After the servingman departed, with a promise to listen for word of any farms that needed servants during the winter, Margret told Sigurd that she felt uncommonly low, for this was the effect of unexpected company, to leave you more in silence than you had been, and farther from others. Such a thing as this Margret could not remember ever having spoken of to anyone, not even Skuli Gudmundsson, for she had always been of a taciturn bent, so much so that all the folk she had ever known complained of it, but indeed, unlike all the folk she had ever known, Sigurd was nearly as reticent as she was, and so if talk was to be made, she had to help make it.
Also unlike all the folk she had ever known, Sigurd occasionally aroused her to anger, and most often it happened in the same way, that the boy would take a notion to do something and would not be moved from this, no matter what sort of work needed to be begun or finished about the steading. One time, Margret had finished milking the ewes and had set the milk on the shady side of the steading, and was ready to go off with the sheep to their pasture. One of the younger ewes took a fright, for Margret made a noise behind her, and she veered away from where the others were standing, and Margret looked about for Sigurd to herd the beast back in. She saw that the boy had taken to pitching stones into the water and called him over, but indeed, he had no intention of stopping his game, or even acknowledging her shout, but stood there tossing rocks as if entranced. Another instance, later in the summer, took place in the early morning, when the boy would not rise from his bed, but lay there with his eyes open, ignoring her, and on this occasion she gave in to the temptation to strike him, not, after all, when he refused to help her, but when he showed no interest in his morning meat. But indeed, he went his own way even so, as all folk do, whether they are fully grown or not, and Margret resolved upon no more blows.
Shortly after this incident, Quimiak reappeared. He was now a much changed fellow, no longer with anything of a boy about him, and on his upper lip he sported a few long threads of mustache in the skraeling fashion. His furs were very rich. He bounded up the hill as Margret was folding the sheep for the night and without speaking to her, for skraelings do not like to look at or speak to women if they don’t have to, he searched all about the steading, and opened the door of the little house. Margret saw that he was looking for Asta and Bryndis, and she gestured to him that they were dead of sickness. Now he stood there staring at her for a long moment, and it seemed to Margret that he was much disturbed by this news. Just then, Sigurd came from behind the steading.
Now Quimiak smiled broadly, as if surprised, and Margret saw that he had understood the boy to be dead, as well. Sigurd, not being used to visitors, perhaps, or not recognizing the skraeling, ran over to Margret and pressed against her robe. At this, Quimiak stepped up to her and took the boy by the shoulders and pulled him away from her and turned him about, and Margret said, “Indeed, child, you must stand up straight, for this is your father, whom you have seen many times before and should remember.” Quimiak was much pleased with the boy, and pinched his flesh between his forefinger and thumb, then ran his hand down the boy’s side, then put his hand on top of the boy’s head, and regarded how tall Sigurd was. Then he began talking in the skraeling tongue and smiling. After this, he pulled something from underneath his fur shirt, and this was a smaller shirt, in the same style as his own, and made of white rabbit and blue fox skins sewn together in a pattern of chevrons. This he handed to Sigurd, who looked at Margret as he took it. Margret said, “This is a handsome gift, Sigurd, and your father has brought it to you from the Northsetur or the eastern lands. Other children do not have such things.” Sigurd thanked Quimiak in the Norse tongue, and Quimiak seemed to understand the gist of his reply.
Now Quimiak held out his hand, and, with a look at Margret, Sigurd placed his within it. Thinking that this was some sort of skraeling custom, Margret nodded and smiled, but then she was surprised to see Quimiak begin half to lead and half to drag Sigurd down the hillside toward his skin boat. When Sigurd balked, Quimiak picked him up with ease and began to carry him. At this, Sigurd began to shout to Margret, but it was as if she could not respond or move, as if she were entranced by a spell, and she suddenly remembered the same sensation from the killing of Skuli Gudmundsson as freshly as if that death were but a day old and not some sixteen summers in the past. It was not until they were nearly at the boat that it came to her that she could run after them, and so she did, across the trackless willow scrub that caught at her feet and made her stumble, and she, too, was crying out, but Quimiak paid no heed, and simply put the screaming boy into the skin boat. Margret fell down and got up again, and by the time she was to the water, the skin boat was far out into the fjord, and Sigurd’s frightened voice came back to her, amplified by the water, calling for her to come and to save him and to help him, and the sound of these cries lasted almost as long as she could see the boat.
