The Voyage of Freydis

by Tamara Goranson

  “Logatha passed a lot of blood before the contractions eased and the bairn slid out,” Asta blubbers, talking as if I’m not there. Her face is backlit by the setting sun. “Sadly, the wee thing was just too small to fight to take in air.” She bites the side of her trembling lip.

  “When Logatha wakes, she will be sick with grief,” Groa whispers quietly. She shakes her head. “How tragic that she lost her firstborn child.”

  “Her back will feel like it is on fire.”

  “Finnbogi will need to be consoled,” I sigh as I wrap my arms around my body and flick a glance out to sea. I take a breath. “Did Logatha even get to see her bairn?”

  “Neinn,” Asta says. A shiver of wind whisks through the yard. “There was nothing to see in that bloody mess.”

  “Where is Finnbogi?”

  “Gone,” Asta murmurs. “He left when he learned his bairn was dead.”

  Registering the staccato buzz of a single fly whizzing wildly around our heads, I follow it for a few moments before it lands. Then I swat at it. To my surprise, I squash the thing. In that moment, I make a vow to avenge my friends by tracking Thorvard down. I’ll go in search of him as soon as I have regained the power in my battle arm. Until that day, I will curse his name and flog myself and blame myself for everything.

  Chapter Eighteen

  These moments of reckoning

  After the skirmish that cost the Greenlanders twenty lives and the Icelanders five, I busy myself preparing for the long winter months ahead. The deaths of the master shipbuilder, Sven, and our blacksmith, Olaf Goðthjælpsen, are our greatest losses, but I will miss them all – the men who were loyal to Faðir’s house, those who were loyal to Helgi and Finnbogi, and even some of those who were loyal to Thorvard of Gardar. I knew them all.

  After we send their bodies out to sea on burning barges that the men construct from the wealth of trees surrounding the settlement, some of the men go out hunting while others stay behind to put the settlement of Leifsbidur back in order. Groa and Asta try to comfort me, but I shrug them off. Logatha avoids me completely.

  We find no corn to cut during the month of kornskurðarmánuður, but there is a stream teeming with salmon that runs through the settlement. The fish are so plentiful that all we have to do is reach in and scoop them out. Afterwards we smoke and dry the fish while Helgi and his men go out again for caribou. On their return, they bring back butchered meat and a large and magnificent caribou rack, all heavy with branching forks that takes two men to lift. Using wood ash and animal lard to cure the hides, I sink myself into the work, trying to ignore everything.

  Then the weather quickly turns. One morning we awake to a yard thick with frost, and I go outside without any shoes to gather chicken eggs. I like the feel of the cold, silky grass slipping in between my toes but the Icelanders chastise me for not wearing boots. I tell them not to worry and they laugh at me.

  As for Logatha and Finnbogi, everyone tells me that they continue to grieve the loss of their firstborn child, and the more they gossip, the worse I feel. One day, as I am stacking cords of wood, Logatha comes out to meet me.

  “How do you like it here?” she asks.

  “I think the land has much to offer,” I reply, glancing up. She is staring across the open fields.

  “Freydis, I’ve been meaning to speak with you.” Her voice breaks off. I take a breath.

  “Logatha, I did wrong by you.”

  “You are blameless, Freydis.” She bends down and plucks out a blade of grass. The tide is coming in; the wind is cold. “Finnbogi and I are sad to have lost our child, but it is not your fault.”

  “I feel it is,” I interrupt. I bite my cheeks.

  “It is Thorvard’s fault.” A rush of wind snatches up her words. “He sliced at me with his sword. He pushed me hard and threw me down. By Óðinn’s beard, your bastard husband killed my child.”

  Above our heads, a flock of geese is flying south. Their noisy honks herald change. Logatha stares up at them, blinking rapidly.

  “Finnbogi vows to avenge us both,” she says as the autumn sun flares a brilliant red and gold. “My noble husband will challenge Thorvard to a duel in order to restore your honor and make him accountable for our loss. After he wins, he will expose your husband and condemn him for his abusive ways.”

  Logatha sets her jaw. She looks at me as the wind whistles down the beach. “Finnbogi promised that he will be your witness when you seek divorce.”

