The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

After dark we went out to the shrine. The carles had built a fire before it, and as I opened the door the wooden Odin appeared to leap forth. Gerald muttered to my daughter that it was a clumsy bit of carving, and since my father had made it I was still more angry with him. Some folks have no understanding of the fine arts.

  Nevertheless, I let him help me lead the horse forth to the altar stone. I took the blood-bowl in my hands and said he could now slay the beast if he would. He drew his gun, put the end behind the horse’s ear, and squeezed. There was a crack, and the beast quivered and dropped with a hole blown through its skull, wasting the brains—a clumsy weapon. I caught a whiff of smell, sharp and bitter like that around a volcano. We all jumped, one of the women screamed, and Gerald looked proud. I gathered my wits and finished the rest of the sacrifice as usual. Gerald did not like having blood sprinkled over him, but then, of course, he was a Christian. Nor would he take more than a little of the soup and flesh,

  Afterward Helgi questioned him about the gun, and he said it could kill a man at bowshot distance but there was no witchcraft in it, only use of some tricks we did not know as yet. Having heard of the Greek fire, I believed him. A gun could be useful in a fight, as indeed I was to learn, but it did not seem very practical—iron costing what it does, and months of forging needed for each one.

  I worried more about the man himself.

  And the next morning I found him telling Thorgunna a great deal of foolishness about his home, buildings tall as mountains and wagons that flew or went without horses. He said there were eight or nine thousand thousands of folk in his city, a burgh called New Jorvik or the like. I enjoy a good brag as well as the next man, but this was too much and I told him gruffly to come along and help me get in some strayed cattle.

  ~ * ~

  After a day scrambling around the hills I knew well enough that Gerald could scarce tell a cow’s prow from her stern. We almost had the strays once, but he ran stupidly across their path and turned them so the work was all to do again. I asked him with strained courtesy if he could milk, shear, wield scythe or flail, and he said no, he had never lived on a farm.

  “That’s a pity,” I remarked, “for everyone on Iceland does, unless he be outlawed.”

  He flushed at my tone. “I can do enough else,” he answered. “Give me some tools and I’ll show you metalwork well done.”

  That brightened me, for truth to tell, none of our household was a very gifted smith. “That’s an honorable trade,” I said, “and you can be of great help. I have a broken sword and several bent spearheads to be mended, and it were no bad idea to shoe all the horses.” His admission that he did know how to put on a shoe was not very dampening to me then.

  We had returned home as we talked, and Thorgunna came angrily forward. “That’s no way to treat a guest, father!” she said. “Making him work like a carle, indeed!”

  Gerald smiled. “I’ll be glad to work,” he said. “I need a . . . a stake . . . something to start me afresh. Also, I want to repay a little of your kindness.”

  That made me mild toward him, and I said it was not his fault they had different customs in the United States. On the morrow he could begin work in the smithy, and I would pay him, yet he would be treated as an equal, since craftsmen are valued. This earned him black looks from the housefolk.

  That evening he entertained us well with stories of his home; true or not, they made good listening. However, he had no real polish, being unable to compose even two lines of verse. They must be a raw and backward lot in the United States. He said his task in the army had been to keep order among the troops. Helgi said this was unheard-of, and he must be a brave man who would offend so many men, but Gerald said folk obeyed him out of fear of the king. When he added that the term of a levy in the United States was two years, and that men could be called to war even in harvest time, I said he was well out of a country with so ruthless and powerful a king.

  “No,” he answered wistfully, “we are a free folk, who say what we please.”

  “But it seems you may not do as you please,” said Helgi.

  “Well,” he said, “we may not murder a man just because he offends us.”

  “Not even if he has slain your own kin?” asked Helgi.

  “No. It is for the . . . the king to take vengeance on behalf of us all.”

  I chuckled. “Your yams are good,” I said, “but there you’ve hit a snag. How could the king even keep track of all the murders, let alone avenge them? Why, the man wouldn’t even have time to beget an heir!”

  He could say no more for all the laughter that followed.

  ~ * ~

  The next day Gerald went to the smithy, with a thrall to pump the bellows for him. I was gone that day and night, down to Reykjavik to dicker with Hjalmar Broadnose about some sheep. I invited him back for an overnight stay, and we rode into the garth with his son Ketill, a red-haired sulky youth of twenty winters who had been refused by Thorgunna.

  I found Gerald sitting gloomily on a bench in the hall. He wore the clothes I had given him, his own having been spoiled by ash and sparks—what had he awaited, the fool? He was talking in a low voice with my daughter.

  “Well,” I said as I entered, “how went it?”

  My man Grim snickered. “He has ruined two spearheads, but we put out the fire he started ere the whole smithy burned.”

  “How’s this?” I cried. “I thought you said you were a smith.”

  Gerald stood up, defiantly. “I worked with other tools, and better ones, at home,” he replied. “You do it differently here.”

  It seemed he had built up the fire too hot; his hammer had struck everywhere but the place it should; he had wrecked the temper of the steel through not knowing when to quench it. Smithcraft takes years to learn, of course, but he should have admitted he was not even an apprentice.

