Wayward Heroes Page 22

  As soon as Þormóður hears this news, he launches his boat and sails to Vatnsfjörður to have a word with Vermundur. At this point in the story, the chieftain is much in decline from old age, yet he recognizes his kinsman Þormóður and has him sit by his bedside and report the news. Þormóður tells him plainly about Þorgeir Hávarsson’s head having been impaled on a stake before the door at Ögur, and asks whether Vermundur has heard what person may have been carrying this head around the Vestfirðir.

  Old Vermundur replies that, dead or alive, the head that Þormóður speaks of bodes evil, and he is certainly not the one who lugged such a monstrosity around the Vestfirðir. Þormóður asks about Butraldi and Lúsoddi – where such miscreants are likely to be hiding out just now. Vermundur says that as far as he knows, the two of them have gone to Greenland. “Good-for-nothings from the Vestfirðir are better off there,” he says.

  Þormóður says that it sounds to him as if Vermundur has better knowledge than he does of the goings-on in the district. “I would ask,” says he, “that you do not mock me or make sport of me in this matter. You know well that we were once good friends – I and that king’s man whose head was just now mounted on a stake before the main door at Ögur.”

  Vermundur says: “I would have thought you might be more obliged to thank me for buying you the most excellent match for a wife in all the west.”

  Þormóður asks if Vermundur knows for certain whether the wretches he just named are Þorgeir Hávarsson’s slayers.

  Vermundur replies: “I do not know who cut off Þorgeir Hávarsson’s head – and I do not care. Butraldi and his man may well have bought the head off of some rascals up north. Whatever the case, it seems fitting to me that this head has been paid its due. The king of Norway sent Þorgeir on a perilous mission to kill some farmers out here in the west who had beaten some of the king’s merchants last year and appropriated their wares at the price it suited them to pay – and by my advice, they paid no more. We men of the Vestfirðir have no qualms about letting King Olaf know that he cannot wantonly send his bravoes to kill our liegemen, good farmers, before our very eyes, though I may be old and decrepit.”

  Concerning the events leading to Þorgeir Hávarsson’s death, as well as the place where he lost his life, we shall never gain a clear answer from men of learning – the old books differ widely on these details. Yet on one point all the authorities agree, and not a book has been written nor a tale told that holds this in doubt: that Þorgeir Hávarsson was killed in his sleep, not cut down in battle, and what is more, that he lost his life not to the weapons of a hero or indeed of an honorable man who had earned distinction or a good name. All the books tell the same story: that he was killed by abject nobodies, and that wood from his weapons and shards of his shield were used for kindling. Some tales relate that in a harbor where ships lay waiting for a fair wind, some scullions left their cauldrons to go gathering sticks and twigs for their fires, and found the hero asleep in a booth at midday, with a driftwood log for a pillow. His neck lay exposed on the log, as it might on a chopping-block, with his chin facing upward. The scullions felt that the man was in an exceptional position for beheading. They crept up and hewed off his head, there as he slept, broke the shafts of his spear and ax, and clove his shield, as well as the block upon which they had sundered him, and used the wood to stoke their fires. That day, they had no need to gather any more brushwood or driftwood. Old books also relate how rogues from Greenland cut open Þorgeir’s body and pulled out his heart, because they were curious to see how such a jewel was made – one that never quaked before life or death. The story goes that Þorgeir’s heart was very small, and incredibly hard, and that after peering at it for some time, the scullions simmered it until it was tender, divided it among themselves and ate it, in order to increase their strength and valor. It is also thought that by the time King Olaf sent Þorgeir Hávarsson to Iceland to kill certain Icelanders in the west with whom Olaf had grievances, Þorgeir held a grudge against the king. He felt that, as one of the king’s men, he was never given enough opportunities to face dangerous situations and undertake tests of courage worthy of his mettle. Folk thus believe that King Olaf sent Þorgeir to Iceland to kill Icelanders simply because there was a good chance it might turn out to be the last journey Þorgeir ever made. During King Olaf’s reign, his envoys were much disliked in Iceland, and whether they came in peace or not, they constantly made it their business to try to persuade Icelandic chieftains to hand the land over to the king. Stories have also circulated on Hornstrandir, in the Jökulfirðir, and in Djúp that Butraldi Cow-sucker and Þorgeir’s betrayer Lúsoddi, who were frequent hangers-on at fishing stations and harbors, gave the scullions brushwood for Þorgeir’s head and carried it on a pole westward to Djúp, where they asked Chieftain Vermundur what he would give them for it. Some books say that Vermundur’s response to this question was that it was not for him to accept this head, but that he would provide them with victuals and other assistance after they had found a place for it.

