(3/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume III: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories Read online

  "I never heard of them!" he said. His breath sobbed in his throat. "You... didn't you Icelanders come from Norway?"

  "Yes, about a hundred years ago," I answered patiently. "After King Harald Fairhair took all the Norse lands and--"

  "A hundred years ago!" he whispered. I saw whiteness creep up under his skin. "What year is this?"

  We gaped at him. "Well, it's the second year after the great salmon catch," I tried.

  "What year after Christ, I mean?" It was a hoarse prayer.

  "Oh, so you are a Christian? Hm, let me think... I talked with a bishop in England once, we were holding him for ransom, and he said... let me see... I think he said this Christ man lived a thousand years ago, or maybe a little less."

  "A thousand--" He shook his head; and then something went out of him, he stood with glassy eyes--yes, I have seen glass, I told you I am a traveled man--he stood thus, and when we led him toward the garth he went like a small child.

  You can see for yourself, priest, that my wife Ragnhild is still good to look upon even in eld, and Thorgunna took after her. She was is tall and slim, with a dragon's hoard of golden hair. She being a maiden then, it flowed loose over her shoulders. She had great blue eyes and a small heart-shaped face and very red lips. Withal she was a merry one, and kind-hearted, so that all men loved her. Sverri Snorrason went in viking when she refused and was slain, but no one had the wit to see that she was unlucky.

  We led this Gerald Samsson--when I asked, he said his father was named Sam--we led him home, leaving Sigurd and Grim to finish gathering the driftwood. There are some who would not have a Christian in their house, for fear of witchcraft, but I am a broad-minded man and Helgi, of course, was wild for anything new. Our guest stumbled like a blind man over the fields, but seemed to wake up as we entered the yard. His eyes went around the buildings that enclosed it, from the stables and sheds to the smokehouse, the brewery, the kitchen, the bathhouse, the god-shrine, and thence to the hall. And Thorgunna was standing in the doorway.

  Their gazes locked for a moment, and I saw her color but thought little of it then. Our shoes rang on the flagging as we crossed the yard and kicked the dogs aside. My two thralls paused in cleaning out the stables to gawp, until I got them back to work with the remark that a man good for naught else was always a pleasing sacrifice. That's one useful practice you Christians lack; I've never made a human offering myself, but you know not how helpful is the fact that I could do so.

  We entered the hall and I told the folk Gerald's name and how we had found him. Ragnhfld set her maids hopping, to stoke up the fire in the middle trench and fetch beer, while I led Gerald to the high seat and sat down by him. Thorgunna brought us the filled horns.

  Gerald tasted the brew and made a face. I felt somewhat offended, for my beer is reckoned good, and asked him if there was aught wrong. He laughed with a harsh note and said no, but he was used to beer that foamed and was not sour.

  "And where might they make such?" I wondered testily.

  "Everywhere. Iceland, too--no..." He stared emptily before him. "Let's say... in Vinland."

  "Where is Vinland?" I asked.

  "The country to the west whence I came. I thought you knew ... wait a bit--" He shook his head, "Maybe I can find out--have you heard of a man named Leif Eiriksson?"

  "No," I said. Since then it has struck me that this was one proof of his tale, for Leif Eriksson is now a well-known chief; and I also take more seriously those tales of land seen by Bjarni Herjulfsson.

  "His father, maybe Tfoilr the Red?" asked Gerald.

  "Oh yes," I said. "If you mean the Norseman who came hither because of a manslaughter, and left Iceland in turn for the same reason, and has now settled with other folk in Greenland..."

  "Then this is... a little before Leif's voyage," he muttered "The late tenth century."

  "See here," demanded Helgi, "we've been patient with you, but this is no time for riddles. We save those for feasts and drinking bouts. Can you not say plainly whence you come and how you got here?"

  Gerald covered his face, shaking.

  "Let the man alone, Helgi," said Thorgunna. "Can you not see he's troubled?"

  He raised his head and gave her the look of a hurt dog that someone has patted. It was dim in the hall, enough light coming in by the loft windows so no candles were lit, but not enough to see well by. Nevertheless, I marked a reddening in both their faces.

