The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [202]
It was the case that Eyvind had been on skis for three days since leaving Gardar, a trip which customarily went quickly in the winter. The parties from the north, weak from the famine, had encountered snow and bad weather, so that they had gotten lost between Brattahlid and Isafjord. Now, when Freydis began screeching, Eyvind grabbed her shoulders and shook her, and when she fell to the floor, he carried her out to the cowbyre, where the sheep were huddling in the warm dung, and he left her there, for he was much vexed at her. Afterward, he came in and sat down at his place and began to eat, and he made the others, Margret, Finna, and the two servingmen, eat as well, and as they were very hungry, they needed little encouragement. He said, “Freydis will soon come to herself and come scratching at the door.” But the mealtime passed, and the folk went to their bedclosets, and Freydis did not come scratching at the door, so that Finna went to her father, and asked him to go out after the girl, but he would not, so much did he abominate the child’s pride and willfulness. And so everyone, even Margret, who greatly feared the outcome of this fight, fell into a doze, as folk do when they have just eaten well for the first time in many days, and in the morning Freydis still had not come in, although the door to the steading was not barred in any way.
Now Margret got up and she saw that Eyvind was putting on his sheepskin, and he smiled at her, and said, “She would not be an Eyvindsdottir if her pride did not match mine, but I suspect that her remorse will match mine, as well,” and he went out carrying some dried whalemeat and some bits of cheese, and he did not come in for a long while. Margret went about her tasks, and the others began to stir, and still Eyvind did not come in, and so Margret donned her cloak and went out into the yard. Eyvind and Freydis were not to be seen, although there was much crying of sheep from the cowbyre. Margret approached slowly. The door was ajar. She opened it a little more, and it seemed to her that some sights could not be prepared for and that this would be one of them. Inside the door, Eyvind squatted in the warm sheep dung. Above him, in the half light of the warm, turfed-up byre, Freydis hung by her neck from a beam, and she was dead. Now Eyvind began to cry out and weep with such violence as she had never seen before. He rent his clothing, and hammered his head against the stones of the byre, and the sheep ran about his legs and raised a great riot. He cried out that she was his favorite, his snow bunting, his darling, his baby, and Margret saw that he was afraid to touch the maiden’s corpus. And at this sight, tears started from Margret’s eyes for what she thought might be the first time in her life. Then the servingmen came out to begin their work, and Finna followed them, but none could get near Eyvind or Freydis, so wild was the father at the daughter’s death.
Folk in Isafjord were not inclined to blame Eyvind for this mishap, but blamed Freydis herself for her melancholy and her high temper, both of which she was well known for. Some blamed the hunger, which maddened folk, or made fools of them. There was an old servingman at another Isafjord farm who had gone out not many days before and lost his way between the byre and the steading, a matter of some twenty paces, so that he had turned round and round and finally fallen in the snow insensible. And another Isafjord man had come upon his wife and beaten her, and his two children as well, so that they had nearly died. Folk in Isafjord were inclined to say that life in Isafjord was harder and more