Orkneys eight years ago, wasn't it?"
Sigurd, who was obeying orders, as he always used to, did not wait to hear this reminiscence. He blew the ram horn at intervals, and was relieved to hear answering horns ahead and behind him, though the blasts were distorted and it was hard to be sure where they came from.
Greenland — he thought. What has Ketil got us into? Or Erik? But he was too much occupied for speculation, especially as he heard wailing in the bow. At a moment between blowing the foghorn, and nudging aside the drifting ice with an oar, he stuck his head under the canvas tent. It was very cold. He noted that Brigid's teeth were chattering, though she was wrapped in an eiderdown, and she was making frightened noises as well. Merewyn, however, in a cocoon with Orm, turned up large inquiring eyes, and smiled a tremulous welcome.
"It's fog, of course," she said. "I can smell it, as I often did at Padstow, and then the horn."
"It's fog," he answered. "And should hft soon. Lie quiet there my wife, take care of Orm and the other one in your belly."
She nodded. "I will — but have we far to go?"
"Round a cape — the tip of this Greenland," said Sigurd with more assurance than he felt. "Try to sleep."
Merewyn would gladly have obeyed, but Orm began to whimper with hunger, and her breasts were completely dry since the new baby had started. She looked with resignation at Brigid who was crouched over the bucket. So Merewyn got up, clutching her cloak tight around her, and fumbled aft through the drifting fog to the tethered cow which was mooing in the same hopeless way that Brigid was. She took a bailing bucket and managed to extract a little milk from the cow. But the cow would soon be dry.
The crew, having nothing to do but rest their oars and push
off ice, had taken to chanting. They sang old Norse ballads and exchanged jokes. In the midst of the fog it was noisy on board, what with Sigurd blowing the horn, the singing, and moos from the cow, bleats from the sheep, and occasional barked commands from Ketil at the steering oar.
Nevertheless, after drinking the milk, Merewyn and Orm dozed. Brigid also became quiet, and at her mistress's invitation, lay down with them.
Then Merewyn had a dream. It began with a forest, a huge forest of elm, oak, beech, and bluebells growing beneath. There was holly too, scarlet berries on the glossy leaves, ready for the Christmas season. The bluebells changed to daffodils, thousands of cream and golden cups. Then there was a garden, like Romsey but not quite like it, for even Romsey had not had so many pink scented roses, nor jasmine. Then Elfled swam into the dream and looking at Merewyn with sorrow she said, "How very far you've gone, dear friend . . . why didn't you take Rumon?"
"How could I?" Merewyn retorted angrily, while the figure of Elfled wavered and became the Abbess Merwinna. "But I as much as told you to," said Merwinna. "Who would want Rumon when there is Sigurd?" Merewyn answered. "But he's a heathen^ said the Elfled-Merwinna — and Merewyn woke up as a calf iceberg grated against the Bylgja and the whole longship shuddered.
The fog lifted at what would have been dawn if the sun had ever really disappeared. Erik's ship was now visible ahead of them, and some others behind. Ketil raised his sail and followed Erik.
It was true that once they had passed the cape, and turned further to the west, the fierce north winds stopped blowing and they saw green. It was the green of long grasses near the shore, one could even see little flowers amongst the grass, but ??o trees — except a few birches even more dwarfed than they had been in Iceland.
"Where's the forest, Mother?" asked Orm. She had taught him this word, and what a forest was. She looked at the black-rocked fjords filled with pack ice, at the strip of green around the edges, at the great stark snow-threaded mountains, and the towering cap of ice over all the land.
"I don't know," she said. "I thought there would certainly be pine." Bleak, desolate, mountainous, cold. What sort of place had they come to? For this they had left at least an adequate living in Iceland, and here everything must be started fresh. How?
