The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [223]
And for the rest of the day and evening, Jon Andres sat up and looked alertly about himself, for it seemed to him that Ofeig, and maybe Mar and Einar, would come at him and try to kill him, but they did not. They left quietly with Halldor and Andres, going on skis and leading their horses in a line behind them. After they left, Jon Andres slept, only with three servants standing guard over the steading, and when he woke up, he loitered about the steading rather aimlessly, wishing for companionship, for he had not been without some of these boys since he was twelve winters old.
After leaving Ketils Stead, Halldor and Andres parted from the other two, and took their horses and goods to the south, and what they found there was no better, but no worse, than what was to be found at any other steading in the district, namely that some folk had died and some had not, and there was little food to be had. Einar and Mar decided to go to the steading of their uncle, the brother of their mother, a man named Ari, and they parted from Ofeig and made their way to Yfirfoss Stead, where Ari lived, but they only stayed there two days, for Ari had nothing to give them. Ofeig made it his plan to linger about Undir Hofdi church, and to squat in the priest’s house there, for he knew that Sira Audun would not be back for some weeks. It seemed to him that if Thorkel Gellison were to find him, he would kill him rather than take him in again.
Einar and Mar returned from Yfirfoss, and went to the steading of another uncle, this one the husband of their mother’s sister, a man named Bengt, and they left this steading after four days. Then they went to the steading of a cousin, a man named Ingvald. Here they stayed for two days before leaving. At each of these steadings, the one thing they spoke of was how much food Vigdis of Gunnars Stead had stored everywhere on her farm, and it did not take long for this news to penetrate every steading in the district, and for men to begin to talk about what a crime it was for this old woman to have so much food all to herself. Sometime in their travels, Mar and Einar began to discuss a notion they had, of taking some of Vigdis’ food and using it as a gift to win themselves a permanent place on some steading. In every case when they brought this up, as something that ought to be done, or could easily be done, one man or other on every steading looked at them with quickened interest.
Not long after leaving Ingvald’s little steading, they ran into Ofeig, who told about staying at the priest’s house at the church, and they came there and joined him. Ofeig had no food left, and Mar and Einar had just enough for a mouthful for everyone, and that night they began chatting again, as always, about Vigdis, and the next morning, all three of the men left the church house and went in different directions, and two days later, all three were back, and about twelve other men besides, and these men lingered about the church house all day, and then, in the evening, they departed in a band and directed themselves toward Gunnars Stead.
It was a saying among the Greenlanders, that “not every gobbet in the stew is mutton,” and this was the case, also, with Ofeig’s band of men. Some men will join any undertaking simply to see what might happen, others have vaguer motives even than this. They follow any movement, perhaps, simply because movement is of interest in the dead of winter. A few men, such as Bengt, the uncle of the Marssons, had heard of Vigdis’ quantities of provisions and ached to see them, merely to see the truth of the tale. Mar and Einar thought of stealing a portion. Others,