Avalon

by Anya Seton

  "To be sure," said Merewyn valiantly, ignoring her own doubts. "And on horseback I think we're only a few miles apart. We'll visit often."

  They talked together until some of the men began snoring on the benches.

  Merewyn learned that Astrid was quite fond of her stout middle-aged bridegroom, who was always good to her. And that by his first wife he had a son, whom Astrid had never seen, since Bjarne had left last year on a trading ship to Norway. But, said Astrid, Bjame would probably turn up here before the winter set in, because he always tried to winter with his father.

  "But won't he look for Herjolf in Iceland?" asked Merewyn, thinking how far away that place already seemed.

  "No doubt," said Astrid, "but they'll tell him where we've gone, and Bjarne's a great sailor, his father says." '

  Merewyn sighed and yawned, dismissing Bjarne, and very glad that Sigurd had neither previous children nor bastards for her to raise.

  She looked up at Sigurd, as he sat beside Ketil on the High Seat, and saw that he was patiently enduring Ketil's spate of anecdotes about the days they went a-viking — the raids, the plunder. But when Ketil, who was drunk, said something about Padstow and the rich booty in Cornwall, Sigurd said "nay!" in an angry shout, which even awoke one of the snorers.

  Ketil was startled. His bloodshot eyes turned to Sigurd. "What's the matter with you?''''

  "From Cornwall, Ketil Ketilson, you got your daughter, and I my wife," said Sigurd. "And that's enough about it!"

  Merewyn's throat choked up as Ketil looked bewildered. "Tcha!" he said, but feebly, and began to drum on the table. "Where's the mead? Somebody fill my horn, and I'll show you how well I can still down it at one quaff."

  Astrid put her hand on Merewyn's. "Your husband loves you," she said. "For this you are lucky, but you must have suffered much."

  Merewyn returned the hand's pressure, and after a moment she said, "I am lucky to have found a friend — there's been nobody since Elfled at Romsey Abbey — oh, so long ago. And perhaps Rumon —" she added in a whisper.

  Astrid did not understand, but she leaned her shoulder against Merewyn's and the sympathy comforted them both, until Merewyn suddenly stiffened and said, "That Freydis! Why does she stare so at us? Those yellow eyes — what do they mean?"

  When Astrid looked down the Cross Bench, Freydis was noisily sucking on whale blubber and staring only at the fire. "Merevyn—" said Astrid gently, stumbling over the name, "you are tired, I think, and should lie down. Come, I'll help you into bed."

  Fortunately winter was late that year, the first real blizzard not until September. By that time, everyone on Greenland had built snug turf homesteads. Even those in the Western Settlement, where some had gone to find property for themselves after the lands and fjords to the south were all given out by Erik, who called his particular district of cronies and relatives "The Eastern Settlement." But Erik at Brattalid, up Eriksfjord, remained the chief and leader of both colonies. Though there were many who grumbled, or railed privately at Erik as daylight shrank and freezing winds blew harder off the ice cap. There were many in the two settlements who vowed to sail home as soon in the spring as might be possible. Yet still there were others, Hke Ketil, who valued independence, who said that this was not much worse than Iceland, and the walrus tusks — others besides

  Sigurd had now speared walruses — could be bartered for what they needed once they could get a cargo to Norway. Also there was talk about sailing west, where there were trees, and rivers, and greater warmth.

  Before the snows became too heavy, or the fjords too much packed with ice, many of the neighbors came to Ketilvik, and speculated on the tale they heard from Ketil or Sigurd. The story of Ari Marson's inadvertent discovery of a fair land out there to the west. Of how he had not wished to leave it.

  Ketil was always glad to entertain his guests with the account Jorund had given him at Langarfoss. He never mentioned Rumon, but said only that there was another returned voyager who gave corroboration.

  Of all those who listened, young Leif Erikson was the most impressed. "I shall go there someday," he said, his blue eyes alight, "once I'm able to get hold of a ship, and —" he added sighing, "old enough to skipper it properly." Leif chafed at being only fifteen, and at his father's many restrictions. He resented his father, but was fond of his mother, Thiodild, whom he resembled — the same determined mouth and chestnut hair. He longed for adventure, for a change which Greenland did not provide. At Brattalid, in the temple dedicated 'to Thor, Leif often invoked that god, and had even once sacrificed a seal there, pouring the blood down over Thor's hammer. The purpose of the sacrifice was not entirely clear to Leif, except that he wanted to grow up fast, to find a ship somehow, to get away from Greenland.

