“My hope is in him, and Hallfrid’s,” she said. “Where else is any? I talked with these folk through my whole life, every hour I could. I too, like you, became aware of the Fimbul Winter on its way; for they told how, year by year, they watched the glaciers grow and the sea lie ever earlier frozen, ever later thawed. When at last I sat in an ill-made house, fireless, among three corpses, my baby weakly mewing in my arms for hunger, I was sure of our doom. We in the Vestri Bygd could hang onto our misery till it strangled us; or we could go down to the Mid and Ostri Bygds-if those hold out-and be paupers. Whereas the Inuit-Look around you. They’ve done what the Norse will always be too stubborn for, they’ve learned how to live in this country that, after all, is my home-live well.
“If you were me, Eyjan, would you not have snatched at a chance to join them?”
“Of course,” the other girl answered. “But I am not Christian.”
“What’s the Church to me?” Bengta cried. “The maunderings
of an ignorant dodderer. I’ll take my hazard of Hell-flames, I who have been through Hell’s ice.”
Her pride melted. Suddenly she covered her eyes and gasped, “But that I wrought my father’s death. . . I will be long in atoning for.”
“Why do you say so?” Eyjan asked. “When you ran away, he harried innocent and helpless people. I doubt you ever guessed that stem man bore so wild a love for you. When the deed was done, should not their kith seek revenge, and an end to the threat?”
“The tupilak was mine!” Bengta shrieked. “I thought of it, when they wanted to send me back for the sake of peace. I wore down Panigpak till he made it. Mine!”
She sank to her knees. “I told him and everybody-whatever they did, quarrels and killings must worsen with worsening years-as long as the Norse remained-whereas if we drove them out, though it cost lives of theirs-it would be a mercy to them also-and I believed this. Holy Mary, Mother of God, witness I believed it!”
Eyjan raised her and embraced her again. Tauno said slowly, “I see. You wanted your ~in, the darlings of your youth. yot wanted them out before too late. But the angakok would havc recalled and dismantled his creature next spring, whatever hap pened, would he not?”
“Y -y-yes,” she stammered on Eyjan’s breast. “Then it slew mJ father. “
“We told you, he blessed you ere he died,” Tauno said. Hi ran fingers through his locks. .. And yet… strange. . . how strange. . . the tupilak sent not in hate but in love.”
Presently Atitak, Minik’s second wife, was calm enough to help prepare a feast. That night the northlights carne forth in such splendor that they covered half of heaven.
XI
SUMMER had passed, fall come back. The Danish ling bloomed purple, rowan flared, aspen trembled in gold. Down from the hunter’s moon drifted a lonesome wander-song of geese. In the mornings breath smoked and puddles crunched underfoot.
Sunlight and cloud shadows chased each other across the land, on the wings of a chilly wind. Asmild Cloister took no heed. Foursquare among oaks that soughed with their last leaves, its bricks seeming doubly red against the heath beyond, it looked across a small lake to Viborg-cathedral towers, spire of the Black Friars’ church, walls of a guardian castle-as if yonder market town were unreal. That was not true of the sisters themselves, who carried on many charitable works; but here they had their retreat, whose harmony the world could not trouble.
Or so it had seemed.
Three came riding from Viborg, in accordance with earlier
messages back and forth. They appeared respectable, in good but sober garb, on horses of the best stock. Dismounting at the nun-nery, the slender young man with flaxen hair assisted the pretty though clearly older woman down with due courtesy. His servant, who took charge of the beasts, was a burly fellow; but he must double as a bodyguard, and his own manners were seemly. The f1rst two requested admittance and entered with every deference.