The Sorrow Stone

By Kári Gíslason

An epic and compelling novel that reimagines the fate of one of Iceland's famous women of history. After committing an audacious act of revenge for her brother's murder, Disa flees with her son through the fjords of Iceland. She has already endured the death of her loved ones. Now she must run to save her son, and her honour. In a society where betrayals and revenge killings are rife, all Disa has is her pride and her courage. Will it be enough for her and her son to escape retribution? Dramatic and urgent in its telling, The Sorrow Stone celebrates one woman's quest, against the dramatic backdrop of the Icelandic countryside. In this gripping novel, the co-author of the bestselling Saga Land takes a sidelined figure from the Viking tales and finally puts her where she belongs – at the centre of the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780702266744

Kári Gíslason

Kari Gíslason is a writer and academic who lectures in Creative Writing at QUT.  Kari was awarded a doctorate in 2003 for his thesis on medieval Icelandic literature.  He is the author of The Promise of Iceland and The Ash Burner. As well as memoir and fiction, he also publishes scholarly articles, travel writing and reviews.

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Kári Gíslason is a writer and academic who lectures in Creative Writing at QUT. Kári was awarded a doctorate in 2003 for his thesis on medieval Icelandic literature. His first book, The Promise of Iceland (UQP, 2011), told the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace. His second book was the novel The Ash Burner (UQP, 2015). He is also the co-author, with Richard Fidler, of Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world (HarperCollins, 2017), which won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018.

Book club notes and an author interview are available at

www.uqp.com.au

For Olanda

Hef eg stundum lagt líf mitt í háska fyrir hennar

sakir en hún hefur nú gefið mér dauðaráð.

I have often placed my life in peril for her sake,

but she has now given me my death sentence.

Gísli Súrsson

1

No-one in the yard, not yet. The animals are put away in the barns, the dogs still quiet. They watch but won’t stir until they know something’s up. They see Sindri halfway inside the door, waiting while I check if it’s time to go.

I tell him, ‘Now. Shut the door. Don’t run. The dogs will chase.’

We’ve got what we can. I have furs and hard fish and bread. Enough for the rest of the night, if we have to spend it outside. And I’ve got the blade; I can’t stand to look at it, but we need it. Sindri has silver and his shield. He’s done what he’s meant to do, what I’ve always told him to do if there’s trouble. But it would be better if he’d brought more clothes instead of all that. We’ll need to get warm if we’re going to survive.

Dawn is too far off. The sky is still night light. It shows the clouds building over the mountains. We run through the yard past the barns, onto the track along the lake. I turn around to see the shadow of the hill and its face of uneven rocks. A nasty wind behind us. It bites. Snatches. Pulls and pushes. It’s full of voices and screams.

Sindri trips and I think he’s going to fall, but he props himself up with the shield. The thing is slowing us down. It’s going to get us killed.

‘Leave it,’ I tell him.

‘No. I don’t want to,’ he says.

‘It’s no good. It’s too heavy.’

He sighs – no, crying? Fear on his cheeks. Maybe we won’t get past the farm. Maybe it’s too much for him. I hear the dogs. They’re excited now. The men have noticed us gone. They’ve come out. I can’t tell if they’re behind us or at the stables.

I pull at the shield, but Sindri won’t let go. ‘Quick,’ I say. I sound angry, but it’s not his fault.

I drag him off the track, past the hill to where it steps down to our neighbour’s farm. Cow shit everywhere. It gets on our shoes and the hem of my dress. On the shield. Sindri hates the mess it’s making of the steel, but he knows I’ll yell at him if he stops.

It’s cold but the soil isn’t frozen. The snow is in drifts against the rocks. I use it to wipe the blood from my hands. Now Sindri’s the one pulling at me, wanting to go faster, and I’m crying with fear and disgust at the thought of what happened. I look at the sword and feel sick. I stop and hunch over to let it pass. I try to feel only the moss and stones under the snow.