  Even beneath the bath of seal's blood, the carved wooden statue gave no quiver. The god did not answer. Leif stared at the pools of congealing blood on the turf floor, and was dis-coiu*aged. He thought of his brothers, Thorwald and Thor-stein; they each had the god's name combined with theirs, and would thereby surely get more results. He felt anger at his father who had named him Leif.

  There was no anger at Ketilvik twenty miles to the south of

  Brattalid, but there was melancholy, a plodding boredom from being shut up in the house during the ever darkening days, and for Merewyn a fear that she tried not to recognize. She must be somewhere in the last week of pregnancy.

  Her body was distorted, her soul despondent. She dragged around, trying feebly to regulate Brigid whom she knew vaguely to be sleeping with the crewmen in the straw loft. It didn't matter. At least it kept Brigid from keening all the time, as she had at first.

  For Merewyn there were but two comforts. One was the warm solid feel of Sigurd's rump against hers at night, and the other was Astrid. The two young women had visited each other whenever the weather made it possible, but now as Yuletide neared and great drifts hid the way between their houses, they had not been able to meet for a fortnight. Merewyn was reduced to Brigid's company, and she missed Astrid deeply.

  One morning in mid-December — nobody was quite sure which day it was, though Ketil kept a sort of calendar notched on a beam — Merewyn, in bed with Sigurd, suddenly gave a muffled cry and grabbed her back. "It hurts —" she said. "The baby is coming."

  Sigurd awoke, and heard her whimper like a small wounded beast. "Elsknan min," he said. "What is it?"

  "The baby's coming," she repeated. "Oh Sigurd, I'm frightened. There was much trouble last time with Orm, but your mother helped. And I feel there's trouble now. I don't know — I had a dream, a bad dream — that Freydis was squinting at me with her yellow eyes . . . and over her head a cap of ice was forming, and I was so afraid."

  "Quiet, wife —" said Sigurd, patting her on the shoulder. "Hush! I'll get Brigid."

  "Brigidr^ cried Merewyn on a wail. "She's useless. I want Astrid!" She gasped as another pain gripped her back, then receded.

  Sigurd was dismayed. Merewyn had been pregnant so long.

  even back in Iceland, and he had known that the birthing moment would come, but never thought much about it. Those things happened as they would, and when Orm was born his mother had managed the whole thing. Certainly Merewyn should have a woman with her, someone of brighter wits than Brigid. He thought of Erik the Red's wife, Thiodild, but she was too far away. He thought of other matrons on the nearer fjords, but they weren't the ones Merewyn had asked for and they too were further off. "I'll try to fetch Astrid," he said, "but it'll take some hours."

  "No, no—"she cried, "Don't leave me! Send my father! Send one of the men. Don't leave me!"

  "Ketil or the men," said Sigurd, his voice sharp with sudden fear, "could not find their way to Herjolf's Ness as I could. The path we made this summer is under snowdrifts as high as my middle, but / know it well."

  "Oh, Blessed Jesu, Blessed Virgin," whispered Merewyn — who was too deep in her fear to heed him, "help me, for I think IshaUdie!"

  "You won't die," said Sigurd really alarmed. "
What's the matter with you? I heard that Einar's daughter had a baby last week on Einarsf jord. Women are always having babies."

  She gave a bubbling moan, and clasped her hands again to her back. "Don't leave me," she said. "I want Astrid."

  Sigurd, frowning, got up and put on his outdoor clothes. He went to rouse Ketil, who was annoyed at being wakened.

  Sigurd explained, and Ketil said angrily, "What a fuss! Women should have babies without a fuss. I'm ashamed of my dottir."

  "Women don't usually give birth on Greenland without other women to help," said Sigurd, looking straight in the eyes of his father-in-law.

  "It's that foreign blood of hers — that weakling mother," said Ketil.

  ''''You made that —" said Sigurd. "xnd it's not the time to

  mention it. Merewyn is suffering, and she must have women with her — even by Icelandic Law. She wants me near her too. And Brigid is no help, though I shall now call her. If Merewyn or the baby dies, you'd feel sad — wouldn't you, Ketil Ketil-son?"

