The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [245]
Now Larus was brought into the steading and put into a small chamber and left there. Ashild and Tota were given a bite to eat, and put into another small chamber with a little lamp for light and heat. After some time, Sira Eindridi Andresson, the hardest man that Gardar had to offer these days, came in to Larus, and spoke to him, and elicited his story from him, and then declared that such tales were heretical lies, and described in colorful terms the fate of souls convicted of heresy, how they would be ground into small bits and rendered in the fires of hell and pierced and poked and sliced and mashed, for as long as all eternity, which was so long that all the generations of men since the time of Erik the Red were as an eyeblink in a whole life. But Larus, although he wept and cried out, did not depart from his tale.
Now Larus was taken into the greatest chamber in the steading, and Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker was seated in the high seat, with Sira Eindridi beside him, and Bjorn Bollason himself commenced to question Larus, and to tell him what the law requires of men who perjure themselves about the Lord. It requires their property, down to the last rag upon their backs, the last broken spoon in their pockets. It requires that they be outlawed, and sent to the ice and the barrens above the settlement. It requires that their steadings be burnt up, so that no one else will go into that evil place. It requires that salt water be hauled up from the fjord and dumped upon their homefield. It requires that their wives take other husbands and their children assume the names of bastards. Now Larus begged that these punishments not be brought to bear upon him, for it was not his desire or doing that the Lord should appear to him and tell him anything, “For,” he said, “when great folk tell you anything, they blame you for it afterwards.”
Now Ashild was brought forth, and she, too, was told what the law requires of heretical liars, and she too was reduced to begging for Larus’ life. But, indeed, she was not moved from her tale that she had dipped up sourmilk for the Lord Himself twice a day for three days, and that she had washed His spoon and put it away in His spoon case, and a plain spoon it was, simple horn, like anyone’s spoon.
Now little Tota, who was five winters old, was brought forth and made to sit down upon the bench, and she was asked what the visitor had done when He was among them, and she said that He had taken her upon His knee and also that He had turned the meat she didn’t like back to good again. After this, the three were taken again to their two chambers, and Bjorn Bollason and Sira Eindridi conferred.
Now it was the case that Bjorn Bollason regretted the death of Sira Isleif, for although he had spoken to Larus with great force, he was not really certain what the law was in these matters, and how far he should carry out the threats he had made against a fellow who was so firm in his convictions. The fact was that Bjorn Bollason was somewhat reluctant to punish Larus, and wished that he had not brought the man to Solar Fell, but had ignored the predictions. Sira Eindridi said that the fellow might be tortured and made to confess that he was telling lies, but of course this had to be done by Bjorn Bollason rather than by Gardar, for the Church does not engage in torture of the souls in her keeping. Now Bjorn Bollason bethought himself, and tried to remember as much as possible of the laws, and after a while he said that it seemed to him that the Thing itself had never ordered torture of anyone, but that folk who were to be tortured had been in the hands of the king of Norway’s representative. Sigurd Kollbeinsson, it was said, had had a fellow tortured. Some hot irons were applied to the palms of his hands, he thought. He could not remember the nature of the crime. Of course, both he and Sira Eindridi were but children in the days of Sigurd Kollbeinsson. Now Bjorn Bollason called one of his sons to him, and told him to beg a conference with his foster father, Hoskuld.