I worried more about the man himself.

And the next morning I found him telling Thorgunna a great deal of foolishness about his home, buildings tall as mountains and wagons that flew or went without horses. He said there were eight or nine thousand thousands of folk in his city, a burgh called New Jorvik or the like. I enjoy a good brag as well as the next man, but this was too much and I told him gruffly to come along and help me get in some strayed cattle.

* * *

After a day scrambling around the hills I knew well enough that Gerald could scarce tell a cow’s prow from her stern. We almost had the strays once, but he ran stupidly across their path and turned them so the work was all to do again. I asked him with strained courtesy if he could milk, shear, wield scythe or flail, and he said no, he had never lived on a farm.

“That’s a pity,” I remarked, “for everyone on Iceland does, unless he be outlawed.”

He flushed at my tone. “I can do enough else,” he an­swered. “Give me some tools and I’ll show you metalwork well done.”

That brightened me, for truth to tell, none of our household was a very gifted smith. “That’s an honorable trade,” I said, “and you can be of great help. I have a broken sword and several bent spearheads to be mended, and it were no bad idea to shoe all the horses.” His admission that he did know how to put on a shoe was not very dampening to me then.

We had returned home as we talked, and Thorgunna came angrily forward. “That’s no way to treat a guest, father!” she said. “Making him work like a carle, indeed!”

Gerald smiled. “I’ll be glad to work,” he said. “I need a…a stake…something to start me afresh. Also, I want to repay a little of your kindness.”

That made me mild toward him, and I said it was not his fault they had different customs in the United States. On the morrow he could begin work in the smithy, and I would pay him, yet he would be treated as an equal, since craftsmen are valued. This earned him black looks from the housefolk.

That evening he entertained us well with stories of his home; true or not, they made good listening. However, he had no real polish, being unable to compose even two lines of verse. They must be a raw and backward lot in the United States. He said his task in the army had been to keep order among the troops. Helgi said this was unheard-of, and he must be a brave man who would offend so many men, but Gerald said folk obeyed him out of fear of the king. When he added that the term of a levy in the United States was two years, and that men could be called to war even in harvest time, I said he was well out of a country with so ruthless and powerful a king.