  Through a mist, I bow my head.

  “I just want you to win your freedom back so that your husband can’t touch you anymore,” she whispers earnestly.

  The tide is coming in, the waves are crashing into shore, and the seagulls are diving low for fish.

  “Thorvard of Gardar is no longer my husband. He is dead to me.” The wind flings my words out to sea.

  “We will consider you a widow then,” Logatha murmurs. In front of us a salty spray rises with the ocean swells. Logatha turns. She clasps her hands around my ugly ones. “I have come to terms with the loss of my wee, sweet bairn,” she murmurs into the wailing wind. The gulls swoop low over the cresting waves.

  “If I know Finnbogi, he’ll make Thorvard pay.”

  “He will seek justice for the two of us.”

  She stands and I study her profile, recognizing that she is the sister I never had and the friend I’ve wanted my whole life.

  “There is no justice,” I finally say.

  In the distance, a seagull screams.

  As the days grow shorter, I work hard to forgive myself while Logatha treats me no differently than she did before. We are inseparable as we do our chores. We clean the longhouse and stack the firewood. Then we set up a women’s room. After hauling in supplies and setting up the loom that Asta brought, we spot several critters living in the longhouse posts. We smoke them out and set down traps, and soon we have won back the place and found our peace. One day Logatha asks if anyone has seen or heard from Thorvard’s men.

  “I saw the lot of ’em hiking up the coast, taking goods from his ship into the bush,” Snorri says as he sharpens his axe blade against a whetstone.

  “The Greenlanders are hiding out inside a nearby cave,” Gunnar sniffs.

  “Neinn. The skraelings ate Thorvard whole and spat him out into the sea,” Egil huffs.

  Finnbogi attempts to assess the reliability of these reports before squelching rumours that Thorvard is plotting to attack again. Then he orders us to keep busy in preparation for skammdegi, the darkest and coldest months of the year.

  Life in Leifsbidur settles into a grueling routine. The seasons change. Brilliant colors drape the rugged hills, and the longhouse turf turns yellow-brown while the mosses and lichen splotch brilliant tufts of rusty red. The partridgeberries, squashberries, and cloudberries ripen, and we harvest them, reveling in the sweetness of their taste, pinching them off so that our hands stay constantly sticky with the berry juice. Then we shear the sheep and cut and dry grass for hay. Everyone is busy. The blacksmith’s son offers to train Gunnar, and the two of them put the smithy to good use, but he is like his faðir and his faðir before him. He insists on keeping the door to the smithy tightly shut while he is working hard to fashion us some iron goods.

  One day I make the decision to wander into the barren, windswept hills, where I find a deer path leading to the beach. Sidestepping bulbous strands of seaweed thick with sandflies, I try to clear my head as I search for the barnacled mussels hidden in the rocky sand, hoping to harvest some for the Feast of Haustblót. The tide is out and I find my peace listening to the waves swishing into shore and the seagulls squawking overhead.

  Before I know it, I have wandered far away from Leifsbidur. Glancing down the beach, I spot the settlement lying half-hidden behind the knolls. Leifsbidur looks like a place of ghosts. The byre is a tiny dot and I can just make out the turf ceiling of the longhouse against the backdrop of a silvered grey and dreary sky.

  Just then a gush of water squirts up high fro
m a sand mound that marks a mussel cache. Crouching low, I work my fingers into the sand to retrieve the black barnacled treasure. When I look up, four faces peek out at me through the grass. Startled, I release a little yelp as my hands lock onto the mussel shell and the scythe-sharp edge cuts into me.

  “For the love of Thor,” I mutter underneath my breath.

  The skraeling children with their fearsome scowls and their large brown eyes do not flinch. Their little faces, smudged with berry juice, look sober as they stare at my basket full of mussels, eying the shellfish hungrily. The tallest has plaited hair with an eagle’s feather sticking out. The smallest wears a hawk’s lure on a band that rims his half-shaved scalp.

  “Góðan dag,” I say, keeping my voice tone low and soothing even though I shake inside.