  Gerald drew a long breath and fumbled about; his clothes were made with pockets. He brought out a small parchment box and from it took a little white stick that he put in his mouth. Then he took out another box, and a wooden stick from it which burst into flame when scratched. With the fire he kindled the stick in his mouth, and sucked in the smoke.

  We all stared "Is that a Christian rite?" asked Helgi.

  "No... not just so." A wry, disappointed smile twisted his lips. "I'd have thought you'd be more surprised, even terrified."

  "It's something new," I admitted, "but we're a sober folk on Iceland. Those fire sticks could be useful. Did you come to trade in them?"

  "Hardly." He sighed. The smoke he breathed in seemed to steady him, which was odd, because the smoke in the hall had made him cough and water at the eyes. "The truth is... something you will not believe. I can scarce believe it myself."

  We waited. Thorgunna stood leaning forward, her lips parted.

  "That lightning bolt--" Gerald nodded wearily. "I was out in the storm, and somehow the lightning must have struck me in just the right way, a way that happens only once in many thousands of times. It threw me back into the past."

  Those were his words, priest I did not understand, and told him so.

  "It's hard to see," he agreed. "God give that I'm only dreaming. But if this is a dream, I must endure till I wake up... well, look. I was born one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-two years after Christ, in a land to the west which you have not yet found. In the twenty-third year of my life, I was in Iceland as part of my country's army. The lightning struck me, and now ... now it is less than one thousand years after Christ, and yet I am here--almost a thousand years before I was born, I am here!"

  We sat very still. I signed myself with the Hammer and took a long pull from my horn. One of the maids whimpered, and Ragnhild whispered so fiercely I could hear. "Be still. The poor fellow's out of his head. There's no harm in him."

  I agreed with her, though less sure of the last part of it The gods can speak through a madman, and the gods are not always to be trusted. Or he could turn berserker, or he could be under a heavy curse that would also touch us.

  He sat staring before him, and I caught a few fleas and cracked them while I thought about it. Gerald noticed and asked with some horror if we had many fleas here.

  "Why, of course," said Thorgunna. "Have you none?"

  "No." He smiled crookedly. "Not yet--"

  "Ah," she signed, "you must be sick."

  She was a level-headed girl. I saw her thought, and so did Ragnhild and Helgi-- clearly, a man so sick that he had no fleas could be expected to rave. There was still some worry about whether we might catch the illness, but I deemed it unlikely; his trouble was all in the head, perhaps from a blow he had taken. In any case, the matter was come down to earth now, something we could deal with.

  As a godi, a chief who holds sacrifices, it behooved me not to turn a stranger out. Moreover, if he could fetch in many of those little fire-kindling sticks, a profitable trade might be built up. So I said Gerald should go to bed. He protested, but we manhandled him into the shut-bed and there he lay tired and was soon asleep. Thorgunna said she would take care of him.

  The next day I decided to sacrifice a horse, both because of the timber we had found and to take away any curse there might be on Gerald. Furthermore, the beast I had picked was old and useless, and we were short of fresh meat. Gerald had spent the day lounging moodily around the garth, but when I came in to supper I found him and my daughter laughing.

  "You seem to be on the ro
ad to health," I said.

  "Oh yes. It... could be worse for me." He sat down at my side as the carles set up the trestle table and the maids brought in the food. "I was ever much taken with the age of the vikings, and I have some skills."

  "Well," I said, "if you've no home, we can keep you here for a while."

  "I can work," he said eagerly. "I'll be worth my pay."

  Now I knew he was from a far land, because what chief would work on any land but his own, and for hire at that? Yet he had the easy manner of the highborn, and had clearly eaten well all his life. I overlooked that he had made no gifts; after all, he was shipwrecked.

  "Maybe you can get passage back to your United States," said Helgi. "We could hire a ship. I'm fain to see that realm."

  "No," said Gerald bleakly. "There is no such place. Not yet."

  "So you still hold to that idea you came from tomorrow?" grunted Sigurd. "Crazy notion. Pass the pork."