  “Well,” I snapped, “what can you do, then, to earn your bread?” It irked me to be made a fool of before Hjalmar and Ketill, whom I had told about the stranger.

  “Odin alone knows,” said Grim. “I took him with me to ride after your goats, and never have I seen a worse horseman. I asked him if he could even spin or weave, and he said no.”

  “That was no question to ask a man!” flared Thorgunna. “He should have slain you for it!”

  “He should indeed,” laughed Grim. “But let me carry on the tale. I thought we would also repair your bridge over the foss. Well, he can just barely handle a saw, but he nearly took his own foot off with the adz.”

  “We don’t use those tools, I tell you!” Gerald doubled his fists and looked close to tears.

  I motioned my guests to sit down. “I don’t suppose you can butcher a hog or smoke it either,” I said.

  “No.” I could scarce hear him.

  “Well, then, man . . . what can you do?”

  “I—” He could get no words out.

  “You were a warrior,” said Thorgunna.

  “Yes—that I was!” he said, his face kindling.

  “Small use in Iceland when you have no other skills,” I grumbled, “but perhaps, if you can get passage to the east-lands, some king will take you in his guard.” Myself I doubted it, for a guardsman needs manners that will do credit to his master; but I had not the heart to say so.

  Ketill Hjalmarsson had plainly not liked the way Thorgunna stood close to Gerald and spoke for him. Now he sneered and said: “I might even doubt your skill in fighting.”

  “That I have been trained for,” said Gerald grimly.

  “Will you wrestle with me, then?” asked Ketill.

  “Gladly!” spat Gerald.

  Priest, what is a man to think? As I grow older, I find life to be less and less the good-and-evil, black-and-white thing you say it is; we are all of us some hue of gray. This useless fellow, this spiritless lout who could even be asked if he did women’s work and not lift ax, went out in the yard with Ketill Hjalmarsson and threw him three times running. There was some trick he had of grabbing the clothes as Ketill c
harged. ... I called a stop when the youth was nearing murderous rage, praised them both, and filled the beer-horns. But Ketill brooded sullenly on the bench all evening.

  Gerald said something about making a gun like his own. It would have to be bigger, a cannon he called it, and could sink ships and scatter armies. He would need the help of smiths, and also various stuffs. Charcoal was easy, and sulfur could be found in the volcano country, I suppose, but what is this saltpeter?

  Also, being suspicious by now, I questioned him closely as to how he would make such a thing. Did he know just how to mix the powder? No, he admitted. What size would the gun have to be? When he told me—at least as long as a man—I laughed and asked him how a piece that size could be cast or bored, even if we could scrape together that much iron. This he did not know either.

  “You haven’t the tools to make the tools to make the tools,” he said. I don’t know what he meant by that. “God help me, I can’t run through a thousand years of history all by myself.”

  He took out the last of his little smoke sticks and lit it. Helgi had tried a puff earlier and gotten sick, though he remained a friend of Gerald’s. Now my son proposed to take a boat in the morning and go up to Ice Fjord, where I had some money outstanding I wanted to collect. Hjalmar and Ketill said they would come along for the trip, and Thorgunna pleaded so hard that I let her come along too.

  “An ill thing,” muttered Sigurd. “All men know the land-trolls like not a woman aboard a ship. It’s unlucky.”

  “How did your father ever bring women to this island?” I grinned.

  Now I wish I had listened to him. He was not a clever man, but he often knew whereof he spoke.

  ~ * ~

  At this time I owned a half share in a ship that went to Norway, bartering wadmal for timber. It was a profitable business until she ran afoul of vikings during the disorders while Olaf Tryggvason was overthrowing Jarl Haakon there. Some men will do anything to make a living—thieves, cutthroats, they ought to be hanged, the worthless robbers pouncing on honest merchantmen. Had they any courage or honesty they would go to Ireland, which is full of plunder.

  Well, anyhow, the ship was abroad, but we had three boats and took one of these. Besides myself, Thorgunna, and Helgi, Hjalmar and Ketill went along, with Grim and Gerald. I saw how the stranger winced at the cold water as we launched her, and afterward took off his shoes and stockings to let his feet dry. He had been surprised to learn we had a bathhouse—did he think us savages?—but still, he was dainty as a woman and soon moved upwind of our feet.

  There was a favoring breeze, so we raised mast and sail. Gerald tried to help, but of course did not know one line from another and got them tangled. Grim snarled at him and Ketill laughed nastily. But erelong we were under way, and he came and sat by me where I had the steering oar.

  He had plainly lain long awake thinking, and now he ventured timidly: “In my land they have . . . will have a rig and rudder which are better than this. With them, you can criss-cross against the wind.”

  “Ah, so now our skilled sailor must give us redes!” sneered Ketill.

  “Be still,” said Thorgunna sharply. “Let Gerald speak.”

