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By Root 2146 0

pointed out that Gizur Gizursson, the lawspeaker who lived at Brattahlid, who had allowed Ivar to take care of the business of the eastern settlement for twenty years, was much older than Ivar, too old, it was said, to remember much about the law or about settling disputes. And now there was much more grumbling about the failure of the archbishop to send a bishop to Gardar, for there was no one in the settlement who could take a strong hand either in behalf of the Church or in behalf of the king. People began to notice how the churches were in disrepair and how the precious altar furnishings were tarnished and bent or broken in many of the churches, and this was because Ivar Bardarson had come only to husband the goods of the bishopric, he had been given no right to expend them. In the same way, it was said, the souls of the folk were tarnished with sin and bent from improper practices, and broken with despair that a new bishop would ever come, and some threatened to return to the old religion of Thor and Odin and Frey, although their neighbors laughed at them and said that those beliefs were in even greater disrepair. And so it continued for the Greenlanders, with some good years and some cold ones, for six more summers, and then a ship arrived from Norway, and on it was Bishop Alf, who had come to take over the see at Gardar, and rectify those errors the souls of Greenland might have fallen into.

Asgeir was among the first of the farmers to go to Gardar after the arrival of the new bishop, and he carried many gifts: a pair of narwhal horns he had held in reserve from Hauk’s last trip, many thick sheepskins in a number of shades, rolls of fine wadmal, and an excellent cup carved by his father, Gunnar Asgeirsson, from a walrus tusk in the time of the last bishop. The bishop, he reported, accepted these graciously, saying that the Greenlanders had brought him handsome items for his household.

Alf was an older man than Asgeir had expected, almost as old as Ivar Bardarson would be, but taller and thinner, with cheekbones like red knobs, and eyes the pale color of the spring sky above the fjords. He did not, Asgeir told Ingrid, have the easy ways of a man much accustomed to good fellowship, and talked of Greenland as if it were at the end of the earth, or as if the Greenlanders were trolls of some sort. When Asgeir made a joke about men returning to the old faith in Thor and Odin, the new bishop had thought he was serious, and Asgeir had felt awkward and had fallen to making explanations. In addition, the ship that had carried him was a small one, and had few goods, only some pitch and some oatseed, and not enough of either for all the farmsteads in Eriks Fjord, much less the whole settlement. There were also some wheel rims, and hubs and axles that Asgeir had his eye on, but a number of farmers had been there, and all had seen the dearth of goods.

Nonetheless, the bishop did have some young priests with him, properly ordained by the archbishop himself, and all properly trained, with only one of the three an older man who had been rushed into the priesthood after the Great Death, for the plague had returned again to Norway and England and the rest of Europe around the time of Ivar Bardarson’s departure, but no one was able to tell Asgeir whether his friend had fallen victim to it. He had also asked after Thorleif, for now the Greenlanders often talked of Thorleif and his wondrous ship, his bottomless store of goods, and everything exactly what was needed by every man, but no one had heard of Thorleif, either, or Skuli, or any of the other sailors anyone could remember.

These young priests had brought many books with them for the Gardar library, and it was said among everyone who visited the new bishop that Gardar would soon be a busy, bustling place, as it had been in the time of the old bishop, and, Asgeir said, soon Olaf Finnbogason would have to go back, because people there would suddenly remember him and wonder where he had gotten to. Olaf laughed at this, but the farm folk said he was little minded to spend his time