The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [133]
“I can’t help it that they fill up my eyes with their beauty and winsome ways.”
Now Lavrans waited for a long time, then he spoke in a low voice. “One at least blinds your sight. One at least has brought you some ill luck already, more than a newborn babe has brought you. One at least will do much harm before he does good, because the devil draws him on.”
“He is lively, indeed, but not ill disposed.”
“He is disposed to do as he pleases until everyone around him is displeased. Then he is content.”
Now Birgitta stood up, and she was much offended, and she took the new baby from her father and put her in the bedcloset, and after this Birgitta chatted little with her father, and always spoke to him in a cool and formal tone of voice.
In the middle of the summer, sometime around the feast of St. Benedikt, a ship painted bright colors and sporting a red and white sail rode into Hvalsey Fjord, and stood off Lavrans’ tiny landing until Gunnar, who was herding sheep down by the water, motioned it to approach. This was a ship belonging, of course, to Bjorn Einarsson, and Bjorn and Einar and twelve other men, including Thorkel Gellison, disembarked. Gunnar made them welcome and asked after the news in Vatna Hverfi district and at Gardar, and Thorkel told him the following tale:
At the previous Yule, Vigdis, the wife of Erlend Ketilsson, declared herself divorced from Erlend, although they had never been married by a priest, and moved away from Ketils Stead and installed herself with a steward and six servants and Jon Andres Erlendsson at Gunnars Stead, and when folk, such as beggars and travelers, came about looking for hospitality and gossip, she sent them off speedily without either. Erlend, on the other hand, seemed willing to entertain everyone in the district, and sent out messengers inviting folk to not one but two feasts, except that when folk arrived for the first of these feasts, Erlend had made no preparations, and acted as if he had invited no one, and when folk arrived for the second of these feasts, more to see what was going on than in the expectation of festivities, he served up much food, but it was all nearly rotten or badly cooked, and he spent the whole time making much of one of his servants, a fat, gap-toothed girl who dressed herself in all of Vigdis’ finest gowns, and all at once, one on top of the other.
After these feasts, Vigdis stopped being so unfriendly, and indeed, invited folk to Gunnars Stead and made them talk of Erlend and Ketils Stead and this servingmaid until they were hoarse, for she couldn’t get enough of any tale. And in addition to this, she had her servants take down the stone wall around the great field Erlend had won from Asgeir and Gunnar, and rebuild it so that the field was again part of Gunnars Stead, and any of Erlend’s servants who were found trying to manure the field were driven off by Vigdis’ servants.
And after Thorkel told this tale, which the Lavrans Stead folk found very interesting, Bjorn took Gunnar aside and asked for Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir as a bride for Einar his foster son, and he listed all of Einar’s assets in Iceland and said also that he had given Einar the very ship that they had sailed in to Hvalsey Fjord, which was a large enough ship for seafaring, but nimble and neat. And Gunnar replied, as all men do, that he would leave the decision to his daughter, though he had no doubt that she would agree, but he made one condition, on account of the girl’s age, that she stay at home, only betrothed, until she was the age that Birgitta had been on her marriage, and, should Bjorn choose to leave Greenland before that time, that she would go away under the protection of Solveig Ogmundsdottir, and live with her as a daughter until she reached the proper age. Bjorn and Einar agreed to this condition, and after that, the men from the ship stayed for two days, feasting and celebrating the betrothal.
When it came time for them to leave, Gunnar had a great desire to go with them on the ship, although it was only going to Gardar, and it was arranged that