Sigurd shared her dismay, but Ketil's enthusiasm had not abated. He was pleased that they had brought the ship through fog and ice; he was pleased that at the entrance to a fjord, Erik veered his ship around for conference and shouted, "Well done, my kinsman — and you might like this fjord for your own." He gestured widely; " 'Ketilsfjord' it shall be, and one of the most desirable — being southward. But now we must all go up to my fjord, to Brattalid where I built a shelter last summer. It will be my home, and not far from you if you want this one. Barely a day's sail or ride. We shall be neighbors, and yet we shall each rejoice in our independence."
"Very good, Erik," said Ketil.
One by one the ships straggled into Erik's fjord, and anchored in the cove which Erik had selected for his homesite. His house had held up well during the past winter. Erik, having nothing else to do until he sailed back to Iceland, had piled many stones and cut much turf, and reinforced the roof with little birches. It was snug enough inside, and would — with crowding — hold a hundred people.
"Welcome!" Erik shouted as each boatload came ashore. "Welcome! You are now in Greenland, and must drink with me to our venture!"
There was httle response. Nobody had expected Greenland to look like this.
Erik's wife, Thiodild, went around pouring ale, her hps sternly compressed, her pale lank hair untidy under the ceremonial
gold-threaded coif she had immediately donned when they landed. She was the chief's wife, the queen, as it were, of this company, and would do her duty, come what might, but her disappointment could not be hidden. Her young sons, however, were in wild spirits. Leif and Thorstein romped through the grass, where all the cattle they had brought with them were soon grazing.
Twenty-five ships had started on the venture, fourteen eventually arrived at Brattalid, and of the eleven missing ones, some had turned back but others were never heard of again. They had sunk then? Nobody knew. Or perhaps, said Merewyn, consulting Sigurd, some of those ships had been blown Hke Ari Marson's to that faraway land across the sea where Rumon and Jorund had been.
"Perhaps —" said Sigurd, who had no time for any thoughts but the immediate settling of his family.
He and Ketil sailed the Bylgja around south into Ketilsfjord. They found a site on a little vik or creek near the entrance to the fjord. There was a big black crag which would keep the arctic winds off.
There were acres of grass, and some of what Ketil's determined eyes decided was arable land, as well. "An ideal place," he kept saying, "much can be grown here, the cattle will flourish, I'm sure — and as for the fish in my fjord — which will be yours some day, Sigurd — why, they are as plentiful as midges, and nobody to dispute our right to them!"
"There is no wood," said Sigurd, in a quiet voice.
"Tcha!" cried Ketil. "Plenty of stones and there's turf to burn, until we start regular voyages to fetch timber, or maybe we'll go west to that forest Jorund told us of. With a good ship, one can do anything."
Sigurd said no more, and indeed Ketil's optimism infected his crew members. They had come along partly for the ad
venture, and also because they all had had trouble in Iceland, one way or another, but now three of them decided to stay on Ketilsfjord
for this winter. The other men drifted back to Brattalid to see what was going on, and what land grants they might get. Two of them expected to bring wives from Iceland later. From Ketilsf jord to Erik's headquarters was only a day's ride around between the tips of the fjords and the edge of the icecap, and it might be even quicker by water.
Merewyn, Brigid, and Orm slept on the ship until their homestead was built; nor was it long a-building for there were eight men working, Ketil, Sigurd, their three serfs, and the three members of the crew who had elected to stay with them.
By mid-July they were well ensconced at Ketilvik, the name they gave their new home. It was, to be sure, not nearly so fine as Langarfoss, but it had a long hall, with the High Seat they had brought, and the carved Norwegian doorposts which Ketil cherished almost as much as "Bloodletter." There was an alcove, for Merewyn and Sigurd, temporarily screened off by canvas until they could get more wood for a wall, and there were raised benches made of turf and stone for the others to sleep on in the Hall. There was a storeroom and- a bam.
Ketil was jubilant on the day that Merewyn moved from the ship. "Well, dottir," he said. "Not so bad, eh? And all our own. No rent to pay to anyone! We must invite the neighbours to a feast. Invite Erik himself! This is as good, though not as big, as that house he built at Brattalid."
