The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [96]
In his former chamber, on a pile of reindeer hides taken from the storehouses, Sira Pall Hallvardsson awakened and sat up. On the east wall of the room was a small metal cross. He knelt before it and said his morning prayers, concluding with a long thanksgiving for the mercy of the Lord upon Bishop Alf, who yearned, as all men do, to come into the house of the Lord after stumbling about for years in the wastelands of the sublunary world. Pall Hallvardsson had not seen Gardar since assisting Jon the previous summer at his St. Bartholomew’s mass, for there had been no Yuletide feast, and Pall Hallvardsson had celebrated Easter at Hvalsey church. After prayers, he straightened his clothing and went out into the yard to wash.
In this summer, the grass on the homefield was as thick as it had been in any year, and the cattle in their pen were numerous and glossy. Five boats, ranging in size from one-oarsman to eight-oarsmen, were tied up in Einars Fjord. As he watched, ten men and boys ran toward the cattle pen with neatly coopered buckets and one-legged stools and began upon the milking. After the thin prosperity of Hvalsey Fjord, such sights made a man dizzy. Soon the yoked pails were being carried at a run to the dairy, where the milk was poured into large vats, and the milkers ran back to the field, seeking without the least hesitation each unmilked cow, and missing none. After what seemed to be the briefest while, they washed out their pails and went into the kitchen house for their morning meal. Of all the men and women he saw, Pall Hallvardsson could pick out no more than half a dozen whose names he knew.
After washing his face and hands in the cold water of the washing vat, he took a simple wooden comb out of his pocket and ran it through his hair. He did not look either prosperous or polished. The great church of St. Birgitta at Hvalsey Fjord, the newest in the settlement and, aside from the cathedral, the finest, was about all the folk in that district could support. The lands around the church were rather small and the mountains behind them high and rough. Recent repairs to the church roof had, in the end, meant short rations for Pall Hallvardsson, in that the parishioners added less to what he could raise himself in the way of wadmal or furnishings, although there was enough food for himself and his beasts and the two servants he had with him. One of the servants, whose name was Magnus the Bent because of his humped back, was an excellent fisherman and hunter of game. These were Sira Pall’s blessings. Sira Jon, however, would soon greet him dressed in red silk, sitting in the bishop’s high seat, with many fine things arrayed about him, and he would have little respect for such a brown mended robe and hood as Pall Hallvardsson was wearing. He would, in fact, look above his head and allow his eyes to fall on Pall’s humble form only with reluctance. After he considered these things, Pall Hallvardsson asked for forgiveness for the sin of anger, and went off to find the other priest.
Come upon him suddenly he could not, for two servants and Audun delayed him and escorted him in, so that indeed Sira Jon was in the high seat, and he was arrayed magnificently, surrounded by whale oil lamps which glittered on the eye but made it hard at first to see about the room. Pall Hallvardsson approached the high seat. He said, “Our grief is eased by the sure knowledge of the love with which our Lord has received him into Heaven.”
Sira Jon nodded.
“As for ourselves, although it is late in the season, it may be that a ship will arrive in answer to our prayers and carry this news to Nidaros.” He smiled. “Isn’t it true for us in Greenland that ships always come from the Lord, bringing His grace to us, and sometimes His trials of our spirit? If any place is the perfect picture of the world, it must be Greenland.”
Sira Jon spoke in a low voice. “This is true, at the least, that no veil of beauty hides the evils from our sight.”
“And yet, these Greenlanders declare