Paths of the Norseman Read online

  After three hours more of hard rowing and hard steering we passed the easternmost shores of Iceland. We were finally out of the terrific wind and so the seas were calmer. Despite the small, welcome respite, I could feel that the arctic air was colder, much colder than the air we just left. It was snowing quite heavily. The wind was such that we decided to chance the sail and make time. Once it was raised we cut through the cold waters swiftly. Snow piled on the cold deck planks, making the footing questionable at best. Thorgils took the opportunity to pelt, first his father, then me, then all the men, with snowballs. When Leif cuffed his head and we sent our own snow missiles to him in return, he quickly lost interest in the game.

  The storm raged to the south and west with a tar black sky occasionally illuminated by the out-of-place lightning. Several small icebergs bounced in the waves one or two miles to the north. Our trip around the Iceland’s north coast was uneventful for many hours.

  By the middle of the following day we came to the northwestern-most corner of Iceland. This fjord-laden outcropping of land would be our last chance to find a suitable place to make shore before we sailed once again into the raging storm. The weather ahead looked like a wall. The frigid air in which we sailed crashed headlong into the warmer, eruptive air to the island’s west. The seas were higher and had menacing caps of white. As we approached, the snowfall turned to icy rain. For the sake of the sail, Leif ordered that it be brought in. Cold men grumbled, but quickly found their rowing benches after taking a final draught of ale. The holes were unplugged and the oars threaded through with some difficulty due to the pitching seas. We wouldn’t be stopping; Leif was determined to be the first man to cross the seas without a single landfall pause.

  Leif and his thrall Haki began hacking with their axes at the ice building up on the decks and gunwale. The women and children looked miserable, huddling in their hudfats to find whatever warmth or dryness they could. Inside one sac Haekja held her long black hair away from her mouth as she vomited onto the planking from the rough seas. The vomit mixed with the ice and water and ran down between the planks into the bilge. Several men stood in that bilge in the freezing water baling bucket after bucket over the sides to keep us afloat. The priest, Torleik, kneeled in his wet robes, using his hands to balance himself whenever a particularly rough wave crossed beneath the ship, praying in Latin for safe passage through the storm.

  Visibility was terrible. Driving freezing rain, a black sky, and black seas were all I could see while I fought with the steering oar. That is, until two massive icebergs appeared to starboard as if conjured by the old gods. One spun on an invisible vertical axis as it rose and dipped its way toward us. The other, more massive iceberg moved with purpose on what looked like an intercept course toward Dragon Skull. Icebergs are not stationary fence posts avoided by a touch to a horse’s reins. No, they’re tricky, always searching the seas for unwary travelers. Though King Olaf saw that we were all converted to the One True God, I still often thought of the old gods and old ways and said a prayer to both Thor and Frey that day. Since I wore my cross tunic which I received as a gift from Olaf, I prayed to the One God as well.

  The action I am about to describe will take longer to read than it did to occur. The smaller, spinning iceberg came along the length of our starboard hull and snapped off each man’s oar as it undulated on its sea path. I tried to shout a warning but my screams were swallowed by the storm. The backward facing men were all surprised by the force and each received a blow to the chest from their now bladeless oar handles. Many of them toppled off their benches to hit the man or bench to the fore. The berg would pass by so close that I could have reached out and touched it had I not needed both hands on the jostling rudder. As it approached the stern I shrieked to Leif and Tyrkr, who hacked at ice nearby to drop their axes and grab the heavy iron anchor immediately and throw it at the spinning mass of ice. To Thorgunna nestled in a nearby hudfat, I yelled to shorten the anchor’s line to twenty or thirty feet by tying it off. Thankfully, all listened without question or I would not be here writing my tale this day.

  Because even though the direct danger was the iceberg tearing our oars just inches from the hull, my attention focused on the second. I had turned Dragon Skull’s course to port by struggling with my feet on the icy deck to lean against the steering oar, but it appeared to me that the second, enormous iceberg corrected its own route to again intercept us as a sentient being would have done. We had mere moments before a collision sent us to the icy depths of Hel. Maneuvering in the stirring sea was made more difficult by our lack of starboard oars while those men strained to regain their feet and retrieve the spare set of oars from the T-shaped rack at the center of the ship.