  Farther south, in Borgarfjörður, Þorgeir Hávarsson’s mother Þórelfur had died, while Þorgeir’s kinsman Þorgils Arason was at Reykjahólar, increasing his fortune. Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld now rode from the west to meet Þorgils and reported the latest news to him, that his kinsman Þorgeir Hávarsson had been beheaded somewhere up north – he who was born a greater hero than any other in the Vestfirðir, and was one of King Olaf Haraldsson’s men. Miscreants had killed the warrior in his sleep, brought his head south, and mounted it on a stake before his door at Ögur.

  “It is of no concern to me where the head of this manslayer was mounted,” said Þorgils Arason, “and the difference between my kinsman and me is that I have profited most by killing no one. Nor will I, in my old age, start combing the countryside for people to kill, like lice, though some miserable rats might easily be rousted out of dark corners here and there and dispatched. I advise you to follow my example, good lad: go home to your farm and make yourself rich by giving men life.”

  When Þormóður arrives back in Ögur, he goes straight to his storehouse to greet the head of his sworn brother Þorgeir. As he lifts the costly cloth from the warrior’s face, it looks even uglier than before, and fills the storehouse with its stench – carrion flies have laid their eggs in the head. Þormóður strews salt on it, hoping to defend this noble head as best he can from the persistent visits of vermin.

  It is now so late in the summer that no more ships will be departing for the year, and Þormóður remains at home on his farm. In the fall he grows extremely reticent and averse to human interaction, paying little heed to what is going on around him, and sinking ever deeper into his own thoughts. When his wife sits at his knee, he strokes her hair. When his two little girls are playing, he stares at them as if from a remote distance, or as if beholding strange visions at the very limit of the sea, but he no longer calls to them to sit on his knees. He meanders aimlessly both outdoors and in and does no work, but mutters dark verses to himself, in low tones. Many a night, while others sleep, he rises quietly from his bed and goes to the storehouse, where he spends hours speaking to Þorgeir Hávarsson’s head.

  37

  SLAVE KOLBAKUR had a superb cock that crowed numerous times every night. This bird kept many people at Ögur from sleeping, crowing as it did in the evening when folk went to their beds, and again at midnight, and then just before daybreak, when it would crow for quite a long time – and it would be wide awake again at midmorning. Many a night, after the skald had gone to his storehouse to strew salt on the hero’s face, his wife lay awake in bed, unable to sleep a wink for the crowing of the slave’s cock.

  One morning before dawn, when Þormóður is out in the storehouse and the cock has just finished a long bout of crowing, Þórdís of Ögur finally has her fill of losing sleep due to this bird. She steps into her slippers, dons a mantle, and hurries out of the bedchamber. She goes straight to the loft where Kolbakur is sleeping, lights the slave’s la
mp, and wakes him.

  He sits up and asks what is on his mistress’s mind.

  “I have come, Kolbakur,” says she, “expressly to throttle that bird, whose nightly crowing vexes us to no end.”

  He says: “The bird you speak of shall commit no further outrage. I shall wring its neck with my own hands, if you wish.”

  Having made her intention known to the slave, and he having responded so well to it, she remains sitting there on the edge of his bed, weeping.