But the vision won’t go away. The blade in his leg. My hand in his blood. I don’t know what to do next. I leave the sword in. He screams and clutches at his thigh, but he won’t touch the weapon. I pull the sword out and I see my hand covered in blood and the man’s fists are coming at me and then it’s the dirt of the floor and my face on the ground. The gravel and the straw.

I’m looking for Sindri. But the man’s still punching me. I can’t see.

‘Please, mother,’ he says now. ‘They’ll catch us.’

I look up. Our neighbour’s dogs jump onto the walls. They think it’s morning. We climb over, and the dogs run with us until we see the first bay. It’s less sheltered than the others, but at least we’re getting away from the farm. The wind is still yelling, shrieking between the rocks on the edge of the track and lifting the sea into the air. It’ll be worse on the water.

‘Where are we going?’ Sindri says.

‘Across the fjord. We need to get to Aud.’ I’m so angry at him, even though he hasn’t done anything. I can’t keep it from my voice.

‘Why?’

I won’t answer him. Not yet.

We can’t see through the wind and snow. I want to make it to the next bay, where the sides are steeper and higher, but we can’t go any further.

We climb into a hollow and Sindri lays his shield against the wind. We push our bodies into the hill, making a shelter out of our blankets and the shield. I see his pride in bringing it.

‘It’s good against the snow,’ I say, trying to sound less angry. My anger isn’t meant for him.

He laughs, but he’s so frightened – of the men, the storm. Of me. ‘I don’t want them to catch us,’ he says.

I touch his face. Only twelve, no matter how much he wishes he was older and stronger. ‘We’ll stay warm,’ I say. ‘They won’t chase us in this. They’ll wait. They might not bother with us at all.’

‘No?’

‘We can’t do anything else now. We got away.’ I nod, hoping that might help him believe me. ‘We got away.’

The wind bangs against the shield and the cold is eating my legs. I scratch the cold, but it makes no difference. It takes both of us to hold the shield in place, until the snow builds and does the work for us. They won’t see us if they ride past. I tell Sindri to rest.

I put my arms around his shoulders to stop him shaking. Rub his sides, nestle his hands on my stomach to keep them warm. The bay and the beach disappear as the storm takes its own shape. Giants, trolls, ghosts of men pointing at us, saying I deserve it. Not my boy, though. He’s done nothing wrong.

Sindri whispers to himself. A prayer, I think. He’s going to sleep; I can feel it in his weight. If we die, he won’t know it.

‘We’ll make it,’ he says as he dozes, but it sounds like a question.

I kiss his forehead. ‘Yes, it’s safe to sleep. We’ll make it.’ I’ll stay awake and we won’t die in each other’s arms tonight. We’re not going to freeze to death like outlaws.

The cloud shadow is as big as a mountain. It rolls over us towards the fjord that we’ll need to cross if we’re going to be safe. For a little while, the sky clears over our farm and the hill behind it that Sindri and I have walked up so many times, to look as far as we can in all directions. Towards the fjord, and the black streams of lava that run down to the sea. From the top, we’d count the fields and the horses and the sheep, and the boats as they came in.

I close my eyes and try to see Valhalla, the feast that they say is inside that hill, to look for the ones I’ve lost. That’s where they’ll be. Is that where we’re going tonight? The cloud mountain opens over my memories, and white stones appear. I see the beach and the damp forest and feel my brothers’ hands in mine. I’m twelve, the age my son is now, excited like Sindri when I spot the last ships of summer coming into the fjord.

I see our hills in Norway, not this shit-soaked island of storms and rocks. No fear, no scratching at the cold. Warmth and light and the golden fields after they’ve been cut. The hills of Surnadal and our house beside the river, near where the water thins on the sandbanks and the white beach begins. That’s what I see when the cloud mountain opens. Not Valhalla. Not those I have lost. But me, and what I will need to tell Sindri if this is a story that’s finally coming to an end.

