The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [235]
It seemed to Margret that Solar Fell was to be her final home, and that her final trial was to be watched and imitated without cease by Sigrid and even Signy herself, who had a habit of glancing at Margret as she worked, and then cocking her head or fixing her hand so that it imitated a gesture that Margret might be making. She was always admonishing Sigrid, by pokes and nods in Margret’s direction, to stand up proudly. This attention discomfited her for more reasons than one. It seemed to Margret that no Greenlander could be without knowledge of her adultery with Skuli the Norwegian, but indeed, Signy had been but a child of fourteen in those times, and Bjorn Bollason himself only nine. Hoskuld would have been at the Thing where Gunnar tricked Kollbein Sigurdsson out of his judgment, but even Hoskuld seemed not to remember or to recognize her. Perhaps it was only that he was an old man and had his own ancient quarrels to ruminate upon. Or perhaps folk didn’t care about such things as they once had. Bjorn Bollason and Signy, for example, had a number of friends in both Brattahlid and Dyrnes who had left their families during one year of the hunger or another and gone to live with mates before the wedding. And most folk, it was said, were too poor for weddings now, anyway. Too poor to send for the priest, too poor to give a feast, too poor to carry gifts to the bridal couple, too poor to leave off the farm work for such pleasures. And even if there were no weddings, there had to be children, didn’t there? Of all folk, children had suffered and dwindled the most during the hunger. Perhaps, Margret thought as they rowed the short trip across the fjord to Solar Fell, folk hadn’t cared much then. Perhaps only she and Gunnar had cared so much.
Always, when they came up the slope toward the steading, the Solar Fell folk stopped at the shrine of St. Olaf and said a prayer to him, or looked for evidence of a miracle, and it was Margret’s habit to linger behind so that her failure to do this wouldn’t be noticed. This time, however, even in the dark, Sigrid did notice, and came up to her and took her hand, saying, “Do you not love St. Olaf for his innocence?”
“He was surely a good little boy, and much loved by his family, but I do not know the truth about his holy nature.”
“But my father says that he has saved us from the hunger, and that it was our great good fortune to live so close to the shrine.”
“I would not contradict him, if Sira Pall Hallvardsson does not.”
Now Sigrid fell silent but continued to hold Margret’s hand as they entered the steading. She was a handsome child, with surprising dark hair and bright blue eyes, for indeed, it was said that some Irishmen had come with a boat of Icelanders to Greenland in the time of King Sverri and left their mark on the lineage of a few Dyrnes families. At any rate, both Bjorn Bollason and Signy thought a great deal of the girl, more perhaps, than they thought of any one of their four sons, although Bjorn Bollason always brought the boys forward as a group and bade them to plant their feet just so and straighten their shoulders and look folk in the eye, and on and on. The regard of the parents had not spoiled Sigrid’s temperament, though, and she had the open manner of one who thought well of herself but knew that pride was a sin.
Margret’s principal task at Solar Fell was to weave fine wadmal for Sigrid’s dowry, as the girl was now some sixteen winters old and expected to be married within the next four or five winters. This weaving was a pleasure to Margret, for the Solar Fell steading was one of the finest sheep-raising places