  The slave asks what is causing her so much woe.

  “My love for my husband Þormóður,” says she, “is so profound that it gives me no peace, by night or by day. I am never so busy that if I hear his voice from a distance, I do not run and sit at his feet. You, Kolbakur, who have seen carved stone crosses in Ireland, higher than the hills – what remedy do you have to free me from this affliction, and him from his fetters?”

  “So many years have passed,” says Kolbakur, “since I asked for one night of union with you before Þormóður and his kin from Vatnsfjörður rode from Ögur to wed you, and you refused and rejected my entreaty, though your refusal, you said, was based less on your love for him than on the fact that you were betrothed to him by contract. You said that the hallmark of a good woman consisted less in loving her betrothed than in refusing to betray him.”

  “I have come to you now,” says she, “not because I am bound to him solely by the laws of men, but rather, because I love him above all things, created and uncreated, that are to be found on Earth or below it.”

  “Speak, Mistress,” says he. “I am your slave.”

  “We here at Ögur enjoy more good fortune and other bounties than most people in the Vestfirðir, as if the gods had come down to us one morning and cast their favor upon everything around us, on the air, the sea, and the earth. Here, milk and honey flow into the mouth of every living creature. It is little wonder that my daughters have the hue of stars, when their father towers high as the sky itself, above all other men, like a young stag slung with dew, supple and slim;1 such a radiant ideal among his people that even when he went freebooting around Horn in his youth, most men spoke fairly of him, and women barely acknowledged the existence of any other man in the Vestfirðir. Tell me, Kolbakur – you being an Irishman – what malice might Josa mac De have in mind, to bestow such great happiness on a woman?”

  Kolbakur replies: “Most would say, Mistress, that as good as your husband might be, in and of himself, he owes most to your gifts of love.”

  “Outrageous rubbish,” said she. “Little did I suspect you to be so foolish, Kolbakur, as not to know what a dungeon and snake pit a woman’s embrace is to a skald and hero. I am the bane of a hero’s or skald’s glory, the wispy fetter forged for the Wolf from cat’s tread, fish’s breath, and bird’s spittle.2 I am the wall standing between the skald and seductive sea voyages, between him and the clamor of battle and the favor of kings – and therewith: a reputation that never dies.”

  Kolbakur says: “Would it please you, Mistress, if I were to go out one morning after he has gone to sleep, and remove the head from his storehouse and bury it deep in the ground?”

  “No,” says she.

  He asks her why not.

  “For this reason,” says she. “However deeply or secretly we dig, this ugly, useless head will remain closest to his heart, and there rule over other heads, not only my own and those of other women whom men desire most, but even over that of the evil woman who dwells in the darkness of the Abyss – this head will rise ever higher in his mind’s eye the deeper we dig in the ground.”

  “What shall we do, then?” asks the slave.

  “I am so overwhelmed by Þormóður’s grief,” says she, “that I will do everything in my power to release him from me.”

  At her reply, Kolbakur remains silent for a long time, until his cock wakes and begins crowing in its pen beneath the rafters. The pen has a small hatch on top, and after the bird has crowed for a little while, the slave says:

  “If you please, Mistress, draw the bolt on this little hatch, and there you will find the bird you hate and wish to see dead. Apart from that, I have no other advice to give you.”

  When the mistress returns to her chamber at dawn, she finds her husband lying awake in bed. His wife looks pale and bleary-eyed to him, as if she has been crying, and he asks where she has been for so long during the night. She slips beneath the cover, cold and terribly drowsy, and answers him with a yawn:

  “I took it upon myself,” she says, “to silence the bird that was forever keeping us awake at night.”

  She lies down and falls asleep almost at once, but he lies awake a long time, without taking his eyes off her. Her fair hair is darker than of old, her milky bosom fuller. Is this the woman, superior to all others, who once woke him with the rustling of her wings in an unfamiliar fjord, came to his bedside with her swan-dress draped over her arm, tapped him, the skald, with her wand and bade him follow her? Who is this, who has curled up in his bed, shivering in the morning chill, and fallen asleep straightaway with an unexplained, half-dry tear in the corner of her eye?

