The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [177]
He told her about Sira Jon. “The eyes started from his head and his arms swiveled in their sockets, showing to anyone who cares to see it that the fellow is possessed of the devil and there can be no two opinions about it. And indeed, what help is there if the chief priest himself lies open to evil like a trencher on a bench? And so Sira Pall Hallvardsson is in charge, and perhaps, you might go there. Weren’t you a friend of Sira Pall Hallvardsson once?”
“And what do folk say of Sira Pall Hallvardsson?” asked Margret.
The man smiled. “The servingfolk say that he is timid enough for them, and lets them do as they please. It seems to me that everyone expected the new bishop a long time ago, and will be glad enough when he gets here. But folk have been expecting new bishops for most of my life, and only one has ever come.”
Margret sat looking out over the water. Icebergs were beginning to gather in the fjord, blue underneath, white on top.
“Or you might follow Sira Isleif to Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker, for Bjorn Bollason is greedy for help.”
“So she has sent him off, then?”
“Not just yet. Folk say that any priest in the house is better than none after all, especially through the winter, when folk are dying and need to be ministered to, and it is better not to have to go out, but only to go among the bedclosets in your stocking feet. But Bjorn Bollason is urging her, and promises to send two or three of his folk in exchange, plus other gifts. It seems to me that her only hesitation has to do with the difference between what she considers enough and what Bjorn Bollason considers too much. She looks about her folk and tries to foresee who is going to die this winter!” He laughed. “Her son looks healthy enough, and it is not at all sure that she would send for a priest for Ragnleif!” He laughed again, and Margret smiled. “But indeed, folk who go there on errands say that Bjorn Bollason’s place is a merry one, and the masters do much to ingratiate themselves with the servants, as if the servants might go elsewhere, as indeed they might, that is true enough these days. That would be a good place for you.”
“Nay, Sira Isleif would attend too much to his lost sheep. Neither of these crowded steadings interests me. I have never been to Isafjord.”
“Isafjord is a bitter place, and it would be well if you never went there.”
“It is not so far off from Eriks Fjord, only over the hills a bit.”
“But that bit is enough. The whole place slopes northward, and the fjord is full of ice winter and summer. Folk who were born there, with lots of land, long to get out. It is truly said that a small farm in Vatna Hverfi district is like unto an estate in Isafjord.”
“Even so, I am curious to go there.”
Now the servingman picked up the oars to the boat and looked Margret full in the face. Then he said, “It is true enough that we are old, you and I, for your hair is as white as can be and my fingers are bent and my hips ache all the time now, day and night, winter and summer. But even so, there are many abandoned farmsteads these days, and some in happy locations, and it would please me to wed you and go to one of these places.”
“Do you know that I am married already to Olaf Finnbogason of Hvalsey Fjord? Have you heard that he has died?”
“Folk don’t hear much of the Hvalsey Fjorders, but I have not heard that anyone of that name has died.” After this they rowed in silence to the Brattahlid jetty, and Margret got out of the boat with her things, and packed them onto her back, and then for some days, she herded her sheep, which numbered nine this year, to Isafjord, and there she found herself a place for the winter at a large but somewhat ramshackle steading owned by a man named Eyvind, who had four daughters. As all folk do who are going into service, Margret gave her sheep and her cheeses and her reindeer hides and her meat to Eyvind as a pledge of her service, and he promised to return the value of these goods to her should