‘What do you think?’ said Vallon.
‘I think we should take it.’
‘So do I. It will be good to have a place we can call home for a while.’
*
As part of the agreement, Ottar supplied four horses and arranged for guards to keep an eye on
Vallon took the householder’s booth and the men slept in the ground-floor bunks. Syth had the sleeping platform above, from where she pelted Raul with bits of clinker when his snoring became unbearable.
Two days later Wayland, Raul and a guide called Ingolf rode away into the interior to search for gyrfalcon eyries. They followed the serpentine twists of a river through a grassy flood plain. Wayland lost count of the crossings they made before they left the valley and struck up through a forest of dwarf birches that barely reached their stirrups. Over the next ridge they traversed a barren moor with their heads bent against squalls of sleet. The wind dropped and snow fell fine as dust from a clear sky. That night they watched the sun sink smoking beneath the watershed they’d crossed at dawn. Four seasons in a single day. Next day they picked their way on foot across bogs, jumping from cushions of green and yellow moss. On the other side they rode up a gorge guarded by pillars shaped like men. Ingolf said they were giants turned to stone after being caught by the sun as they journeyed between their subterranean haunts.
They crossed a flat summit dotted with tarns, each tarn tenanted by a pair of courting phalaropes that gyrated round each other like leaves caught in gusts of wind. They camped by the shorelines of lakes and lay wakeful in the long twilight listening to loons calling with cries of such desolation that Wayland’s nape crawled. They negotiated frozen torrents of black slag, their horses shying from fissures where lobes of molten rock pulsed like a beating heart or a foetus hatching in its underground womb. They watched geysers spouting and cauldrons of mud spitting like thick porridge.
Whenever possible they slept at farms. Over bowls of skyr, they would ask about gyrfalcons and the men would lead them out and shield their eyes and point to far-off cliffs trimmed with snow and say that the falcons had nests there. At last they passed beyond settled parts, wandering over moraines and fields of clinker under the dome of an ice cap. A dozen times on that journey, Wayland stopped and found a place out of the wind and watched the crags above until his eyes ached.
Twelve days later they rode back to Ottarshall so sore and tired that they had to be helped down from their horses. Raul’s face was blistered, his eyelids raw as wounds. When Syth placed a bowl in Wayland’s hands, he cupped it on his lap like an invalid and went on staring straight ahead.
‘We saw only three falcons,’ he said at last. ‘All of them were alone. We found half a dozen nests and every one was deserted. I found several places where the falcons pluck their prey, but there were few signs of fresh kills.’ He scratched his brow. ‘The falcons feed mainly on snow grouse and this year there are very few. The farmers told us that the falcons only breed when the grouse are common.’
‘You explored only a small region,’ Vallon said. ‘You’ll find your falcons elsewhere.’
Wayland began to spoon food into his mouth. ‘Ingolf says they’re plentiful in the north-west fjords. It’s a week’s journey.’
‘You have plenty of time. We don’t have to leave until the beginning of August.’
Wayland waved his spoon. ‘There’s another disappointment. All the falcons I saw were grey.’
‘Maybe there aren’t white gyrfalcons.’
‘Yes, there are. But not on Iceland.’
‘You’re going to love this,’ said Raul. The German sat leaning back with his legs shoved out and his eyes shut.
‘The palest falcons live in Greenland,’ Wayland said. ‘Ingolf used to deal with a Norwegian merchant who imported them from an agent in the Western Settlement. They were caught by trappers in the northern hunting grounds.’
Vallon scraped back his stool. ‘You’re not going to Green land.’
‘Wait. Falcons aren’t the only precious commodity in Green land. ‘There are also walrus skins and ivory, the horns of sea unicorns, the pelts of white bears.’
Hero broke the silence that followed. ‘Those sound more profitable than the goods available here. Apart from horses, the Icelanders have only woollens and fish. They’re not going to fetch high prices in Norway or Rus.’
Vallon walked up and down. ‘How will you get there?’
‘On
Vallon shook his head. ‘I’m not risking the ship. If you really think a voyage to Greenland is worthwhile, you’ll have to make the passage on another vessel.’
Wayland yawned. ‘We’ll need our own ship to carry us to the hunting grounds. They lie a long way north of the settlements.’
Vallon glanced at Raul. ‘What do you say?’
He shrugged. ‘We came here to trade, and
‘What will you do for crew? You’ll need a pilot.’
‘Finding hands won’t be a problem,’ said Wayland. ‘There are good profits to be made in the Greenland trade.’
Vallon noticed Syth staring at Wayland with her hands clasped at her waist. ‘All right. Make enquiries. But remember that we have to leave Iceland before the autumn storms set in.’
Wayland’s enquiries soon bore fruit. An embassage from the bishop in Skalholt made the long day’s ride west and presented themselves at the hall with a request. The bishop had heard that the outlanders were planning a voyage to Greenland. It so happened that a week before their own arrival, two monks from the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen had landed on Iceland. The German archbishop had sent them to check that apostasy hadn’t taken root among his most remote parishioners. Over a meal prepared by Gisla and Syth, the ambassador explained that Iceland’s bishop found the attentions of these two holy fathers vexing. He was from Viking stock. In fact his own father had been a terrible pagan who had died unshriven, and his methods of nurturing the new faith didn’t sit square with the prescriptions laid down by the established church. In short, he wished to get the two monks off his back and had suggested that they pursue their missionary work in Greenland.
‘We’ll need a crew and pilot,’ Wayland said.
‘That’s easily arranged,’ said the ambassador.
Within three days a skilled complement had been mustered, and two days later
‘Do you want to take the girl?’
Wayland looked past him. Syth stood forlorn in the doorway.
‘You’ll need someone to cook for you,’ said Vallon. ‘The old woman will look after our needs.’
Wayland shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘I suppose she might be useful.’
‘You’ll be doing us a favour,’ Vallon said. ‘She’d only pine away in your absence.’
XXIII
In the middle of an early June night as bright as day, Wayland left Iceland with Raul and Syth. Their pilot was a morose fellow called Gunnar, a martyr to disabling headaches. Also on board were the two monks. Father Saxo was fat with a head as bald as peeled garlic and took a relaxed view of human frailty. Father Hilbert was thin, with ears like a bat and an implacable belief in man’s innate wickedness. Neither had been out of Germany before, but they knew exactly what to expect of the Greenlanders.
‘They daren’t leave their houses in the wintertime,’ Father Saxo told Raul. ‘If they do, they’re burned by a cold so extreme that when they wipe their noses, the whole nose pulls off.’
Father Hilbert nodded. ‘And the nose having broken off, they throw it away.’
‘I’d better be careful how I piss then,’ said Raul.