  Within ten seconds Thorgunna had a strong seafarer’s knot and Leif and Tyrkr heaved the anchor. We had only one chance for my ridiculous plan to work, but I knew it would when the sharp prongs of the anchor caught in the whirling ice. The slack in the rope wound around it for a half a turn as the mass of ice moved past us still swirling. As much as I thought I was prepared for the jolt, I found I was not. When the thick rope pulled taut, both the iceberg and the longboat snapped toward one another. Each of us aboard that day tumbled to the deck with many bruises showing later as proof. I scampered back to my feet grabbing Tyrkr’s axe and swung the brutal instrument with maddening force at the anchor’s rope stretched over the gunwale. The tense rope sprung away toward the iceberg while the blade of the axe became embedded in the ship’s hull. I looked over my shoulder just as the enormous second iceberg passed across the front of our path. We had slowed Skull just enough to avoid the deadly collision, but I would have to buy Leif a new anchor.

  We rowed west and south for many more hours, gradually moving out of the storm. As the next day dawned a little more brightly than what we had seen in recent days we moved into the strong, cold current that marches southward down the east coast of Greenland and were able to stow the oars and take advantage of a frigid wind blowing from the north into our full sail. We rested and tried to warm ourselves, with clapping hands and songs.

  Torleik was leading a mass from the prow, praising the One God for our miraculous passing when I saw a most unexpected sight. Ahead to starboard, sitting atop a lone, jagged crag jutting from the sea was a collection of shivering men. One of them managed to gain the presence of mind or the strength, I don’t know which, to stand and wave to us. Spray from the crashing sea rose to blanket the men every few moments. I interrupted Torleik in mid-sentence by saying, “Father, God has given us more miracles to perform this day.” The perturbed priest, first looked at me and then to where I pointed.

  The rescue was not much of an affair, but is significant for its later impact on the events following in Greenland. While the men pulled on the Skull’s oars to maintain the longboat’s position, I went with a row boat to retrieve the stranded souls. Because of the rough water, we dared not get close so we yelled to the miserable lot to make a flying jump one at a time. This was a long process. Each one grabbed the rope we threw to them and were so frozen by the time we hauled their dripping forms into the boat that they said nothing. Their beards were decorated with icicles which danced as their teeth chattered behind blue lips. We saved six men that day.

  Three of the men would lose a little finger or part of their ears to frostbite, but all-in-all it was a success. Another night and morning brought us within sight of Greenland. Soon we rounded the southern tip and by the next evening we entered Eriksfjord and pushed to Eystribyggo and Erik’s estate, Brattahlid. We were the first ship to ever pilot across all the northern seas without a single stop along the way!

  . . .

  Over two thousand Norsemen and women now inhabited Greenland; more than two times what was there when we were banished. I think that in the weeks since our return, Erik took us to visit nearly half of them. He was demonstrably proud of Leif and his lovely Thorgunna. Erik took to being a grandfather to Thorgils as I would have expected, with vigor. He traipsed us over ice and snow from estate to estate and in and out of longhouses to show what he deemed as our jubilant return. Old Sindri had passed away, but his widow, a woman he married several years after his first wife was murdered at Fridr Rock, yet lived in his old longhouse. She seemed to remember Leif and me, but I did not recall her face at all. According to Erik, the old widow raised goats that gave the finest milk in all of Eystribyggo. It was like that day after day. Slogging through the weather and visiting neighbors, catching up on the mundane details of life in this, our isolated Norse settlement.

  Erik and Thorgils seemed to love the adventure. He would ride on his grandfather’s shoulders as we walked or sometimes even as we rode horses from farm to farm. Leif and Thorgunna seemed at ease, effortlessly accepting their new roles as son and daughter-in-law to the jarl of Greenland. For my part, I was shocked again at the lack of trees and the rocks, rocks, rocks that littered the landscape. Darkness stole most of the day.

