Hawk Quest

XXII

Beacons must have been lit to announce their coming. How else to explain the crowd gathered on the jetty to watch their arrival? Others were still trickling in by foot and on horse, some fresh from their fields and carrying hoes or mattocks. A man with a plaited beard and rings in his ears directed Shearwater to a mooring.

‘You do the talking,’ Vallon told Wayland.

The harbourmaster waved a staff to hold back the crowd. ‘Where are you from?’ he shouted.

‘England.’

‘What are you carrying?’

‘Mixed goods.’

The harbourmaster sprang on board and looked the company over. ‘Are you the master?’ he asked Vallon.

‘He doesn’t speak your language well,’ said Wayland. ‘He’s a Frank.’

The harbourmaster was delighted. ‘I’ve never seen a Frenchman before. I thought they were smaller than that.’

‘We’ve got a German and a Sicilian, too.’

‘What’s a Sicilian?’

Wayland presented Hero. The harbourmaster studied him with blatant curiosity. ‘He’s not a monk, is he?’

‘No. A student of medicine.’

‘Good. We’ve got enough foreign monks on Iceland. A pair arrived from Norway a week ago. Germans sent by the mother church to save our souls from perdition.’

Raul spat. ‘Damn. Beaten by a pair of crows.’

Several Icelanders had sneaked on to the ship to examine the cargo. The harbourmaster chased them off and looked into the hold. ‘You won’t have any trouble shifting that timber. What are you after in exchange?’

‘We’ll decide when we’ve seen what’s on offer. First we need to find lodgings.’

The harbourmaster pointed out a pair of bothies set back from the harbour. ‘That’s all we’ve got for outlanders. Most foreign traders stay with kin or business partners.’

‘They’re no good,’ said Wayland. ‘We’ll be here all summer. We need somewhere large enough to house us in comfort and store our goods.’

The harbourmaster faced Vallon with an air of mild expectation. It became apparent that an inducement was required. Richard slipped the man a couple of coins.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Where are those ships from?’ Wayland asked, pointing at the pair down the jetty.

‘I’d say they’re from betwixt and between. They’re Norway ships that should have gone home last autumn, but they sailed too late and were taken aback by westerlies. Couldn’t get round the Reykjanes peninsula. Been here all winter. Be careful how you talk to the crews. They’re on short tethers.’

The harbourmaster left the ship and talked to a youth on horseback. The youth rode away. The crowd had begun to disperse. The company put the ship in order before eating. Afterwards, Wayland went ashore, but there was little to see and he soon returned to the ship and settled down to sleep.

It was still luminous night when the dog nuzzled him awake. Three men leading two spare mounts came riding along the jetty, their sturdy little horses stepping out at a curious running walk. The harbourmaster trotted alongside the leading rider, holding on to his stirrup.

‘Wake up,’ Wayland called. ‘We’ve got company.’

The delegation reined in beside Shearwater and dismounted. The harbourmaster gestured towards the rider he’d been escorting. ‘This man has a large house for rent.’

Wayland glanced at Vallon. ‘Invite him aboard.’

The visitors climbed to the deck. Their leader was a dignified old gentleman with eyes like blue buttons and a neat fringe of white beard. He searched all their faces before offering Vallon his hand.

‘He’s a chieftain,’ Wayland said. ‘His name’s Ottar Thordar son. He owns a hall that we might find suitable. It’s about ten miles from the coast.’

Ottar was eyeing the contents of the hold with polite avidity.

‘What does he want in return?’

‘He’s interested in buying our timber.’

Vallon looked into Ottar’s candid blue eyes. ‘He’s welcome to take a closer look.’

The visitors walked around the hold, discussing the timber. Finally, Ottar stopped, passed one hand across his mouth and nodded.

‘He says he’ll take the lot,’ Wayland said.

Vallon laughed. ‘We’ll negotiate once we’ve seen the house.’

‘We can visit it today. That’s why he brought spare horses.’

‘You and I will go,’ said Vallon. ‘Raul, you’re in charge of the ship.’

The sun was on the rise when they set off inland. The fields soon fell behind and they followed a rough road beaten out on a plain of lava. Wayland had never seen such an inhospitable landscape. Ottar took pride in pointing out its diabolic features — underground furnaces, mountains that melted and flowed like rivers, springs hot enough to boil a cow.

‘Do falcons live here?’ Wayland asked. ‘White ones?’

‘Yes, there are falcons,’ said Ottar. He pointed east towards a range of peaks floating in the clear air. ‘Two days’ ride. Three days’ ride.’

Wayland fell back alongside Vallon. ‘He says there are falcons.’

Vallon smiled. ‘Good.’ He patted Wayland’s arm. ‘Good.’

They rode on and came to a district so cauterised that not a blade of grass or patch of lichen had taken hold. Steam wafted up from the ground and the stink of brimstone caught in the back of Wayland’s throat. Off to their left stood a smoking black mountain resembling the remains of a gargantuan bonfire. They breasted a bare horizon and sat looking down into a broad river valley partly inundated by lava. Near the river stood a large farmstead isolated between lobes of slag. The road took a diversion close to the house and then went wriggling away to the east.

‘What happened here?’ Vallon asked.

‘This is Ottar’s hall,’ Wayland said. ‘His family built it in the first settlement. They’ve farmed here for two hundred years. This used to be one of the most fertile valleys in Iceland, but last spring Ottar woke in the night and saw flames spewing from that mountain. By morning molten rock had begun to flow into the valley. For three months streams of lava crept across the fields, and by winter Ottar had to abandon the hall. He’s building a new one on the other side of his estate. He was going to salvage the beams from the old house, but he’d prefer to let the hall die in its own time and stand as a monument to his ancestors. That’s why he wants our timber.’

Vallon looked at Ottar. He looked at the hall. ‘Tell him he has first refusal.’

They descended towards the house, the horses treading with care on the lava. The hall resembled a giant upturned ship entirely carpeted with turf. An old woman came out of a ramshackle outbuilding and limped weeping across a tiny meadow grazed by a solitary cow. She showered kisses on Ottar’s hand and he jumped down and kissed her cheeks and held her by her shoulders and spoke in soothing and affectionate tones.

‘Her name’s Gisla,’ Wayland told Vallon. ‘She was nurse to Ottar’s children. Her own kin lie buried in a cemetery that was covered by the lava, and she didn’t want to leave them. She’ll cook and clean for us. Ottar says she talks a lot. She’s lonely.’

Vallon slid off his horse and studied the house. Its turf eaves were so low that the structure looked like it had grown out of the ground. Wildflowers grew on its roof. Ottar opened the door and led them into the shadowy interior. A bird like the one that had landed on the ship fluttered from beam to beam before escaping into the light. Wayland felt that he’d been in the hall before. It was a replica of the home his grandfather had told him about. Here was the main chamber arranged around the long pit hearth where the menfolk gathered to eat and talk, and there were the retainers’ bunks against each wall. Down that end was the booth where the householders retired for privacy, and above it was a gallery for their daughters. Wayland ran his hand over figures carved on the timber supports.

‘Ottar’s four sons and four daughters grew up here. It was a happy place.’

‘Excuse us one moment,’ said Vallon.

They went to the door. Through the aperture Wayland could see blue sky dotted with a few shavings of cloud. A rider passed in slow silhouette along the road.

‘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 Shearwater. Within two days the company had set up residence in Ottarshall.

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 Shearwater, of course.’

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 Shearwater’s lying idle. Why not?’

‘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 Shearwater was ready to leave. Wayland was packing for the voyage when Vallon came by.

‘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.’