The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [173]
“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