  I loved Erik as a second father, but missed my third father, Olaf. I missed the excitement of the sea. I missed the trees and glens of Europe. When I thought of trees I thought of the two straight years I searched the woods with Thorberg Skaffhog for the right lumber for the two great longboats I built for my king in our new capital city of Kaupangen.

  I was welcomed there in Eystribyggo as a son, but felt out of place. Leif knew from a vision that I would return to this forbidding land, but that did not mean I would stay. As we climbed another rise and the wind bit into my cheeks like a thrall’s cooking knife I resolved to complete the duty I assigned to myself, to kill Bjarni for the wickedness and massacre he wrought. He would die by my hand, perhaps with a swing of my sword or the quick thrust of my saex. Then after the spring equinox I would leave my second father again, seeking my fortune els
ewhere. I was a different man than I was when I left Greenland whimpering like a child for being separated from my second father. That morning I cried like a baby searching for his mother’s warm breast and the life it brought. Since then, I had fought in great battles, giving death. I now read and spoke several languages. Perhaps I would sail to Europe again. I had friends in Dyflin and likely still had a hoard of hacksilver buried beneath my home there. Maybe I would find my way to the Holy Land to locate Olaf, again serving him as Berserker and adopted son. The only thing of which I was certain at that moment was that I would leave Greenland in the spring.

  After our reintroduction to the Greenlander society, we settled into Brattahlid for the long winter. I stayed in the main longhouse with Erik and his wife Thjordhildr. It was still the largest, most impressive residence in the settlement. He and Thjordhildr were warm and caring as I remembered them, but carried an unspoken sadness that I did not recall seeing when I left. I supposed it was the sadness that came with age as a result of the harshness of the life we all find ourselves living. Leif and his family stayed in my old longhouse across the pasture until they could build their own when the weather turned. My old house now belonged to Freydis and her husband, Torvard. They had added significant space to the house, though they had no children with which to fill it.

  The Yule approached and Leif, in cahoots with Torleik, who was still bent on carrying out King Olaf’s demand to bring Christianity to Greenland, requested that Erik hold a feast at Brattahlid for those near enough to make the cold journey. All men see the same event differently and this was no exception. Erik saw another opportunity to command an audience, to keep his power, and so gladly accepted. Leif saw an opportunity to plead the case for the One God to that same captive audience. I saw an opportunity to lay my eyes upon Bjarni again and plan the method of my retribution.

  The Yule would be a three day celebration with drinking, feasting, and sacrifices. Erik would offer toasts and skalds would tell of the legends through verse. During the short daylight of the first day of feasting, the men of Erik’s family went out into the unwelcoming weather to make the sacrifices. Leif declined to enlist in the ritual, saying that he was unwell. I knew the real reason was that he thought it was wrong to profess the new faith and still practice the old ways. I was not so certain about such rules so I joined Erik, Thorvald, and Tyrkr, who despite being a freeman, made his bed among the thralls in their tiny home on Brattahlid.

  Thorvald, Leif’s older brother, lived in Eriksfjord on a rocky farm closer to the sea, but within riding distance. Out of Erik’s three sons, Thorvald was most like Erik in personality –gregarious, ready to laugh, and he happily organized his mind to avoid any complex thought. For better or worse, he acted. Thorvald did not discuss. He was married to a woman who emigrated from Iceland in the years I was gone. She was called Gro and was a plain woman with thin, dirty blond hair. Gro was the second wife of Thorvald. By all accounts his first was a pretty, quick-witted woman who died after she slipped on ice and fell against jagged rocks, eventually tumbling into the fjord one spring morning several years earlier. Thorvald had no children by either woman.