Merewyn, four months pregnant, and struggling to find places for the household goods they had brought, heaved a sigh. "I promised Orm that there would be forests — and roses," she said, "and with what could we give a feast?" They had been living on fresh-caught fish, and seal, the latter so tame that it took a man but a moment to spear one. She was sick of both foods, and longed for bread. The white bread she had dreamed of — so foolishly. She had not needed Sigurd to tell her that no wheat would grow here.
"Oh, we'll slaughter a sheep or two," said Ketil, "and they're fattening nicely."
That was true. The sheep and the cow and the horses were growing sleek as they browsed the long grass. They also chewed up the few tiny shoots which might have developed into birches.
"But in winter, Father .. ." she began, and stopped because he was ticking off on his fingers the settlers who would be invited to Ketilsfjord. " — Hjerolf, Einar, Thorbjom, Snorri, Hrafn — and Erik the Red, of course. All the families in the Eastern Settlement."
Father, she wanted to say, don't you see that this is worse than Iceland, that though we have shelter, already in July it's cold, that there is nothing here but the rough grass and that towering mountain of gray ice behind us, and I hate the noise of seals barking where I imagined I might have a garden. Don't you see that Sigurd is not content, or guess that even alone with me he has grown silent, and does not seek my arms?
"A-ha," said Ketil with satisfaction, having finished his list of guests. "We'll have a fine gathering — like the old days in Iceland — nay — better than that, like the feastings we had when I was a boy in Norway. My father was most hospitable."
Inside Merewyn something snapped. She flung down the load of eiderdowns she had been carrying. "You stupid old man!" she cried. "Why did you ever leave Norway, -if you liked it so? And why have you made us leave Iceland? Because of pride, because of killings? Ah yes, killings — plenty of those — you murdered Uther, who I always thought was my father, and Blessed Jesu — I wish he had been!"
Ketil stared at her in astonishment. He saw only an angry young woman who reminded him of his mother when she was in a temper, and the temper became them both. Merewyn looked quite beautiful: her tall body stiff as a spear.
"Dottir, dottir —" said Ketil. He turned to Brigid who was staring dumbly around the Hall. Ketil clapped her roughly on the shoulder. "Here, you take care of your mistress. Fetch her some ale!"
Brigid never understood Ketil's speech, and she was afraid of
him. She gripped her knuckly chapped hands, and looked helplessly at Merewyn.
"Bring ale," said Merewyn in Celtic, "and we will drink together to this beautiful home, and this charming country to which Ketil Ketilson, my father, has brought us — for what else can we do?"
"As you say, mistress," said Brigid, pleased by the thought of a drink, and she scuttled away.
It was then that Merewyn felt the baby in her womb, like a little message, like a fluttering of butterflies. Butterflies. Shall I ever see them again! Violet, and gold, and scarlet, or even pale blue were butterflies, flitting over a scented English garden until dusk came, and then you saw the great white moths, and presently at Romsey one often heard the nightingales.
She thought of the pink rose she had held and snifl^ed so rapturously on the day the Vikings raided Southampton. She thought of what happened later and of Merwinna's heroism, praying — praying — before the altar in Romsey Abbey. She shivered. Despite a feeble peat fire on the long central hearth, the Hall was cold. A new wind was blowing down off the ice cap. It did not actually enter the house except around the doors, for no windows had been cut. There were as yet no cow-birth membranes with which to cover windows and let in light. But the damp cold seeped through — and it was still only July.
"I HATE this place," she cried to Ketil. "I won't stay here. I won't have my baby here!" One could jump into those freezing waters out there amongst the seals, and very soon there'd be no more struggle.
Ketil — as perturbed as he ever had been by a woman — drew his reddish brows together, and opened the front door. He shouted for Sigurd, who was supervising the last stores to be taken off" the Bylgja.
