The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [358]
A servingmaid had fallen into a spell at the end of winter, and had spoken roughly in another tongue, and another voice, as well, and though the mistress had beaten her for this, she had sworn that she could not remember what she had said and done. Ashild had believed her. This was at the house of Ragnleif Isleifsson, where Margret Asgeirsdottir had once been a servingmaid, too. That was one thing. A boy at another steading had unaccountably awakened in the night, and climbed out of his bedcloset, although it was the dead of winter, and gone out of the steading, where he saw, he said, a cross of fiery stars in the sky, and blood pouring from it. And he could not be moved from the details of his story. He was some twelve winters old, Ashild guessed. Old enough to speak of what he saw. That was another thing. And the third thing was this. A certain woman named Asta Bjartsdottir had come to Ashild three times, and each time she had told her privily of a vision she had had. For, the old woman said, of all the folk in the district, Ashild had lived the longest with Larus the Prophet, and Larus had had the most visions, and if Ashild had learned nothing of this from their time together, she must be a fool. The first vision was of men on fine horses, such horses as are found only at Hestur Stead, trampling some children to death beneath the feet of their horses, and laughing all the while. The second vision was of Kollgrim Gunnarsson, whom the woman had seen at the time of the trial and the burning, and he was sitting with dark clothed men, laughing, too, and there was a red glow behind him. And the third vision was of Larus the Prophet himself, and he was standing on a hillside, in a white garment, and a herd of reindeer were galloping toward him, and as the woman watched, these deer changed first into a swell of water, then into an avalanche, and then into a raging fire, and the fire seemed to burn Larus up where he stood. And the woman was greatly afraid, and asked Ashild to be sure that Larus was warned of this vision.
Now Larus felt himself exalted by this news, and he took Ashild’s hands into his own, and he told her the whole tale of Lazarus, and everything that Lazarus had told him about the fate that awaited the Greenlanders through their sinful natures and their intransigent ways. And a dire fate it was, for steadings would be broken up, and houses and byres would fall down, and sheep and cows would be scattered into the wilds, and grass would grow everywhere, and sand would fly in and cover everything, and the people would vanish from the face of the earth, leaving behind themselves only bits of tools and broken toys and shards of bone, and the land would be so accursed that even the accursed skraelings would avoid the places of the Greenlanders. These visions that all were seeing in Brattahlid were intimations of this fate, and also the Lord’s warning to men to reform themselves, and allow themselves to be led out of the darkness. For Larus could save the Greenlanders, he told Ashild, if the Greenlanders would allow themselves to be saved.
Ashild asked how this might be done, and Larus sat up hungrily, and looked into her face, and said, “Skeggi Thorkelsson must be burned at the stake as Kollgrim Gunnarsson was, and these two intransigent witches in Brattahlid must also be burned at the stake, and the folk of Vatna Hverfi in general must give up their pride and much of their wealth to Gardar, for their wealth is the fruit of sinful waywardness. All households, no matter how far off they are, must send pilgrims on foot to Gardar and to Solar Fell, to kneel before