  "I do," said Gerald. There was a calm on him now. "And I can prove it--"

  "I don't see how you speak our tongue, if you come from so far away," I said, I would not call a man a liar to his face, unless we were swapping brags in a friendly way, but...

  "They speak otherwise in my land and time," he replied, "but it happens than in Iceland the tongue changed little since the old days, and I learned it when I came there."

  "If you are a Christian," I said, "you must bear with us while we sacrifice tonight--"

  "I've naught against that," he said. "I fear I never was a very good Christian. I'd like to watch. How is it done?"

  I told him how I would smite the horse with a hammer before the god, and cut his throat, and sprinkle the blood about with willow twigs; thereafter we would butcher the carcass and feast. He said hastily:

  "There's my chance to prove what I am. I have a weapon that will kill the horse with... with a flash of lightning."

  "What is it?" I wondered. We all crowded around while he took the metal club out of his sheath and showed it to us. I had my doubts; it looked well enough for hitting a man, perhaps, but had no edge, though a wondrously skilful smith had forged ft. "Well, we can try," I said.

  He showed us what else he had in his pockets. There were some coins of remarkable roundness and sharpness, a small key, a stick with lead in it for writing, a flat purse holding many bits of marked paper; when he told us solemnly that some of this paper was money, even Thorgtmna had to laugh. Best of all was a knife whose blade folded into the handle. When he saw me admiring that, he gave it to me, which was well done for a shipwrecked man. I said I would give him clothes and a good ax, as well as lodging for as long as needful.

  No, I don't have the knife now. You shall hear why. It's a pity, for it was a good knife, though rather small.

  "What were you ere the war arrow went out in your land?" asked Heigi. "A merchant?"

  "No," said Gerald. "I was an... engineer... that is, I was learning how to be one. That's a man who builds things, bridges and roads and tools... more than just an artisan. So I think my knowledge could be of great value here." I saw a fever in his eyes, "Yes, give me time and I'll be a king!"

  "We have no king in Iceland," I grunted. "Our forefathers came hither to get away from kings. Now we meet at the Kings to try suits and pass new laws, but each man must get his own redress as best he can."

  "But suppose the man in the wrong won't yield?" he asked.

  "Then there can be a fine feud," said Helgi, and went on to relate with sparkling eyes some of the killings there had lately been. Gerald looked unhappy and fingered his gun. That is what he called his fire-spitting club.

  "Your clothing is rich," said Thorgunna softly. "Your folk must own broad acres at home."

  "No," he said, "our... our king gives every man in the army clothes like these. As for my family, we owned no land, we rented our home in a building where many other families also dwelt."

  I am not purse-proud, but it seemed me he had not been honest, a landless man sharing my high seat like a chief. Thorgunna covered my huffiness by saying. "You will gain a farm later."

  After dark we went out to the shrine. The carles had built a fire before it, and as I opened the door the wooden Odin appeared to leap forth. Gerald muttered to my daughter that it was a clumsy bit of carving, and since my father had made it I was still more angry with him. Some folks have no understanding of the fine arts.

  Nevertheless, I let him help me lead the horse forth to the altar stone. I took the blood-bowl in my hands and said he could now slay the beast if he would. He drew his gun, put the end behind the horse's ear, and squeezed. There was a crack, and the beast quivered and dropped with a hole blown through its skull, wasting the brains a clumsy weapon. I caught a whiff of smell, sharp and bitter like that around a volcano. We all jumped, one of the women screamed, and Gerald looked proud. I gathered my wits and finished the rest of the sacrifice as usual. Gerald did not like having blood sprinkled over hi 3 but then, of course, he was a Christian. Nor would he take more than a little of the soup and flesh.

  Afterward Helgi questioned him about the gun, and he said it could kill a man at bowshot distance but there was no witchcraft in it, only use of some tricks we did not know as yet. Having heard of the Greek fire, I believed him. A gun could be useful in a fight, as indeed I was to learn, but it did not seem very practical iron costing what it does, and months of forging needed for each one.

  I worried more about the man himself.

