The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [101]
Days passed quietly at Gunnars Stead, and the winter was no colder than previous ones, Lent no longer, and Easter no warmer. The sheep were just beginning to lamb when the time arrived for Gunnar to take his goods to Gardar and reclaim Asgeir’s second field. The custom was in such cases that on the day nine years to the day after the sentence was passed, the guilty man or his heirs would appear with goods to a value already fixed upon, pay them over, and receive his rights again, but if he did not appear on this day, then he was to lose his rights permanently and the duty of the bishop, or in this case, his representative, was to dispose of the confiscated property as he saw fit. Everyone in the district knew which day this was to be—two days before the feast of St. Hallvard of Oslo—and Pall Hallvardsson went forth himself to Gardar to make sure of Sira Jon.
Now it happened that on the evening before the day of the journey, the goods were placed in chests and all things were made ready, as Gunnar and Olaf intended to stay at Gardar for two or three days, and then the folk went to their bedclosets and slept.
After dark, some men came over the hill from the south, and they were servants of Erlend Ketilsson, led by Ketil the Unlucky, who was now a young man with an evil reputation about the district. There were six in the band. The first thing they did was to drag the two small Gunnars Stead boats north over the hill to the waters of the fjord, where they set them adrift. After this, they returned to Gunnars Stead and began to round up the four horses, thinking to take them into the mountains and hobble them where they would be difficult to find, but it so happened that the mare Mikla would not at first allow herself to be caught, and when she was caught through the effort of four of the men, she began whinnying and fighting so that Ketil took out his knife and cut her throat and left her lying in the horse pen. The other horses were taken off and left at the spot where Skuli Gudmundsson had met his death. The Gunnars Stead folk slept as if under a spell.
Now it was almost morning. Ketil’s last act was to open the fence of the sheep pen and drive the flock into the homefield, where the grass was new and the earth wet from snow melt. When, a while later, Olaf rose to make ready for his journey, he found livestock scattered everywhere.
At Ketils Stead, Erlend and Vigdis made ready their goods, and had them carried to their boat, which was moored near the church in Einars Fjord, and sometime in the morning, they, too, along with Ketil and their steward, set out for Gardar, arriving just after mid-day. Now everyone at Gardar sat still and waited for the appearance of Gunnar and Olaf, but the day went on and then declined into darkness, and they neither came themselves nor sent a message. Pall Hallvardsson sat with Sira Jon so that Erlend might not get at him, and the two priests stayed up through the whole night until the morning light, but day did not shine upon the folk from Gunnars Stead, and Sira Jon came out into the hall and greeted Erlend and Vigdis, and received their goods, but asked them to stay one more day in case Gunnar might show up, for Pall Hallvardsson was determined that Gunnar not be cheated or tricked.
But on this day, the day before the feast of St. Hallvard, a great storm blew off the ice cap so that no journeys could be made, and folk were hard put even to go from the farmstead to the byre, and the ewes at Gardar chose this day to drop their lambs, and so there was a great stir there. This storm lasted all that day and all the next, and then Erlend and Vigdis made ready to go back to Ketils Stead, and as there still had been no message from Gunnar, they were awarded the great field, to have entirely as their own. It happened that as they rowed back to Vatna Hverfi, they espied the two Gunnars Stead boats, smashed to pieces