In this same summer, a pair of messengers came to St. Birgitta’s church from Gardar, and they were the steward Petur and the servingwoman Olof, and they spoke to Sira Pall Hallvardsson for an afternoon, an evening, and a morning, and the result was that Sira Pall Hallvardsson got into the Gardar boat and returned with them to the bishop’s residence. It could not be said that the Hvalsey Fjord folk were much surprised by these events, but they were put out even so, as they had become used to much activity about the church, and more than a few of the farmers visited Sira Pall Hallvardsson rather often.
When Sira Pall Hallvardsson came to Gardar, he found Sira Jon locked in his chamber, as Olof had said he would, and when Olof unlocked the door and he went in, Sira Pall Hallvardsson’s nose turned at the odor of the tiny place. Sira Jon had nothing on, and his flesh was covered with scratches that he had made with his own fingernails before Olof had had the sense to cut them. When Sira Pall Hallvardsson entered, Sira Jon, who had been sitting by the wall, stood up and approached with his old haughty manner. Sira Pall Hallvardsson greeted him. He had never seen a man go naked in Greenland except to swim in the hot springs of the south, such was the coolness of the climate. Now Sira Jon gave him the episcopal kiss on his cheek and held out his hand for Sira Pall Hallvardsson to kiss. To get down upon his knee and kiss the other man’s ring, or in this case, his finger, for there was no ring, was something Sira Pall Hallvardsson had never been asked to do before. He did it with difficulty, for his knees were much affected by the joint ill. The mad priest stood shamelessly and apparently unchilled, for his arms hung loosely at his sides though his skin was bluish. Sira Pall Hallvardsson rose to his feet. The top of his head brushed a beam of the ceiling.
Now Sira Jon said, “Welcome, then, Pall Hallvardsson. You are come to ask for money, I suspect, as you are always wanting to improve your church at the expense of everything else in the bishopric.”
“No, indeed, the church is in good repair, and even the priest’s house is—”
“It was a sight to see, indeed.”
“What was that?”
“After they carried him out, such rot! Mice were living in the bedcloset, and indeed, making use of his hair for their nests and his clothing for their litters. Folk say he was a hundred and fifty years old, and she wasn’t far behind. They say that only such a disease as the vomiting ill could have killed him, because of the relics in the church.”
“The relics in the church?”
“Those stolen from Gardar when Bishop Arni died. That’s why they lived so long. They kept the relics in their bedcloset. The bedcloset glowed from the holy radiance. Many people saw it. But then some mice carried off the relics to their nesting site away from the steading, and the vomiting ill came on, and they were as mortal as anyone, the demons.” Now he began to laugh.
“These tales seem to me to be rumors inflated by the passage of time. It is true that Sira Nikolaus and his wife lived in poor conditions and to a great age, but everything folk say about them is not truth.”
“Indeed?” Sira Jon smiled. “Well, it is a habit of yours to tell me what is true and
what is false, and to correct me at every turn, and to contradict everything I say, with that respectful tone, and to deny me. False humility and priggishness are sins, as well.”
“As well as what?”
“No doubt you would like to know, for it is generally thought that you are a nosy fellow.”
“Would it soothe you to have confession, or to pray with me?”
“Even the boards were rotten, and chewed away by mice. And listen to this. The dogs were gnawing on their bones.”
