The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [349]
And here was the toll of death after this battle: in addition to Bjorn Bollason, his two sons, Sigurd and Hoskuld, were killed on the field, and the third, Ami, was carried off with his death wound. Another man on the Brattahlid side was killed with an arrow shot, and the eye of a man from Dyrnes was gouged out. Of the Vatna Hverfi men, one, Karl, the second son of the widow Ulfhild, of Mosfell, was killed outright, and another man had an ax sunk so deeply in his thigh that he died the following Yule. There were many bruises and cuts, and other painful hurts, and many of the fighters were hard put after this battle to recover themselves. The Thing was broken up without deciding any more cases, and the judges went home to their steadings, as if in flight. Indeed, everyone there went home as if in flight, for they knew not how to regain the normal ways that had been lost through this event.
Gunnar and Jon Andres escaped without injury, and returned to Vatna Hverfi district, and it was generally agreed that they had been strongly provoked in this case, and were not to be blamed too harshly for what had come about, for men must avenge the injuries done to them, if they are strong enough to do it. If those whom they avenge themselves upon are, in their turn, not strong enough to exact payment from them, then justice has been done.
Now on the evening of this battle, Sira Pall Hallvardsson was sitting in his accustomed place in the cathedral, looking upon the split visage of the Lord that hung over the altar, and no one had as yet brought in the seal oil lamps, and so the place was not a little gloomy. As he was sitting there, the door to the hall was flung open, and Sira Eindridi and Larus the Prophet came into the cathedral in a great flurry. And they stopped in the darkness, and looked about until Sira Pall announced his whereabouts, and then Sira Eindridi came to him, panting, and told him the news of the battle at Brattahlid, and Sira Pall listened in silence, and then said, calmly, “These are grievous tidings indeed, and I must rise and go to my chamber and think upon them,” and he held out his arm so that Sira Eindridi might lift him and help him to his sticks, but just in this moment, the old priest let out a great moan, and fell forward so that Sira Eindridi had not the strength to prevent him from falling, and as he fell he hit his head upon the bench. And it happened shortly after this that it was discovered that Sira Pall Hallvardsson was dead, and it was considered that although Sira Eindridi had not administered his rites to him, since he was praying at the time of his death, then he was assured of entrance into Heaven. This was the view of Larus the Prophet. Afterward, folk spoke of Sira Pall as a casualty of the Brattahlid battle as much as any of the others, for, they said, his heart broke at the news, and none could prove that it had not.
One day in this summer, Gunnar was sitting on the pleasant hillside outside the steading at Gunnars Stead, and Margret was walking back and forth in front of him, spinning. He watched her spindle twirl and drop as she walked in one direction, and then he watched her wind the yarn upon it as she walked in the other direction and it seemed to him that the spindle and the lengthening thread cast a spell over him, and that this spell led him to speak in a way that he had never spoken before. He said, “How do men journey back from passion?” He looked up at her face, and it was as if he were a child again, and she his older sister, and he had just asked her how butter is made, or how the Lord knows who is good and who is not—such was the innocence that he felt behind his question, after a long and sinful life. Margret paused in her pacing and looked down upon him, and she said, “It seems to me that most do not.” And Gunnar saw at once that this was the case, but he