10
Dvalinn watched the bald man's servant from the privacy of a birch grove before approaching him. The servant was muscular, with broad shoulders that came together to form a thick neck holding up a round face made up of exotic, foreign facial features. Looks, however, were often deceiving. More telling was that the servant swung his axe powerfully but without technique. He didn't breathe as much as gasp. When he walked, it was with the subtle limp of a man whose leg had been severely injured in childhood.
The servant applied the last axe blow to the tree he was cutting, and it fell gracefully to the ground.
"Are you the one they call Drudge?" Dvalinn asked.
The servant turned, leaned on his axe and studied Dvalinn for what seemed like a full minute before answering. "Yes." He had an accent Dvalinn couldn't place.
"You came to Greenland as part of the Rikard expedition?"
"Yes," Drudge said.
"From Iceland?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember a man called Framarr?"
"Tall man, young, loud voice," Drudge said. "I remember."
"What happened to him?"
"He left with the others."
"To where?"
"West, across the sea."
"When?"
"Many years ago."
Dvalinn scratched his beard. "He never returned?"
"None of them returned," Drudge said.
"Is he dead?" Dvalinn asked. He had to concentrate to keep his voice from breaking.
"I don't know. I didn't go. I stayed. He could be alive, he could be dead, or he could be worse."
Dvalinn wondered what was worse than death. "Why did you stay?"
Drudge stopped leaning on his axe. Standing upright, he was taller than any man Dvalinn had ever seen. "I was brought to Greenland as Rikard's thrall. I served him until I was sold. Now I serve another. To stay was not my decision."
"One man cannot belong to another."
"In another world."
"In this one," Dvalinn said. "Why did Rikard and the others sail west?"
"They sailed to Vinland. Who is Framarr to you?"
So, Drudge was capable of asking questions as well as answering them. Dvalinn decided there was no reason to lie. "He is my son."
"You are Dvalinn the Riverraider," Drudge said.
"Yes." Dvalinn's heart leaped. Drudge was telling the truth. "What is Vinland?"
Drudge shrugged his massive shoulders. "It is the land that lies to the west of Greenland, just as Greenland lies west of Iceland."
"Nothing lies to the west of Greenland," Dvalinn said. And nothing did—not on any map that he was familiar with.
"You and Rikard disagree about this."
That much Dvalinn knew. He also knew that before the discovery of Iceland, Iceland didn't exist on maps, either. Cartography was a record knowledge. Mapmakers didn't create continents. "Why did Rikard sail to Vinland?"
"For the same reason," Drudge said, "that Dvalinn has sailed to Greenland. He was searching."
"I am searching for my son. Who was Rikard searching for?"
"What," Drudge said.
"He was searching for a thing?"
"He was searching for neither a person nor a thing. Rikard and his followers sailed to Vinland searching for a power."
Men usually sought power amongst themselves. They sought it through learning, politics or violence. Knowledge was power. The laws were power. Fear was power. "What kind of power did they seek?" Dvalinn asked.
"I don't know," Drudge said. "I suppose the kind a man cannot find elsewhere."
"Or at all…"
"Or at all."
There was nothing more to ask. Framarr had set foot here, and he'd sailed on toward a land that doesn't exist with a man who'd likely gone mad. Dvalinn's search would end here. His life would end here. "Was Rikard a foolish man?" he asked, mostly to push away the silence and the infinite blue of the sky of the oppressive sky.
Drudge's lips spread themselves into a giant's smile. "You're asking me if he was touched in the head."
"Yes."
Rikard," Drudge said, "was the sanest man I've ever met."
"Do you like your life?" Dvalinn asked. Actually, the question had asked itself while Dvalinn was still privately sulking. Reason had slipped out from under a blanket of emotion. A sane men would not sail knowingly into an abyss. He would not sail without a justifiable reason. Or was that itself a blanket?
The question seemed to surprise Drudge. "I'm a thrall. I cut trees, I haul, I obey, I—"
"Do you wish for freedom?"
Drudge stretched out his arms and picked up his axe. "In another world, Dvalinn the Riverraider. In this one, I return to my labour."
"Yes," Dvalinn said without a hint of metaphor. "In another world."