The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [86]
It was always thus that Jon came to his uncle, and always thus that he sat on a low stool at the older man’s feet. When the bishop had been confined to his bedcloset, Jon had sat on this same three-legged stool beside the bishop’s head and leaned in to catch whatever words the bishop uttered. When the bishop had been well and in his high seat, Jon had sat on this same stool with his eyes down, making a similar report. When the bishop, then not a bishop but a simple priest, had come to his sister’s home in Stavanger district, the boy Jon had sat below him thus, and reported upon his progress in learning and holiness.
Now he began with the beasts. “My uncle,” he said without looking up, “I have it from the herdsman’s boy that two lambs have been taken by foxes, and this is one fewer than last year. All of the cows are in good health, and the illness that struck the herd in the spring has, by the grace of God, run its course. Alas, only fifteen calves have survived, but all of them good-sized beasts, as if the sickness culled the weaklings. Surely this, too, shows the care of the Lord for His servants. Stein expects to bring every calf and every cow through the winter. Of the horses, there is this to say, that Lofti is a little lame in the left hind leg and Nonni’s eye still runs with matter, although nothing can be found in it, nor any scratch. So much for the beasts, with them all is as well as can be expected.” And in this way Sira Jon went on talking about first the servingwomen, then the servingmen, then the boys (of which there were but two, but very good boys, from prosperous Brattahlid families, who had brought much property with them), then the assistant priest, Audun, the Greenlander who had been set to the work of making a copy of the liturgical calendar as his first project (although his hand had little grace or beauty, it was clear and readable, perhaps a quality more necessary among the Greenlanders than other qualities).
Above his head, his uncle groaned and shuffled, but it was not Jon’s habit to raise his eyes. Then he spoke of Olaf, although not by name, saying, “It is the case that an older man has come as an applicant, wishing to be trained as a priest, but indeed, he shows little respect for the Lord or His servants, being dressed in tattered, soiled clothes and greedy for food rather than for knowledge of the ways of the Lord.” Here, Jon paused, but the bishop said nothing. “The man,” Jon said, “looks to be unskillful in any but the most menial work, and has no property that he might bring with him to enrich the see. Altogether, considering recent straitened circumstances, a place that might be opened to another should not be opened to this man.” Again Jon fell silent, for the bishop had from time to time chastened him for being hard and fastidious, and dazzled by the surfaces of things. But now the bishop said nothing, and it is a saying in old books that in silence there is approval.
Now Jon enlarged upon a project that he had cherished for some time. “My uncle, the feast of St. Bartholomew is near at hand, and I wish to say mass in the cathedral on this day, and to clean the cathedral and repair and polish all of the altar furniture with this in view, and not only that, but also to bring out some of the