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.