I still had my doubts. A part of me felt that if we moved on, it was as if we were accepting that Rose was gone forever. But a bigger part of me knew that she was not. Rose was alive somewhere and traveling the path she must, the way she always had.
Rose
A WEEK AND A HALF after telling Thor of the white bear, I spotted a seabird. At first I did not take in its significance. I was at the steering oar and, despite the chill in the air, feeling drowsy. It had gotten bitter cold in the past few days, and I was wearing all the clothing I owned. Thor had been sleeping for a long time, the result of his latest round of drinking. It was just after dawn and I watched the bird soar, its whiteness vivid against the blue sky. It dipped low, almost to the surface of the water, then rose again. The white bird had come from the west and, wheeling around, eventually headed back in that direction.
Then I remembered: A bird means land! How many times had Thor made that point? Even as recently as the day before, he had told me a story about a Viking explorer who had been lost at sea for weeks, near starvation, and the sight of a gull had caused him to convert to Christianity on the spot.
I let out a shout. "Thor!"
There was no response, so I left the steering oar and went to shake him awake. '
"A bird, Thor," I said. "I saw a seabird."
He came awake and, though groggy, raised himself to a sitting position.
"A bird, eh? Where?"
I explained that it had flown away in a westerly direction.
"Is it possible?" he muttered to himself. "Could it be?..." A strange look of pain passed over his face.
Grabbing his crutch he hobbled over to the steering oar, ordering me to adjust the rigging while he changed course. He set the nose of the knorr due west, then ordered me to bring him a new cask of ale. I hesitated. "Get it for me now, you lunkheaded laggard, or I'll throw you overboard!" he roared with such force that I decided it was best to do as he said.
I scanned the western horizon eagerly, but by midmorning there was still no sign of land. Sunset would come in only a few hours. The sun was then setting in the early afternoon, which meant either that we had traveled quite far north or that it was almost winter solstice—or both.
We sailed through the long, frosty night. I slept fitfully, keeping watch over Thor, who was helping himself to frequent draughts of ale.
At dawn I offered to take over the steering oar, but Thor refused, though he reeked of drink and his movements were clumsy. I was the first to spy what looked to be a thin white finger of land. I pointed it out to Thor. He grunted and poured more ale.
The wind had weakened and shifted to the south, so it took a long time to tack toward land. To make matters worse, an icy sleet had begun to fall.
By the time I could make out features of the land, Thor was roaring drunk. He was zigzagging sloppily through the water and finally stopped steering altogether, slumping sideways on the bench, singing under his breath a song about "journeying on to Vinland." I suddenly saw that we were bearing down on a snow-covered headland, and I hastily squeezed in next to Thor and took the steering oar in hand.
I managed to avoid the boulders sticking up out of the water, but with a sinking feeling I saw that there were many of them. It did not look like a promising spot for me to try to land the knorr, inexperienced as I was. Because the wind was coming from the south, I steered a northerly course, hoping to find a better landing place.
With no one to secure the rigging, the sail flapped. I silently cursed Thor. Why had he chosen this of all times to drink himself into a stupor? And just what was that land? I bound the steering oar in place with a strap of leather and went to find my pack, pulling out the map that Sofi had given me.
I scrutinized it. Based on the shortening days, Thor had said he believed we were at least as far north as Suroy, perhaps farther, but he had no idea how far west we had been driven by the storm. Then the land could be Iseland, or ... it could even be the desolate land called Grönland.
And then I remembered.
Not long before I'd spotted the white bird, and during one of Thor's rare sober spells, he had told me about the death of his wife and son. Thor had been working for a prosperous merchant seaman but had hopes of one day owning his own ship. Then he was offered a place on a vessel that was going to Grönland, a place the Vikings had first settled but long ago abandoned. There was said to be good whale hunting off the coast of Grönland. Because the profits promised were large, and because of his great admiration for his Viking forebears, Thor leaped at the opportunity.
The voyage had not been a success, due to bad weather and an outbreak of sickness. In fact, the ship did not even reach Grönland before it had to turn back. Thor returned home to find that in his absence his wife and son had been killed by thieves. The next few years he was lost in barrels of ale, followed by several more years spent in gaol for killing a man he had mistakenly thought to be one of the killers.
After he got out of gaol, Thor worked a series of odd jobs, eventually scraping together enough money to buy himself a very old, decrepit Viking knorr, which he rebuilt. He set himself up in business as a merchant seaman and, for the past dozen years, had been able to make a living.
As I remembered all of this, I realized that the prospect of our coming to Gronland had brought back memories of Thor's failed voyage—and of all he had lost.
I felt pity for him then, but I was angry as well. I would never be able to land the knorr on my own; certainly not along such a rocky coast. My only hope lay in finding some kind of natural harbor.
The sun had set by then and I managed to steer the ship through the night. The moon shone inconstantly, moving in and out of cloud cover, and I could only occasionally make out a dim outline of the land we glided past. Finally I decided to drop anchor, thinking to wait until morning to try to find a place to land. Shivering, I covered the snoring Thor, noting that he had almost completely emptied an entire barrel. I burrowed under my own layers of cloth and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke to find snow falling, and a good two inches of it already accumulated on the cloths covering me. There was a trace of light from the predawn sun.
Dusting the snow off, I got up and stretched. Thor was still passed out, his mouth hanging open and his breathing loud. I gazed toward land and in the gray light could just make out what looked to be a slim outcropping a little to the north. I wondered if there might be a harbor of sorts within it.
After attempting in vain to awaken Thor, I raised the sail and steered the knorr toward land. As I went closer I saw that the arm of land did provide protection for a cove of sorts. Suddenly all I wanted was the feel of land under my feet, and I recklessly pointed the bow toward shore. The light was so dim that I could barely tell where the sea ended and the shore began, but I didn't care.
The water was fairly calm in this natural harbor, and the knorr glided through the gray waves, snow still lightly falling. My eyes straining, I thought I saw a cluster of shapes on the beach ahead that from such a distance looked like standing stones.
All was silent; even the slapping of water against the hull seemed muffled by the falling snow. Somehow I managed to avoid the rocks. There was a grinding sound as the prow of the knorr slid up onto the snowy beach and came to a stop.