  Young Thorstein, the youngest brother of Leif, did not join us for the sacrifices. Apart from Leif, he was the most successful of Erik’s children. The boy who played warrior with wooden sticks when I last saw him had become the chief of the western Norse settlement called Vestribyggo. Thorstein was not with us this day, for making the journey so late in the year would be near suicide. He was considered a wise, just ruler and I was told he had a lovely Icelandic bride named Gudrid. She was purported to have thick golden blonde hair that was straight like a tall forest pine, though it was now wound tightly in the braids expected of a married woman. In past years Thorstein led expeditions to Europe, even travelling to Ireland for a time. When I learned of his adventures, I decided I would ask him what he thought of my old town, Dyflin.

  The four of us – Erik, Thorvald, Tyrkr, and I – led several thralls into the barn which housed the livestock during the winter. In the old country we would sometimes be able to perform the sacrificial ceremonies in the open forest or glades. But here the cold was deepening by the day; and none of us had the intention of standing in the stinging wind unless necessary. Since Erik didn’t see fit to build a temple to the gods, the barn would serve in its place. Two of the young thralls brought a fine chestnut stallion from its place to the center of the barn. We stood around the horse which was held in place by reins extending from its rope bridle. I hobbled the horse by tying two of its legs together with rope.

  Erik said to me, “You ought to do this. We’ve all had the honor for years, but you’ve been gone. And it sounds like this Olaf had you stuck with the boring Christian God.” I looked to Thorvald to make sure he wasn’t offended that an adopted son performed a duty rightly completed by the family, but he indicated with his hand that I should go ahead. Erik’s old bones were getting cold already so he spoke the words for Thorvald, “Get on with it!”

  I pulled my saex, the only item I inherited from my real father, from my belt and walked to the horse’s neck. I slapped the animal’s front quarter and gave him a soft murmur as I drove the blade into the beast’s neck. His nostrils flared and his black eyes widened with fright while he reared. Blood spurted all over me and sprayed as a pulsating mist over the barn floor. His fore legs rose and he clawed the air with his hooves until he planted them back on the ground, landing with a crash. He repeated this three times while the thralls held tightly to the reins for control. On the third trip back down to the earthen floor all four of his legs crumpled beneath him and he sprawled onto his left side. Erik handed me a bowl and I bent down to the dying animal’s neck to fill it with the hlaut, or sacrificial blood. When the vessel was full I walked to Erik, handing it to him. He produced a hlautteinar, or sacrificial twig, dipped it into the blood, and used it to sprinkle the hlaut on me, then Thorvald, then Tyrkr.

  We repeated this process several times with goats and sheep and then left the butchering to the thralls. The sacrificed animals’ meat would be boiled in colossal pots suspended from the rafters or roasted on spits above the great hearth in Brattahlid’s hall for the coming feasts. The bowl containing any excess hlaut would be carried around the hearth several times tonight and Erik, our chief, would offer a prayer to the gods, specifically Odin. How all of our old rituals – heathen rituals many of Olaf’s priests would have called them – would help Leif plead the cause of the One God escaped me.

  . . .

  Villagers began arriving in the hall from the neighboring estates shortly after we finished our sacrifices. We did not clean the hlaut from our bodies as we wanted the blood from our noble sacrifices to bring us the life power it once gave them. The guests all anticipated that while Erik circled the hearth with the blood-filled bowl, he would use the hlautteinar to cover them with the blood as well.

  The first visitor to appear was Thorhall the Huntsman. He was a bachelor who was old when we were banished and looked like the oldest man I had ever seen by the time of our return. Despite the deep furrows which crossed his face he was an extraordinary specimen. He had a dark complexion and was tall and gaunt. But Thorhall was a spry, active hunter and fishermen. He accompanied Erik, still, on his many expeditions into the sea for narwhal and walruses. The Huntsman was known to be temperamental and overbearing with a melancholy disposition at even the most festive times. Despite these traits, Erik was fond of him as the two men shared stories of youthful adventures in Norway. As the sullen man shook off the cold, I thought that Thorhall would likely remind me of my old friend Thorberg, the master shipwright, so I looked forward to becoming reacquainted with him.