  He gave her a sly look of thanks, and I was not unwilling to listen. “This is something which could easily be made,” he said. “I’ve used such boats myself, and know them well. First, then, the sail should not be square and hung from a yardarm, but three-cornered, with the third corner lashed to a yard swiveling from the mast. Then, your steering oar is in the wrong place—there should be a rudder in the middle of the stem, guided by a bar.” He was eager now, tracing the plan with his fingernail on Thorgunna’s cloak. “With these two things, and a deep keel—going down to about the height of a man for a boat this size—a ship can move across the path of the wind ... so. And another sail can be hung between the mast and the prow.”

  Well, priest, I must say the idea had its merits, and were it not for fear of bad luck—for everything of his was unlucky —I might even now play with it. But there are clear drawbacks, which I pointed out to him in a reasonable way.

  “First and worst,” I said, “this rudder and deep keel would make it all but impossible to beach the ship or sail up a shallow river. Perhaps they have many harbors where you hail from, but here a craft must take what landings she can find, and must be speedily launched if there should be an attack. Second, this mast of yours would be hard to unstep when the wind dropped and oars came out. Third, the sail is the wrong shape to stretch as an awning when one must sleep at sea.”

  “The ship could lie out, and you could go to land in a small boat,” he said. “Also, you could build cabins aboard for shelter.”

  “The cabins would get in the way of the oars,” I said, “unless the ship were hopelessly broad-beamed or unless the oarsmen sat below a deck like the galley slaves of Miklagard; and free men would not endure rowing in such foulness.”

  “Must you have oars?” he asked like a very child.

  Laughter barked along the hull. Even the gulls hovering to starboard, where the shore rose darkly, mewed their scorn. “Do they also have tame winds in the place whence you came?” snorted Hjalmar. “What happens if you’re becalmed—for days, maybe, with provisions running out-”

  “You could build a ship big enough to carry many weeks’ provisions,” said Gerald.

  “If you have the wealth of a king, you could,” said Helgi. “And such a king’s ship, lying helpless on a flat sea, would be swarmed by every viking from here to Jomsborg. As for leaving the ship out on the water while you make camp, what would you have for shelter, or for defense if you should be trapped there?”

  Gerald slumped. Thorgunna said to him gently: “Some folks have no heart to try anything new. I think it’s a grand idea.”

  He smiled at her, a weary smile, and plucked up the will to say something about a means for finding north even in cloudy weather—he said there were stones which always pointed north when hung by a string. I told him kindly that I would be most interested if he could find me some of this stone; or if he knew where it was to be had, I could ask a trader to fetch me a piece. But this he did not know, and fell silent. Ketill opened his mouth, but got such an edged look from Thorgunna that he shut it again; his looks declared plainly enough what a liar he thought Gerald to be.

  The wind turned contrary after a while, so we lowered the mast and took to the oars. Gerald was strong and willing, though clumsy; however, his hands were so soft that erelong they bled. I offered to let him rest, but he kept doggedly at the work.

  Watching him sway back and forth, under the dreary creak of the tholes, the shaft red and wet where he gripped it, I thought much about him. He had done everything wrong which a man could do—thus’ I imagined then, not knowing the future—and I did not like the way Thorgunna’s eyes strayed to him and rested there. He was no man for my daughter, landless and penniless and helpless. Yet I could not keep from liking him. Whether his tale was true or only a madness, I felt he was honest about it; and surely there was something strange about the way he had come. I noticed the cuts on his chin from my razor; he had said he was not used to our kind of shaving and would grow a beard. He had tried hard. I wondered how well I would have done, landing alone in this witch country of his dreams, with a gap of forever between me and my home.

  Perhaps that same misery was what had turned Thorgunna’s heart. Women are a kittle breed, priest, and you who leave them alone belike understand them as well as I who have slept with half a hundred in six different lands. I do not think they even understand themselves. Birth and life and death, those are the great mysteries, which none will ever fathom, and a woman is closer to them than a man.

  —The ill wind stiffened, the sea grew iron gray and choppy under low leaden clouds, and our headway was poor. At sunset we could row no more, but must pull in to a small unpeopled bay and make camp as well as could be on the strand.

  We had brought firewood along, and tinder. Gerald, though staggering with wea
riness, made himself useful, his little sticks kindling the blaze more easily than flint and steel. Thorgunna set herself to cook our supper. We were not warded by the boat from a lean, whining wind; her cloak fluttered like wings and her hair blew wild above the streaming flames. It was the time of light nights, the sky a dim dusky blue, the sea a wrinkled metal sheet and the land like something risen out of dream-mists. We men huddled in our cloaks, holding numbed hands to the fire and saying little.

  I felt some cheer was needed, and ordered a cask of my best and strongest ale broached. An evil Nom made me do that, but no man escapes his weird. Our bellies seemed all the emptier now when our noses drank in the sputter of a spitted joint, and the ale went swiftly to our heads. I remember declaiming the death song of Ragnar Hairybreeks for no other reason than that I felt like declaiming it.

  Thorgunna came to stand over Gerald where he slumped. I saw how her fingers brushed his hair, ever so lightly, and Ketill Hjalmarsson did too. “Have they no verses in your land?” she asked.