  When Hawk’s Lure stands up fully in the grass, his bare flawless chest reflects red greasepaint. He should eat some meat, I think. Oh gods, I hope he won’t eat me. I won’t allow myself to be chewed by that little man.

  Hawk’s Lure’s sinewy body looks very strong. He is an intimidating man-child whose warrior demeanour, cradled in boyhood bravery, dispenses fear. A moment later I hear a warbler’s call – an unnatural, unnerving sound. My legs lock up and I strain my eyes to look past the little band of skraelings, but I see nothing moving in the grass. Cold shivers beetle through me as the children’s searching eyes rake over me. Just then, a second warbling trill comes tumbling through the nippy air.

  With a surge of panic, I scramble to gather up the reed basket that holds my mussel catch, keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead as I slowly begin to back away. A third call comes. One of the warrior children returns a loud, sharp whistle, and suddenly the grasses part to reveal a group of skraeling women wearing skins that have been dyed with red ochre.

  The first spits out a word in her own language, clawing for her little one. Another quickly scoops up an infant from the sand. She is of willowy build with a raven-black braid trailing to her hips and a carrier made out of birchbark scuffed a rosy red in which there lies a sleeping child. A third carries a pointed spear. The shaft alone is as tall as me.

  For a long moment, we stare each other down. Then Spear Mamma speaks to the children but her words sound so harsh that the seagulls perched on a nearby piece of driftwood suddenly take off in flight.

  Moving slowly, I start to back away until a sudden movement distracts me and my basket slips out of my sweaty hands. Hawk’s Lure points excitedly. To shut him up, I gesture to the mound of shellfish that has taken me so long to pick.

  “I’m gathering them to eat,” I say carefully, feeling alive to every noise, to every movement along the beach. Hawk’s Lure and the other children begin to close the gap between us and I step back. Glancing over their shoulders, I see movement as a group of Red Men suddenly emerge from a patch of grass that lines the beach. Gutted, I make a gurgling noise attempting to clear my throat, but no words come out. My tongue is frozen; my mouth is dry.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Spear Mamma smiles at me with her perfect teeth. Instinctively, I lean down and grab a mussel and hold it out as an offering. Instantly Hawk’s Lure darts forwards and scoops it up before he dashes back into the tangled grasses where he disappears.

  “There are more mussels all along this stretch,” I manage, knowing that my quivering voice betrays my fear.

  I have barely finished speaking when I hear a harsh, undulating cry that marks the arrival of two more skraeling warriors who are heavily adorned with red greasepaint. They are barefoot and their chiselled chests are painted red. When they see me, the taller of the two pulls out an arrow from the quiver on his back. Without waiting for him to nock it, I leave the basket, gather up my skirts, and run.

  As I scramble up the bank, I brace myself to receive an arrow in the back, but nothing happens as I slip into the maze of tall reeds and grasses that lines the shore. Squatting low, I continue to push my way through the thistles that scratch my arms and cut my shins, panting heavily and swearing underneath my breath. The bugs are bad and there is no path, but I use the position of the sun to steer me back towards Leifsbidur, half-stumbling as I scramble to get away, panicking when I look back.

  By the time I reach the well-worn path leading back to Leifsbidur, my heart is beating so loudly that all I hear is the thud of it as I suck in air and swallow bugs. There are mosquito bites welting on my ankles and the itch is fierce, but I push myself to keep running as I draw in air. By Óðinn’s beard, how could I have been such a fool?

  Up ahead, I hear someone shouting frantically. When I look up, Finnbogi is coming towards me from the direction of a nearby bog.

  “Freydis, where have you been?” he pants as he runs up to me. “Logatha is beside herself. Someone saw you wandering too far up the beach.” He stops abruptly when he sees my face. “How now? Have you seen a ghost?”

  “There are Red Men behind me,” I gasp as I wipe my sleeve across my sweaty face.

  “Skraelings? Where are they? Are they close to the settlement?”

  “Neinn. They stole my shellfish. It seems as though their purpose is to gather food.” I try to catch my breath as Finnbogi scans the terrain behind me.

  “Freydis, you should not have been out here on your own. The skraelings are unpredictable. They have been known to carry women off, to kidnap them and make them into thralls.”