Mother told me to keep the boys at the beach until she could leave the loom and come down. I knew she wouldn’t join us. She wanted us out of the house so she could be on her own.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked her.

‘I will be,’ she said, ‘if I stop for a bit.’ She was holding her side, but the pain also showed in a dullness in her eyes. I thought she might be irritated with me. ‘Will you take them out or not?’ she asked.

I took Gils’s and Kel’s hands. They were getting used to days like this, when it was just us. I told them Mother was tired. They didn’t ask me about it, but they guessed she wasn’t well.

We rode Faxi out of the yard, down past our neighbours’ farms, along the river and past the woods until we reached the white pebbles at the beach. Everything was in a glaze under the sun. The water was so clear I could see my feet and the lines on my toes. The boys took off their shirts and ran ahead. I stepped in more carefully and lifted my dress. The water was a mirror around my waist. I saw my long hair and braids. My eyes that people said were too hard.

I wondered what they’d say today when I was feeling happy and relieved to be outside. When my brothers jumped on each other’s backs and high clouds circled the fjord and left space for the sun on the water. I saw my eyes grow brighter and then darker as the sun tipped over the waves. I stared to see if I could soften my eyes, but now I did look stern, just the way people said.

Gils and Kel were calling out, swimming back to shore. There was a ship on the horizon. Its hull twitched on the far side of the fjord, but then the sails and the dragon’s head on the bow came into view, the oars cutting into the water like the claws of a hawk.

‘We can wait to see it land,’ I said.

The boys got out of the water and we stood at the shoreline watching. There were more ships coming home now that summer was almost over. Soon the hot weather would be gone and the storms would blow in off the sea. If the ships weren’t home, the men would be stuck wherever they found themselves and their wives and children would have to get through winter alone.

Mother wouldn’t have minded that. She said Father spent too much time inside. She wanted to get him out of his seat next to the fire where he rubbed his hands together and sighed until the ale was served by me or the girls, and he had something to hold. Maybe in his mind he saw ships on the surface of his beer, and imagined being on the open sea and fighting the way other men did.

My brothers were jumping on the spot.

‘Stand still,’ I said. They embarrassed me; they were like puppies. But it was thrilling. Every ship that came home was a whale full of treasures to cut open and spill into the valley. Boxes and carts and animals and jewels tumbled out. Glass. Ivory. Silk. Today, a girl from the slave markets.

I knew the men and I greeted them, but it was the slave I watched after the ship was tied and the men began to unload. I ignored the boxes of goods and watched the girl, who was a little older than me, as she looked around the beach and saw the wives arrive. What was she thinking? Did she even know where she was?

She didn’t look like us. Her hair was darker. Her brown eyes were wide. She was thinner and taller. She didn’t speak, but I guessed she was wondering whether her master’s wife would help her or hate her. The women didn’t show that yet. They looked at the girl like she was any other item coming off the ship.

My brothers watched her the same way I did. Gils was only nine, Kel ten, and they didn’t understand very much about anything, but I thought Gils could see what was going on in the girl’s eyes. Her fear was a child’s fear.

‘I want to speak to her,’ he said. I did as well. But it was no good, so I turned his shoulders away. The girl didn’t want us staring at her.

‘Let’s go up,’ I said.

‘Mother told us to wait,’ said Gils.

‘Listen to you,’ said Kel. He pushed Gils and I told them to stop.

They hated being pulled around by me. Gils said he’d rather stay here and watch the ship being unloaded or the boat builders at the other end of the beach, where the waves hardly broke at all. He was never bored of boats and rigging. He was the youngest, so you would expect him to want to stand around watching those things.

But I couldn’t stay near the slave girl. I smiled and kissed his cheek. It was still salty from swimming.

‘Don’t do that,’ he complained. He was too old to be kissed by his sister.