“Sira Nikolaus didn’t keep any dogs.” And so the conversation went on in this vein, sometimes about Sira Nikolaus and sometimes about how Pall Hallvardsson had betrayed Sira Jon at every turn in the last twenty-five years. What seemed most peculiar to Pall Hallvardsson was not the other priest’s manner, or even, in the end, his nakedness, but the persuasiveness of his case against himself, for indeed, he saw now that his secret sin for all these years had been the pleasure he took in setting the other man right, in undermining his self-confidence and stature among the Greenlanders. Even, perhaps, in seeing him go wrong with them and then turn away in amusement. At last Sira Jon asked Pall Hallvardsson what he was lingering for, and Pall Hallvardsson went off to find Sira Audun.
Now when he had knocked twice upon Sira Audun’s door without any response and was turning away to seek him elsewhere, Olof appeared and said to him in a low voice, “Indeed, he is in there, but he will say that he was sleeping, or he didn’t hear you knocking so softly, or he was sunk in his work, or he was at prayer. You must beat upon the door so that in the end he cannot stand it any longer and knows that he can’t wait you out.” And she approached the door and struck it with great force over and over, and after some two dozen blows, the door opened a bit and Sira Audun peeped out. When he saw Olof, he opened his mouth to speak, but when he saw Pall Hallvardsson, he stepped back and allowed him in. When Olof looked as though she, too, might enter, he closed the door hastily in her face.
Sira Audun’s was a cell Pall Hallvardsson had not visited before, and, though small, it was very neatly contrived, with a small lamp for light, a large lamp for heat, an old door set up as a desk, and a pleasantly carved three-legged stool beside it. The dirt floor was covered with two layers of reindeer skins, and more furs were piled in the corner for a bed. Some hooks had been made of antler pieces, and Sira Audun’s other robe and some additional clothing hung from these. In a line on a shelf that occurred naturally in the stone wall were a series of figures carved out of walrus teeth. These numbered thirteen, and Pall Hallvardsson could see that they were Christ and His apostles, each carrying his particular emblem, two crossed keys, a winged lion, but they were dressed as Greenlanders. Pall Hallvardsson stood admiring them. It soon became apparent that each man wished the other to speak first. At length Sira Audun said, “I was sleeping, for I have been to the churches of the south. Indeed, I am set to go to Dyrnes tomorrow or the day after.”
“You went to the south when this had happened?”
“As it was, I happened to leave a day or so before the worst. Olof and I thought that he was getting better.”
“But that very night, I am told, was the night that he raged through the cathedral and tore down the hangings and went about the steading unclothed for the first time, so that Petur could not approach him, nor any of the other servingmen, but only Olof, a young girl—”
“It cannot be said that I have had any soothing effect on him heretofore. When others cannot approach, neither can I.”
“But, indeed, you left his fate to servants and boys, so that the shame of his madness was known to everyone.”
Now it looked as though Sira Audun intended to continue his protests, for he scowled and thrust his hands into the pockets of his robe, but then he said only, “I am to blame, indeed, and I thank you for your castigation of my faults.” After that, though, he went over to his stool and sat upon it and leaned over his work as if Pall Hallvardsson were no longer there, and Pall Hallvardsson saw that it would indeed be a long time before he returned to Hvalsey Fjord, and that his wish, of leaving the administration of the bishopric in the hands of Sira Audun, was a vain one. So he went out again without speaking and found Olof waiting for him.
Now he began, with some reluctance, to look into the affairs of the place, and to speak to Petur and Olof and the other servants as a master might, and to ask them about their work. At Hvalsey Fjord this had not been his way, for at the last his only servants had been Magnus the Bent and his servingwoman Gunna, who had the help of her niece, who lived not far off, at St. Birgitta’s farm, and each dweller on the steading had known what work there was to be done, and Pall Hallvardsson had done his accounts by this method—what was meant for Gardar and as tithings and Peter’s pence he put in one cupboard, and what was meant for himself and the others who lived with him, he put in another cupboard, and for each item that he put in one cupboard, he put the same thing in the other cupboard, and when the church cupboard was full, he carried those things to Sira Jon at Gardar, to be stored there, and if Sira Jon was disappointed and complained of the poor quality of the offerings, he carried some extra from the other cupboard the next time. Now it happened that every so often it seemed to him that he ought to make a list of what was in each cupboard, but after a few days of this list making, other tasks seemed more important, and the list making fell off.
