The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [155]
Only once did Margret dare look back at Steinstraumstead, and when she did, she saw that her own hillside loomed above her. Momentarily it seemed to her that the ice she was walking on was slipping backwards underneath her feet, so that no matter how she stepped forward, the ice carried her back. She shook off this feeling and looked at Bryndis, shrouded in the foxskins so that nothing of her skin could be seen, only the movement of the fox fur as she breathed against it. She would be sleeping with Asta’s walking, and warm in the furs. Margret turned her mind upon this, the sight of the little girl sleeping warmly among the furs, and she thought about it with absorption, so that when she had to go off to bring a sheep closer into the group, she longed for the sight of Bryndis asleep as if it were her own warm bedcloset or a seat beside a fire. On her back, Sigurd sat still and calm, as Gunnar never had. Now Asta forged forward in front of the sheep, breaking a path through drifted snow. Margret saw that good luck alone would carry them across the fjord, and she could not help giving herself up to contemplating her luck, which was little enough, all things considered. But then the thought of Skuli Gudmundsson came to her, and with it something that her father had often said, that a man’s luck shows itself differently to him than it does to his neighbors. And in the midst of these thoughts she saw that they were more than halfway across the fjord.
Not long after this, one of the ewes stumbled and fell down, and then did not get up. Margret called out to Asta, who turned and saw the sheep, which was lying on its side with its eyes closed. And Asta made her way back to the sheep, and hefted it into the crook of her arm and began to carry it forward. But then another sheep fell over, and there was no carrying two. Margret went to the second sheep and began to coax it to its feet, and briefly it stood up, while she was slapping it and urging it, for sheep are fearful beasts and they distrust the touch of hands. But after stumbling a step or two, the second ewe fell into the snow again, and Margret saw that it would have to be left there to freeze to death.
In this way they trudged forward, and some time later they came to the Brattahlid jetty, and Margret began to look about for a servingman or someone else to help them, for indeed she felt like falling down herself from the weight of Sigurd Kolsson on her back, but no one was there, so they began the steep climb to Osmund’s steading, only stopping at the cowbyre to fold the sheep in with the others that were already folded there, and to gather for them a few handfuls of hay from the stack in front of the byre. And it was the case with Margret that the sight of the buildings filled her, not with the desire to go forward into them, but with the false assurance that if she were to founder just where she was standing, she would be discovered and preserved. And from this she knew that she had nearly died on this journey across the fjord. Asta, too, labored painfully up the hillside, and looked about for folk but saw none.
And now it happened that they came to the door of the large steading, and still they had seen no one in the byres, no one in the storehouses, no one in the dairy, no one gathering snow to be melted for drinking water. Asta put her shoulder against the door and it swung open, and she stepped inside with Margret just behind her. The room was warm and humid, but dark, for no lamps had been lit. Margret and Asta stood still and peered about. In the master