  After a moment of thought, Ketil agreed. "I would," he said.

  In the end, Ketil took two of the crewmen and went around to Herjolf's Ness by small boat. He said he'd rather dodge the ice floes than wallow through snowdrifts, and he could make a boat go anywhere. Sigurd agreed with misgivings, and since their own home vik was frozen sohd, helped carry the little sloop to the fjord.

  "She'll have had the child by the time we get back and all this bother for nothing," were Ketil's last grumpy words as he and the men rowed away. It was still dark and two seal-oil lamps glimmered at bow and stem.

  Sigurd thought this likely, but he did remember that Orm's birthing had taken a very long time, a day and a liight at least, until Asgerd, his mother, produced some dark liquid from her pouch and made Merewyn drink it.

  He went back to look at his wife in the bed-closet and found her asleep. She roused a httle, and gave him a vague trembling smile. "The pains have stopped," she murmured. "Are they getting Astrid?" He nodded and she sighed. ''You stayed with me, my heart —" she whispered, holding her hand out to him. Before he could grasp it, she was asleep again.

  In the Hall he found Brigid stomping aimlessly about, and yawning.

  "Gather snow to boil water," said Sigurd. "Keep the fire up, and have you linen cloths?" These had been needed at Orm's birth, though he wasn't sure why. Brigid wasn't either, but under Sigurd's intent and worried gaze she obeyed.

  Merewyn slept quietly for hours while the short December day brightened and then vanished again. After his evening meal, Sigurd went to see her, and found her awake, her face flushed.

  her dilated pupils staring at the birch rafters. "The pains are beginning once more," she said. "Our baby wants to be bom, but then again it does not. There is something strange about our baby. That Freydis has done something — because Freydis is a bad woman, and she hates me because I have you, and she hates women too."

  "Nonsense, wife!" said Sigurd vigorously. "Freydis Eriks-dottir hasn't seen you in months."

  "Freydis —" said Merewyn dreamily, though pausing to wince, and go limp after a moment, "is a shape-changer. She has often come here to Ketilvik, I know. As the fierce white bear you saw running away one day, and there was the white fox too."

  Sigurd could find nothing to say. His mother beheved in shape-changers, all Norsemen did, as they believed in giants and trolls, and the gods. The age-old Asa faith.

  "I hear something outside," he said with relief. "Perhaps they've brought Astrid." He patted her shoulder, and went out to see.

  It was indeed Ketil, with Astrid, who was in her sixth month of pregnancy, and looked half frozen, but she gave Sigurd a gentle, worried smile, and said, "How is she?" •

  "About the same as when Ketil left for you," said Sigurd. "And no words will tell my gratitude to you. You show your noble Icelandic blood. I had wondered if you'd come."

  "And don't think the trips were easy!" put in Ketil. "We stove a hole in the bow — ice — and if it weren't for my well-known prowess at sea —"

  "True, Foster-father, and we're glad you were lucky. Astrid, warm yourself, then do what you can for Merewyn, for she is acting strange."

  Sigurd beckoned to Brigid, who reluctantly brought a cup of the almost finished mead for Astrid.

  As Astrid went into the bed-closet, Merewyn was writhing; sweat on her forehead, tears on her cheeks. "Thanks to God

  and the Virgin Mary!" she said when she saw her friend, "because you are good, and they told me — Aunt Merwinna always told me that good was stronger than evil. They don't believe that here, the Norsemen — I forgot you are one — Astrid, will you hold my hand?"

  Astrid sat on a stool beside the bed, holding Merewyn's hand while two more hours went by. Then Merewyn gave a scream, and the baby came.

  It was a girl, with fuzzy red hair all over its little squashed head.

  The baby cried at once, which Astrid knew to be a good sign. She tied the cord off with a leather thong, waited for the afterbirth and cleansed Merevt^n, Brigid, goggle-eyed, stood by and did what she was told.

  Then Astrid, who knew all the customs of her country, wrapped the baby in the linen cloths and an eiderdown. She carried it to the Hall and put it on the floor near Sigurd. "There is your girl-child," she said. And waited. This was the moment for the father to accept a baby as his, arid also to decide whether it should live or not.