Now he looked at Sira Jon’s account books, and he saw that they were meticulously kept, with entries even from the day that he tore the hangings down in the cathedral. The health of all of the cows and sheep and goats and horses and servants was duly noted down. Meat and sourmilk taken from the storehouse for the morning meal was marked. A length of wadmal given to one of the servingmen was entered, and so on for every day since the day Jon and Alf and Petur and Pall Hallvardsson had arrived from Bergen on the ship. Each year had a single finely written-over page, and at the end of every quarter, numbers of goods for use and for the archbishop at Nidaros were totted up. Sira Jon’s hand was so fine that Pall Hallvardsson could hardly make it out, and though he sat in the light of the window for a good while, staring at the books, Sira Jon’s method for coming to the figures he wrote down escaped Pall Hallvardsson completely, although at first glance it had seemed simple enough. But indeed, Pall Hallvardsson reflected that he was some forty-five winters old now, and his eyes were dimming, and when he said the mass, it was from memory.
After he had been at this task for some little while, he began to look around himself at the great Gardar hall, from where he sat in one corner. It was a space with which he was perfectly familiar, but now he saw it afresh. Over the stone floor lay fresh moss, that would have to be carted in every two or three weeks—or oftener, for Pall Hallvardsson did not know how often the moss was swept out and renewed, but it was a prodigious quantity of moss. Above his head spread the wooden beams of the ceiling, ancient fir beams brought from Norway, carved like ship masts and black with the smoke of almost three hundred years. Would they break? Would they burn? Would they turn out to be rotten while they were under his care? The Hvalsey Fjorders were always after this and that at St. Birgitta’s church—stopping rot before it started, or repairing turves while they still held their shape—but St. Birgitta’s was a new church, only some eighty or ninety years old, and an object of great pride. Folk strolled about Gardar, admiring it and accepting it as if it were permanent. There were no records in Sira Jon’s books of repairs to the cathedral in twenty-five years. Perhaps, indeed, it was built for the ages, but perhaps these ages were about to end? Indeed, the moss of the floor, deep and dry, could spell the end of the beams of the roof, also dry, should a fire get started.
And the tapestries and hangings about the walls. They were tattered enough. Here and there the tatters were neatly stitched, but not everywhere. Even from where he was sitting he could see that repairs of some of the hangings would involve stitching stitches to stitches, and the best needlewomen in Greenland could not necessarily make such repairs handsome. Som
e of the tears offended the sight. Christ shouldering His cross, taking a taste of water, except that the cup was rent from the Lord’s lips and the cupbearer hung in a fold turned toward the stone. Sira Pall Hallvardsson got up to touch it, but saw when he approached that the wool would not stand touching. On another hanging, St. Lucy stood with her arms held out, but her dish of eyes was gone. And how did one dispose of such things as these, if he were to order them taken down? There of course would be rules, but if he had ever learned them, he did not know them now. He had never been trained for administration.
The stone of the walls looked permanent enough, but he knew from his experience at St. Birgitta’s that a wet summer followed by a cold winter produced networks of cracks in the stones as if by magic. The very turf that kept in the winter warmth held moisture against the outside of the stone until far into the summer. Even stone did not last here as it did in Europe, but shattered and crumbled. And yet, a building without turf in Greenland would be as cold as the winter itself, and no man could stand it.
Now there were the benches where the servingfolk assembled for their meals and took their leisure in the evenings. Gardar was filled with folk. He might look in Sira Jon’s book and discover how many, since that was duly noted, as well, but he knew that the number would daunt him. These folk, whose names he did not even know, would soon be coming to him for instructions in their work. Was that the worst, since he had no idea of what their work was? Sooner than that, they would be finding their places for their evening meal, and was that the worst, since he would be liable for their clothing and nourishment and the health of their souls?