Sigurd arrived frowning, and at Ketil's helpless gesture went to Merewyn. "What is it, wife?" he said. She gave him a despairing look. He put his arms around her, and kissed her. He
kissed her on the mouth, and she wilted against him. "I can't stand this —" she moaned.
Sigurd grabbed her arms and shook her. "You can —" he said. "You have endured much, and will endure Greenland, because / say so. This is no time for a man to think of love-making nor have I thought of it for a while. Too much else to do. But there is love between us, and you must do your part. Half of you is Norse, and I think the other half is not lacking in strength. So drink that ale Brigid keeps trying to offer you, and keep quiet, Merewyn."
She bowed her head against his sweaty leather jerkin. "Yes, Sigurd," she whispered.
Ketil's housewarming feast duly took place in August. Though it had been postponed, for there was a week of fog, but then it cleared at last into sunlight. It grew almost warm. And the ships sailed up the big fjord into the vik which was quite large enough to harbor them near the homestead.
Just before the feast, Sigurd had a piece of luck and speared a walrus which had been floating down the fjord on an ice floe. Riches, indeed! Not only the beast's flesh and blubber, and the oil it gave for the lamps, but its tusks! The ivory was worth its weight in silver, and could be sold in any European market. Even kings bought ivory from walrus tusks. They had it carved and set it gold. They used it for their baubles, their chessmen, their caskets and reliquaries. The other source of good ivory — elephant tusks — was scarcely known, or obtainable out of Africa.
Merewyn, whose spirits had been low, could not help feeling gayer as all their guests arrived, and were most pohte in praising the new homestead, and in extolling Sigurd's luck with the walrus. And it was pleasant to feel important, and to chat with the other wives of whom four had accompanied their husbands to Ketilvik. There were children too for Orm to play with. Einar had brought his little boy; Snorri Thorbrandson had a girl
of six, and then, of course, there were Erik the Red's lads, Thor-stein, Thorvvald, and Leif. Erik's wife, Thiodild, had not come. She had a pain in her chest, said Erik, also there was so much to do at their BrattaUd homestead. But he brought with him his bastard daughter — Freydis, for whom Merewyn felt an instant and uncanny dislike. Why do I? Merewyn thought, trying to be fair, and knowing that Freydis's situatio
n was much like her own. Freydis had been born of a foreign woman in the Orkneys, and later recognized and taken into the family by Erik because he had no other daughters. Also Freydis was very young, fourteen maybe — Erik could not remember — but she looked older. She was big, full-breasted, and strident. She talked a lot in a grating, deep voice. She had some pimples on her heavy face, and her wiry, red hair was chopped off short below the ears . . . an eccentricity which puzzled Merewyn. But these were not the peculiarities which made for antipathy. It was the look in the girl's yellowish eyes, a look both bold and sly, and something else which Merewyn felt as not human. A cat look, was it? Or like a dog at the convent who had gone' mad and bitten a stable boy who thereafter died in agony.
Yet Erik acted fond of his daughter, and nobody else seemed to think her odd. Freydis was well-mannered and praised the homestead and the feast louder than anybody.
After serving the men, the women sat on the Cross Bench to one side of the Hall and now Merewyn discovered a friend. Not only a friend, but nearest neighbor, which delighted them both. This young woman was Astrid, the second wife of a plump and kindly man called Herjolf, who had settled himself on the next fjord below Ketil's and was building his homestead on a sheltered cape, naturally called "Herjolf's Ness." There was not a man in the company who did not feel pride in owning and naming such large tracts of land for himself. The women, more imaginative, wondered about the coming winter, but they too were merry as they downed their wooden beakers full of Ketil's imported mead.
Astrid was pretty and high-born — from one of the best families in Iceland. She had curly blond hair, and a sweet smile, and she also was pregnant. "We'll help each other when the time comes, won't we —" she asked Merewyn, an imploring smile in the mild blue eyes. "You've had one, and will know what to do, and at home I have watched two births with my mother. Also you'll have this one before I do. You can teach me, please."