  "My daughter —" said Sigurd, looking down at the mewling little thing in the eiderdown. He picked the baby up in his arms, suddenly afraid of its tininess. "This is my child," said Sigurd formally, addressing Ketil, Astrid, and the assembled thralls and crewmen. "I acknowledge her, and she shall be called Thora, and be under Thor's protection."

  Ketil made a grunt of approval; Astrid smiled, and the others gave a small cheer.

  The baby was "water-sprinkled" by her father three days later, while Merewyn lay on a bench in the Hall, watching. It was like a Christian baptism, she thought, except there was no priest. And the Norsemen, she knew by now, had for hundreds of years been "water-sprinkling" the babies they did not expose to death on a mountainside. Nevertheless, and though she was recovering fast with Astrid's help, a dreadful uneasiness came

  over her. She raised herself on an elbow, and said, "Sigurd! I beg you, I want 'Mary' joined to the 'Thora' — please — it'll be better — you've been so good to me — be good now."

  Ketil said "Tcha!" but Sigurd shrugged. "Very well," he said to the baby, "your name is Thora Mary Sigurdsdottir, and may you be a happy, lucky one, my child."

  At very nearly the moment in which the baby was water-sprinkled, two thousand miles away in England at Glastonbury, the Archbishop Dunstan ordained Rumon as a monk in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

  While Rumon took his vows, as he prostrated himself before the altar, he could not entirely control his thoughts. They raced through his mind. So I've done it at last. So may I find the love of God. And I've had no success with the love of women. That thing with Alfrida, with Merewyn, they are past forever. So I am no longer in or of the world. I am a Benedictine monk now — Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience. The first two aren't hard an>Tnore, and the last — if it's Dunstan I must obey — I can do. And so this is the end of the search, for the Islands to the west — for Avalon, which I have never found. So this is the way it is, and I must be a new man when I leave this altar.

  When he walked solemnly out of the Glastonbury Church and looked up at the Tor, tears came into his eyes, and he bowed his head beneath the black cowl.

  chapter twelve

  In June of the year looo, there was a great commotion in Greenland. As soon as Leif's ship was sighted down the fjord, messengers were sent by Erik the Red to the Eastern and Western settlements, inviting everybody to a feast in honor of his son Leif, who was returning from Norway where he had been wondrously well treated by the King — Olaf Trygvason. This news had come from an Icelandic fishing boat which was already anchored at Gothaab in the Western Settlement.r />
  Merewyn sat on a bench outside when Erik's breathless messenger arrived. Astrid was with her on a visit, which much relieved Erik's servant, since now he need not go farther south to Herjolf's Ness to deliver that particular invitation.

  Merewyn offered the man refreshment, and turned him over to Brigid, who had grown fat as a tub and quite deaf through the years, but could always be depended on to welcome strange men.

  "So Leif is back," said Merewyn to her friend. "How glad my Orm will be, he always admired Leif, and has missed him these two years of absence, though to be sure, Leif is so much older."

  "Orm is a fine lad, Merevyn," said Astrid in her gentle voice. "I hope my Helgi will be as fine."

  The two women were twirling their spindles — the first step in the making of Greenland woolens for which there had developed a foreign market. The annual trader from Norway now carried back several Greenland products besides walrus tusks and sealskins.

  This sitting in the sunlight outside the homestead was like the time at Langarfoss in Iceland, so long ago, Merewyn thought. And yet, nothing else was like. Here were no beautiful mountains to look at, only black hills, and frozen sedge, and the shadow of the all-pervading gray ice cap. And there were many other differences. At Langarfoss, Orm had been a baby, and now he was nearly eighteen, big and strong as Sigurd. Ketil had been there too at Langarfoss. My poor father, she thought. Ketil had spent many months dying from some dreadful pain in his middle. Sometimes he'd be out of his mind, and run around the Hall brandishing "Bloodletter," completely berserker, while he fought imaginary battles and shouted the old Viking war whoops. Then only Sigurd could manage him.

  Once during KetU's illness, Sigurd sent for a seeress, who lived near BrattaHd. Her name was Thorbjorg, and she was much respected for her ability to predict the future. She came to Ketilvik, and was elaborately dressed, since all who consulted her gave gifts.