  And the next morning I found him telling Thorgunna a great deal of foolishness about his home, buildings tall as mountains and wagons that flew or went without horses. He said there were eight or nine thousand thousands of folk in his city, a burgh called New Jorvik or the like. I enjoy a good brag as wefl as the next man, but this was too much and I told him gruffly to come along and help me get in some strayed cattle.

  After a day scrambling around the hills I knew well enough that Gerald could scarce tell a cow's prow from her stern. We almost had the strays once, but he ran stupidly across their path and turned them so the work was all to do again. I asked him with strained courtesy if he could "rillr, shear, wield scythe or flail, and he said no, he had never fived on a farm.

  That's a pity," I remarked, "for everyone on Iceland does, unless he be outlawed."

  He flushed at my tone. "I can do enough else," he answered. "Give me some tools and I'll show you metalwork well done."

  That brightened me, for truth to tell, none of our household was a very gifted smith. "That's an honorable trade," I said, "and you can be of great help. I have a broken sword and several bent spearheads to be mended, and it were no bad idea to shoe all the horses." His admission that he did know how to put on a shoe was not very dampening to me then.

  We had returned home as we talked, and Thorgunna came angrily forward. "That's no way to treat a guest, father!" she said. "Making him work like a carle, indeed!"

  Gerald smiled. "I'll be glad to work," he said. "I need a... a stake... something to start me afresh. Also, I want to repay a little of your kindness."

  That made me mild toward him, and I said it was not his fault they had different customs in the United States. On the morrow he could begin work in the smithy, and I would pay him, yet he would be treated as an equal, since craftsmen are valued. This earned him black looks from the housefolk.

  That evening he entertained us well with stories of his home; true or not, they made good listening. However, he had no real polish, being unable to compose even two lines of verse. They must be a raw and backward lot in the United States. He said his task in the army had been to keep order among the troops. Helgi said this was unheard-of, and he must be a brave man who would offend so many men, but Gerald said folk obeyed him out of fear of the king. When he added that the term of a levy in the United States was two years, and that men could be called to war even in harvest time, I said he was well out of a country with so ruthless and powerful a king.

  "No," he answered wistfully, "we are a free folk, who say
what we please."

  "But it seems you may not do as you please," said Helgi.

  "Well," he said, "We may not murder a man just because he offends us."

  "Not even if he has slain you own kin?" asked Helgi.

  "No. It is for the... the king to take vengeance on behalf of us all."

  I chuckled. "Your yarns are good," I said, "but there you've hit a snag. How could the king even keep track of all the murders, let alone avenge them? Why, the man wouldn't even have time to beget an heir!"

  He could say no more for all the laughter that followed.

  The next day Gerald went to the smithy, with a thrall to pump the bellows for him. I was gone that day and night, down to Reykjavik to dicker with Hjalmar Broadnose about some sheep. I invited him back for an overnight stay, and we rode into the garth with his son Ketill, a red-haired sulky youth of twenty winters who had been refused by Thorgunnau.

  I found Gerald sitting gloomily on a bench in the hall. He wore the clothes I had given him, his own having been spoiled by ash and sparks.

  what had he awaited, the fool? He was talking in a low voice with my daughter.

  "Well," I said as I entered, "how went it?"

  My man Grim snickered. "He has mined two spearheads, but we put out the fire he started ere the whole smithy burned."

  "How's this?" I cried. "I thought you said you were a smith."

  Gerald stood up, defiantly. "I worked with other tools, and better ones, at home," he replied. "You do it differently here."

  It seemed he had built up the fire too hot; his hammer had struck everywhere but the place it should; he had wrecked the temper of the steel through not knowing when to quench it Smithcraft takes years to learn, of course, but he should have admitted he was not even an apprentice.

  "Well," I snapped, "what can you do, then, to earn your bread?" It irked me to be made a fool of before Hjalmar and Ketill, whom I had told about the stranger.

  "Odin alone knows," said Grim. "I took him with me to ride after your goats, and never have I seen a worse horseman. I asked him if he could even spin or weave, and he said no."