The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [97]
“And all are deceived.” Jon spoke this in such a bitter tone that Pall Hallvardsson stepped closer. Jon sat up straighter and appeared to press himself against the back of the seat.
Pall Hallvardsson stepped back, and went on in an even voice. “It must be said that Gardar is thriving with your stewardship. The Greenlanders say that they have the Garden of Eden in their midst.”
“The new bishop, whoever he may be, must bring with him some relics. The see is far too poor in such things, and folk suffer from it.”
“Perhaps—”
“In Nidaros when I was a boy, an old man was carried on his bier into the cathedral, and set for a moment near the bones of St. Olaf so that the tomb could be opened, and in this moment St. Olaf in his mercy gave him life again, and after that he lived in the chapter house as a lay brother for eleven years, so that he was eighty-four years old when he died, and this was an attested miracle.”
“All, of course, have heard of such things, but not every man can hope to escape death.”
“No right-thinking man hopes to escape his reunion with our Lord, but alas, those on earth who have great needs dearly wish that death would—” He stopped, then went on. “May the Lord look down with mercy on His helpless flock.” At last he looked at Pall Hallvardsson, and for a long moment, then said, “Sira Pall Hallvardsson, you are welcome to sit down. Sorrow makes me careless.”
Pall Hallvardsson drew a stool forward from under the table beside him and settled himself upon it. This table was piled with the books in which Pall Hallvardsson knew that Jon had always kept the accounts. There were three of them, so large that a year’s business usually took only a spread of two pages, in Jon’s minuscule hand. The books themselves were valuable enough—most writing in Greenland was done on rolls of parchment, and all books were owned by the bishopric or folk who had been across the ocean. It had been the bishop’s wish that some of the Greenlandic boys would learn the art of bookbinding, but with the vomiting ill and one thing and another, this had not come to pass. Although there was plenty of calfskin and goatskin in Greenland, manuscripts illuminated at Gardar or in the monastery were poorly bound things, crude and easily damaged.
Pall Hallvardsson said, “I well remember these nine summers past, when we embarked with the bishop for Greenland, and all the treasures he carried with him. Only he guessed how low a state things would have come to. St. Nikolaus Church was a great cold place, with the wallhangings tattered and black with mildew and a fungus growing over the stones, and the altar furnishings tarnished and dinted, and the servants and other folk careless about their work and the dishonor they brought to the Lord’s house. He brought such a change upon the state of Greenland that his loss need not destroy it, or take us back to earlier days. It may be that we long for the magnificence that speaks the glory of the Lord, so that what we have seems poor to us, but the Lord sees our means and our endeavors as well as our handiwork.”
Sira Jon turned his eyes upon the other priest and said, “Every day, summer and winter, I have gone into the chamber of Bishop Alf and sat below him and imparted to him all the intelligence of the day.” He stopped, then went on, “And for many days he has not seen fit to speak to me, or to raise his hand as a sign, and this was my only prayer and hope, that once before death he would hear my voice and know my presence. Had he cast his gaze upon me, I would have been surfeited. Had his hand moved under mine, I would have been content, but nothing came. His flesh was cold and shrinking to my touch. No prayer, no multitude of prayers brought the slightest flicker of his eyelid.”
“Sometimes men are so very old and ill—”
“My uncle had but sixty-two winters. He came to this place a strong and vigorous man. Once, you may not know, and not as a young man, he went on skis from Stavanger