“It’s my boy, sir,” said the woman. “He’s terrified of the dark.”
The weeping child could not have been more than two. Though his mother rocked him and kissed his head, he would not be consoled. Jón’s heart—for he did have a small one—broke.
“Blood-Axe!”
Blood-Axe stopped to look back at him.
“Wait ten minutes for me.”
Blood-Axe crossed his arms and grumbled. Jón pulled the woman and child up onto his horse and took them home, where he took a big scoop of light from his box and spread it into every corner of their house, enough to keep it lit for a whole month.
Blood-Axe made fun of him all the way back to Egilsstaðir. “Are you looking for a wife?” he said, laughing. “That one’s married already!”
“I felt bad for them, that’s all,” said Jón.
“Well, don’t,” growled Blood-Axe. “You’ll never hear a word of pity from them when we farmers have a bad harvest. They look out for themselves, and so should we.”
Jón’s pile of money grew so long as the crops in Egilsstaðir did, but finally the growing season came to an end. The farmers thanked Jón for his excellent sunlight, and told him they looked forward to buying it again in the spring, when they planted a new crop. “And I look forward to selling it to you!” said Jón.
“What’ll you do with all your free time until then?” Blood-Axe asked him.
“I thought I might go on holiday somewhere warm. Rome, perhaps?”
“I hear it’s nice this time of year. And they’re almost entirely free of plague now!”
But just as he was making plans to go, Tyr paid him another visit.
“Quitting again, are you?” said Tyr, walking into Jón’s room while he was getting dressed one morning.
“Good God, man!” Jón shouted, and jumped behind his dressing screen. “You’ve got to stop doing that!”
“You’re missing a golden opportunity,” said Tyr. “Don’t you want to be obscenely wealthy?”
Jón looked around his room, which was draped with silks and expensive furniture. Gold coins overflowed from a chest in the corner. “I am obscenely wealthy!” Jón said.
“You could be the richest man in Iceland, if you weren’t such a quitter.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jón. “I already managed to sell them sunlight they could’ve had for free—but now that the growing season’s done, they don’t need sunlight at all, free or otherwise!”
“Haven’t you learned anything?” said Tyr. “What they need is irrelevant. They only have to want it.”
“But they don’t want it.”
“Not yet,” said Tyr, “but we can fix that.”
He sidled up to Jón and whispered in his ear. When Tyr had finished, Jón scratched his chin and said, “I don’t know. I think it’s going too far.”
“Try it,” Tyr shrugged. “If they don’t buy it, you’ll know you were right.”
Jón went to see Blood-Axe later that day.
“Jónsson, what are you still doing here?” said Blood-Axe. “I thought you were on your way to Rome!”
“I had a brilliant notion and I just had to share it with you,” said Jón, and he pitched him
Tyr’s idea. “Natural sunlight is messy and inefficient. It falls in places where it isn’t wanted, at times it isn’t wanted. Let’s say your family is away on a hunting trip for a week. While you’re gone the sun shines every day, but when you get back it’s all clouds and depressing gray skies. What a waste! But if you were to let me harvest and distribute your sunlight, you would never miss a ray.”
“You want to take the sunlight we already get and sell it back to us?” Blood-Axe said, and the big man broke out laughing. “You’re funny, Jón Jónsson!”
“I can see you’re not quite convinced yet, but hear me out,” said Jón. “Since I won’t have to travel anywhere to make my harvest, I can sell it more cheaply than growing-season sunlight. And there’s another advantage, too: you aren’t limited to buying whatever light would have fallen on your property naturally. Some people won’t want to buy much light, or won’t be able to—which means that others can buy more than their natural share. If you want double-strong sun warming your house every single day of winter, that can be arranged!”
This seemed to pique Blood-Axe’s interest. The farmers, having enjoyed a lucrative harvest season, were flush with money and looking for interesting ways to spend it. He had only one reservation.
“What about people who can’t afford to buy your sunlight?” asked Blood-Axe. “Not everyone in Egilsstaðir is as well-off as we farmers.”
“Blood-Axe, you surprise me!” said Jón. “Have you suddenly grown a heart?”
Blood-Axe frowned. “I’m only asking.”
“I suppose the town could subsidize some light for the poor, if you feel like paying more taxes,” said Jón. “But just between you and me, I think the people who work hardest to make this town what it is—and are rightfully enjoying the fruits of their success—are just a bit more deserving than the indolent slobs who don’t contribute. Why should this town’s most precious natural resource be given away for free to its laziest residents? Don’t those people have the same opportunities to succeed as the rest of us? If they don’t have money to buy sunlight, they have no one to blame but themselves. Who knows, maybe they’ll find living in darkness motivating.”
Blood-Axe’s eyes widened a little. “Why, if I didn’t know better, Jón Jónsson, I’d swear you were running for parliament.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being funny!” said Jón. “No, no, I’m just a humble businessman. So, do we have a deal?”
“I’ll have to take it up with the farmers’ union,” said Blood-Axe, and he went away shaking his head and chuckling.
The farmers’ union loved the idea. Before it could be implemented, though, the town elders had to vote on it. They were sharply divided, so the night before the vote, Jón visited the home of each elder and gave them purses filled with gold coins. They were received without objection, with one exception.
“I don’t accept bribes,” said Bjarni Bjarnason, the eldest elder. “I wouldn’t dream of offering you a bribe!” said Jón. “This bag of coins is part of my municipal leadership revenue-sharing initiative.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” Bjarni said with an imperious sneer. “And I suppose it’s coincidence that you happen to be implementing this the very night before we vote on your proposal?”
“Pure coincidence,” said Jón, smiling innocently.
“I’m sure,” said Bjarni. He looked like he’d eaten a sour piece of fruit.
Jón shifted the purse from one hand to another. “My, it gets heavy,” said Jón, shaking his free hand as if it ached. “Gold, you know.”
Bjarni’s eyes darted to the Jón’s coin purse. “You must think I have no morals at all,” he said. “Not at all, sir. I think you’re as honorable as they come.”
“Good—then get off my property!” Bjarni shouted. “And leave that under my elderberry bush on your way out,” he whispered.
“Yes, sir,” said Jón.
The measure passed unanimously, and right away Jón began harvesting Egilsstaðir’s light and selling it back to its residents. The endeavor was sufficiently complex that he had to hire an assistant—someone to collect payments and keep track of who wanted how much light and where, while Jón spent his days scooping sunlight from the sky and distributing it to those who had paid him.
At first, prices were low enough that nearly everyone could afford sunlight, though Jón heard a lot of complaints from poorer folk that this new expense was stretching their wallets thin, despite the subsidies. But as the long, gray winter set in, the rich farmers decided they liked warm sunshine and lots of it, and found that if they used enough, falling snow wouldn’t stick to the ground and they could even go outside in thin shirts and short pants. It was like winter wasn’t even happening! Delighted, they proceeded to buy so much sunlight that they drove up the price, and suddenly there were people in Egilsstaðir who couldn’t afford any sun at all.