  That same day, Skald Þormóður goes up to the loft where the slave has his workspace and a sleeping-alcove beneath the sloping roof. The slave is very skilled at most crafts, and the loft is full of tools and items he has fashioned: plates and bowls, baskets and churns, ladles and drinking horns, and numerous other utensils. The slave is on his knees, joining the staves for a bucket. The staves are standing upright, and he is fitting the rings around them.

  Þormóður silently examines several half-made items before sitting down on a block of wood. He has his ax – which he normally does not carry at home – hanging by its strap over his shoulder. He loosens the ax from its strap and stares at its edge for some time. The slave turns to look at him with his squint-eyes, whose aim is always difficult to pinpoint.

  The farmer breaks his silence thus: “You have a bird that keeps my lady and me awake at night. Any man who raises such a creature is an enemy of ours. Take up your weapons, and we shall go out to the homefield and fight.”

  Kolbakur slaps the palms of his hands against the two sides of the loosely girded bucket, causing the staves to fall from the rings into a pile on the floor. Then he stands up.

  Slave Kolbakur says: “Once, long ago, I was duped into setting an armed ambush for you, Master, and ever since, I have never regretted any deed as deeply. I was also taught in Ireland that only those with craven hearts put their trust in steel. Yet I tell you, Master, that my life has seldom been less precious to me than now, and I will not beg for it if you are intent upon killing me.”

  He brings forth a chopping block and places it at Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld’s feet, then lies down on the floor with the block beneath his neck, baring his throat, his chin pointing upward. “I have,” he says, “heard it said that this is how Þorgeir Hávarsson was beheaded, and I am certain that I will be no better at it than he was.”

  Þormóður flings his ax aside and tells Kolbakur to stand up. He says that he has no mind to take his head. “I have,” says he, “enough heads for now.”

  The slave rises slowly and silently from the chopping-block, before starting on righting the bucket staves again and fitting them against each other within the rings. Þormóður sits watching him work for some time, without saying a word. Finally he stands up.

  “It may be,” he says, “that you speak the truth: that slaves will inherit this land when we heroes and skalds have fallen into oblivion, and my children will learn your wisdom – that only cowards put faith in steel. I look forward to being dead when your Irish wisdom prevails in the world.”

  Saying this, Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld turns and leaves the loft, and he and the slave do not cross paths again.

  38

  THAT WINTER passes without further incident, apart from Þormóður becoming ever more withdrawn concerning most things, with no one knowing why. He generally goes to bed before the others, and is sleeping
by the time his lady joins him. Many a night, however, when it is quiet in the house and most of the household is asleep, the farmer dresses and goes out to the storehouse where he keeps the hideous head, and to which he alone has a key. He sits by the head through the night, sprinkling salt into its nose and mouth and saying things to it that others can only guess at. He never speaks of this head to anyone else, or of what he intends to do with it – whether he might bury it in a churchyard or heap stones over it in the wilderness – and no one volunteers to ask him.

  Folk also notice that something seems to be sorely distressing the mistress at Ögur, yet no one is able to guess what it might be. In the mornings, pale and ill, she pours the milk from the troughs, and sits teary-eyed at her loom during the day. People wonder even more at the mistress’s sadness as it becomes more apparent each day, as spring draws near, that she is with child.

  One night late in winter, Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld is out talking to the head of his sworn brother Þorgeir Hávarsson, and he happens to return to his bedchamber earlier than usual, only to find the bed empty and cold. He lies down but cannot sleep, and after he has lain there awake for quite some time, his wife comes in from outdoors, steps out of her shoes, casts off her mantle, and curls up beneath the cover. Both lie there awake for some time, on their own sides of the bed, without exchanging words. He hears the woman sobbing quietly, and speaks: