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 sighed, «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 road 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 that 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 skillful smith had forged it. «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 Thorgunna 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 Helgi. «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 Things 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 to 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 him, 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 well 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 milk, shear, wield scythe or flail, and he said no, he had never lived on a farm.