  “They have been known to do things worse than that,” I sputter as I double over, panting heavily. When my breathing slows, I lift my head. “My brother warned me about them, but he also said they were motivated to trade furs for tools.”

  Finnbogi’s eyes are fixed on the distant boglands rimmed by a copse of alders. “This is true, but the skraelings brought their trading goods into Leifsbidur. Your brother did not go out to them.”

  “I see,” I say miserably. A headache throbs.

  “Let this be a lesson,” Finnbogi warns. “You must never leave the settlement of Leifsbidur on your own again. It is just not safe. Both Logatha and I were worried sick.”

  “Don’t tell Logatha that I’ve been wandering the beach alone,” I plead in a desperate voice. My guilt – a coiled-up snake – wraps itself around my throat.

  “I won’t speak to her about this, but mark these words: if you respect us both, you will never wander off by yourself again.”

  His warning is said with kindness, but the words still sting. All I wanted was to walk alone to explore the land and smell the air. I feel like I am a prisoner of Leifsbidur, forced to do only women’s work. Instead of spinning wool and mending cloth, I yearn to try my hand at dressing a caribou and killing deer.

  “I want to go out hunting with the men before the snowstorms come,” I manage as I study him.

  “’Tis is not proper,” Finnbogi says in a clipped voice. He looks at me, studying me with his blue ice-chip eyes.

  “Please, Finnbogi. I feel as though I have been a burden. Now that I have rid myself of Thorvard of Gardar, I would like to earn my keep. Besides, it is my fault that some of your Icelanders lost their lives. The battle you fought against my husband was one I should have endured alone.”

  He grunts dismissively, and I peer into his tired face.

  “Please, Finnbogi,” I try again. “I know I have good hunter instincts and a keen eye. I can paunch the kill, and I am strong enough to use my knife and peel back the fur. Many a time I have stripped the pelts off the carcass and deboned the meat all by myself. If only the huntsmen would agree to take me out with them, I could prove my worth.”

  “Therein lies the problem,” Finnbogi interrupts. He clears his throat. When he continues, a flush of color moves into his neck. “The huntsmen miss their womenfolk. You would be easy prey for them.”

  “Easy prey?” I repeat.

  Finnbogi throws me an awkward and embarrassed look. “If I send you out alone to hunt, I cannot guarantee your chastity.”

  “I’ll let no man abuse me,” I say irritably. “I’m done with that! The next man who com
es near me will meet a ghastly fate!”

  He tries to hush me but I shake him off. All around us, the rustling grasses shiver in the windy gusts.

  “I’ll run my dagger through the heart of any man who tries to do me harm. I’ll chop off his hands and kick his balls and show him what I am all about. I’m done being treated like a dog. I’m done spreading my legs for any man.” Finnbogi takes a step towards me. I lift my hand and my brow contorts into an angry scowl. I feel a flush of heat slowly moving into my cheeks. “By the gods, I’ll cleave in half any man who dares to touch me against my will! I’ve killed before, and I am prepared to kill again.”

  “I’ve tried my best to protect you, Freydis Eiriksdöttir,” Finnbogi says, “but I also know that you are strong and fierce and capable without my help. Forsooth, I’ve seen you wield your sword and slice through several Norsemen’s backs.”

  “Please, Finnbogi,” I beg. “I want to go out hunting with your men.”

  “You are a stubborn woman, Freydis Eiriksdöttir.”

  “Does that mean you will let me go?”

  He waves me off. “I’ll let you go, but please know this: I only warn you because I care.”

  “I am grateful that you look out for me,” I say, throwing him a little smile.

  “Ivor the Keen is taking a group out hunting just before gormánuður begins. The weather is growing colder, and the men won’t risk an overnight trip in case it snows. I’ll tell them that you would like to join their hunting party. You will have to be careful, Freydis. My men are unpredictable. They are raider types who have brutalized defenseless maidens not quite as strong or as well-skilled as you. Only Ivor and Snorri and Gudbrand can be trusted. Stay close to them and avoid the Red Men at all costs. I don’t want to hear that you were being difficult.”