"My name is Gudrid," said the woman, and the real Gudrid laughed softly.
"Come then, Gudrid, and sit by me," she said, and held out her hand.
The woman stared mournfully at her, and seemed to have trouble in
speaking again. She turned her head about as if her throat hurt her.
Then she said, "No, I cannot--I may not." Again she struggled, as she
said, "Go from here. Do not stay." There came a loud cry from the
stockade, and Gudrid started and got up. She went to the door and
looked out. The woman was not there.
By that time she was very much frightened, and saw them fighting at the
entry. The outside of the fence seemed thick with savages, and
presently some of them rushed the opening and came in. Freydis was at
the door of her hut and saw them. Her face flamed. "Have at you,
devils!" she shouted, and snatched up a double-handed sword. With this
she went stumbling towards them, being so far on with child that she
could scarcely walk. She had the long sword in one hand, but needed
two to swing it. Her shift incommoded her, so she ripped it open and
let it fall behind her. Then bare-breasted she whirled the great sword
over her head and began to lay about her like a man. Her yellow hair
flew out behind her like a flag; her face was flame-red, and her eyes
glittering like ice. The savages fell back before her, and at the
entry were caught by Karlsefne, returning from chasing a horde of them,
and all killed. The others had gone or been driven off. Two of the
Icelanders had been killed, and many were hurt.
After this they had a council what had best be done. Gudrid told her
story. Nobody had seen the woman but she, and nobody could make
anything of it. Freydis thought that she was a ghost, but Gudrid was
sure of her reality. "I think myself," she said, "that she was a woman
of our own people either stolen by the savages from a ship, or cast
ashore from a wreck, or lost by some adventurers of a former day. I
never saw any woman with so much horror in her face. I would do a
great deal if I could find her again. But the fighting began, and she
went away without my seeing her go."
"I should like more to know how she came in," said Karlsefne, "than how
she went out. But whether she lives or is dead she had a warning which
we had best take heed of. I am for going home myself."
Freydis said that she should stay. She liked the country and was
minded to live in it. Others were of her mind. About a hundred chose
to settle there with her and her husband.
There arose then the question of a ship, and Karlsefne said that he
could not go home and leave them there with no means of escape. He
said that he would go out in his own ship and look for the others, but
Freydis would not have that. "Leave us here; we shall do well enough,"
she said. "As for the ship that has Thorhall the Huntsman in it, I
would far sooner have none than his, with him in it."
"We have tools enough here, and timber enough," Karlsefne said. "We
will build you a ship as soon as look at you." So it was settled they
were to build a new ship before they left. That night Freydis's child
was born. It was a girl, and she called it Walgerd. That had been the
name of Thorstan's daughter, who had not lived. Gudrid wondered why
she chose that name. She could never understand Freydis--nobody could;
yet she had been right about her in one thing. Freydis loved the child
more than life itself. She was so jealous of it that she was uneasy
when any one came in to see her, and used to lean right over it and
hide it out of sight. Her yellow hair fell over her face, her eyes
showed fire. She was like a wild beast guarding her young. As for
Thorhall, her husband, she warned him out of the house, and he never
dared put his head inside the door. She allowed Gudrid the entry,
sulkily, it is true; but that was only her way of doing things. She
was glad of her in her heart. "I am even with you now," she said, with
her face to the wall.
"I am glad of it," Gudrid said. "I always wished you happy."
"I have never been so, since I became a woman," said Freydis, and
Gudrid did not know what she meant.
"I was happy enough," she went on, in a grumbling, even voice--as even
it was as the constant running of water in a drain--"when I was a
child, running and sporting with the boys. I loved all the things that
they loved--I could swim as well as any, and ride, and fight with
stones. But when they began to find me a girl, and to hold me and try
to be alone with me, I had horror. They made me ashamed. And worse
was to come--and I almost killed a young man for it--and after that I
hated men, as I do still."
"They mean no harm," said Gudrid. "They do after their kind."
"But their kind is not mine. To be held in a man's arm is horrible to
me."
"It is good to me, sometimes," said Gudrid.
"But when I saw you with Thorstan's child about to be born--and saw how
rich and sedate you walked the ways, and how peace sat upon your
forehead like a wreath, then I grudged you." Freydis turned round in
the bed and showed her burning face. "And I said, 'This woman has a
secret joy, and for all she is so quiet and still she is stronger than
I.' And when the child died I was glad. I said, 'Now we are level
again, but I will be better than you, for I will have a child which
shall live and be strong like me.' But you have had yours first, and
it is a boy. So you are better than me still." Then her eyes filled
with hot tears, which made her eyelids blink.
"Oh, Freydis," Gudrid said, "you don't grudge me my boy?"
"No, no, it is not that. It is that I am ashamed. You are good, and I
am very bad. I hate myself now."
Gudrid kissed her.
"Tell me, Freydis, now," she said, "why did you call your girl Walgerd?"
Freydis did not want to answer, but presently she said: "I should have
called her Gudrid if that had been lucky. But we must not use the
names of living persons for the new-born, so I called her Walgerd,
because yours had been called so. I went as near to you as I could."
It seemed to hurt Freydis to talk about it, but Gudrid kissed her
again, and went away feeling happy about her. "It is good to be loved,
even by Freydis," she said to Karlsefne, whose answer was, "Who could
help loving you?"