The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [27]
Margret was now twenty-three, tall and fair in coloring, and she had been well taught by Kristin in her summers at Siglufjord all the skills of a good farm wife. She went about in shoes and stockings and gowns she herself had woven, dyed, and sewed together, with her hair held in bands she had fashioned in the evenings out of brightly colored yarns. In addition, she had learned of Ingrid many of the uses of herbs and plants, for childbirth and for the curing of the springtime bleeding disease and many things besides. She worked every day with the other women, spinning and weaving and making cheese and butter, and there was no reason why she had not been married, or even betrothed, but she was not. It was true that Helga Ingvadottir had reached the age of twenty-four before coming to Greenland with Asgeir, but she had been a stiff-necked, opinionated woman, and unpleased by the men she knew. Kristin told Asgeir that Margret did not know how to be alluring, and Asgeir said that his wealth should be alluring enough, but indeed, everyone knew that along with the wealth and the capable wife must come the son.
Gunnar was now sixteen, and although he was tall and handsome, he was entirely useless around the farmstead, as he had always been. He could be put to chinking fences or manuring the fields, and he did this simple work cheerfully but slowly, always tempting whoever was working with him to do Gunnar’s share as well as his own. He slept long nights, even in the height of summer, and sometimes fell asleep during the day. He was never taken hunting because he could not be quiet or still. He spent many of his days sitting with Ingrid by the fire, for the nurse was extremely old now, stiff in the joints, almost blind, and close to death, and Gunnar was her only friend, and only he took pains to make sure that her meat suited her and that she was warm. Many days they spent mumbling between themselves while the others were in the storehouses or in the fields, and Gunnar even resorted to spinning wool, like a woman, in order to earn his place at the table, for Ingrid said that he must do something. Asgeir said that all men do what they do and seek their own fate, but others in the settlement said that he had ill luck in his children. The servingfolk treated Gunnar as if he were weak-minded, always laughing at him or speaking to him in loud voices, and this was so much the custom that Asgeir did not object, nor Margret, nor even Gunnar himself.
Among the priests who came to Greenland with Bishop Alf was Pall Hallvardsson, who was sent to Vatna Hverfi to assist Nikolaus, the priest at Undir Hofdi church, who, like all the other Greenland priests, was now rather old, although still hale and outspoken. Sira Pall Hallvardsson was not Norwegian, but Flemish, although his father had been an Icelander and had traveled to Greenland once himself, as a boy on a trading ship, in the time of the last bishop. Few priests, Pall Hallvardsson told Asgeir, actually requested duties in Greenland, and so when he had spoken of his wishes, the archbishop had been happy to grant them. Pall Hallvardsson had studied at Ghent, and had been in the care and service of the Church since the death of his mother of the plague shortly after his birth.
Of the other two priests Sira Jon was about the age of Margret and was the bishop’s nephew. Folk said of him that he made a special point of deferring to the bishop “even about the taste of his broth.” Petur was the plague priest, nearly as old as Asgeir, although newly ordained. He did not push himself forward, and many in the settlement said this was proper, for there was grumbling that after so many years the archbishop should send an old man to a place where there were already plenty of old men.
At the end of summer, when the flocks were brought down from the mountains, a messenger went to all the farmsteads in Vatna Hverfi and Einars Fjord up to Gardar and invited the farmers and their folk to a great feast to be held at Ketils Stead.