We climbed up the beach and rode back through the fields. The air was thick with summer: the sweetness of the haystacks, the sharp pines, the earthy smell of the foals when they wandered over to say hello to Faxi and follow us on the track. Gils tried to wave them away, even though it didn’t matter if they came as far as the next gate.

‘Leave them,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to try to take charge of everything all the time.’

I could still see the eyes of the slave girl. I hoped she’d be happy in Surnadal. I told myself there was so much to be happy with. We were good people. The valley was pretty with its winding, islanded river and fields, and big houses like ours near the bends. I told myself these things, and even though they were true I couldn’t see past her eyes. They got in the way of all my other thoughts.

Gils jabbed me in the ribs. He was at the back of the horse and had to reach past Kel to have a shot at me.

‘Stop being an idiot,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to fall off?’

‘Where are we going?’ he said.

I didn’t know. But I saw some of our neighbours standing at the entrance to the woods. ‘Let’s see what they’re doing,’ I said. We were still in sight of the beach and the ship, and I could hear the crowd celebrating the men’s return and looking through all the things they’d brought home. There was drinking and yelling that made me pleased we’d left.

Then, a voice like a stream running over stones. A preacher stood at the front of the group by the woods. When he saw us, he told us to hop down from the horse and sit and listen. He said we were welcome.

He had a quiet way of speaking, and I thought maybe we were better off at home, even if Mother would snap at me for coming back so soon. But I liked the preacher’s eyes and the kindness in his smile. And we didn’t have much choice. Everyone was staring at us to make sure we didn’t ride on.

We sat at the back of the group. I crossed my legs and faced the preacher while Gils and Kel sat with their arms stretched behind them, their legs out straight. It was their way of telling me they were bored.

‘Father hates this,’ said Kel. He was right. Father said preachers spoke more shit than our farmhands. If he was here, he’d tell the preacher to get out of the valley before he set the dogs on him.

‘How’s he going to know we’re here?’ Gils asked. ‘Are you going to tell him?’

I wanted to listen, so I kicked them in the ankles. When they shut up, the preacher said he’d come to Surnadal to talk to us about the Lord Jesus, because the story of Jesus was the most important one we’d ever hear. Nothing could surpass it. He said Jesus was like a good king who wanted the best for his subjects, whether they were chieftains or farmers or raiders following the Viking ways, or even a girl with wet hair taking care of her young brothers and keeping them quiet. I didn’t want to smile at that. He was teasing me. But I couldn’t help it; I liked him.

Gils nudged me, frowning, and said we should go.

I wished he wasn’t there. I wished I didn’t have to take them everywhere. They were trying to ruin it, but still I tried my best to take it all in. I liked the preacher’s habit of turning and shaping his ideas in his hands, like a potter. And then how he opened his arms when he wanted to express a big thought. He said Christ knew that all failings were human. He didn’t ask for animal sacrifices. He didn’t want men to fight and raid, to fill their boats with stolen gold, livestock and fine cloth made by women who now lay dead in their homes. He didn’t want children stolen as slaves.

For Christ, there was no honour in that.

Gils was getting angry. I held his hand to keep him still.

‘I want to go,’ he said. ‘He’s talking about us.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Let me listen.’ The preacher was going too far, yes. But Gils could be quiet for a while.

Then the preacher stepped forward and was in front of me with his hands out. He was as handsome as a man could be. His face was so even. His eyes were wide and blue.

But I was afraid of him. It was too strange to sit there and hear him say we were bad people. I looked back towards the beach and I felt the girl’s eyes on me, so I stood up and took my brothers’ hands. ‘Thank you for letting us stop,’ I said to the preacher, even as I was still thinking about the girl.

I thought about her for the rest of the ride home, and when I lay in bed that night. Her eyes made me think about losing my brothers and my parents and my aunt Inga, even though they were safe in the house and there was nothing to be afraid of. It made me cry. I pinched my arms and told myself to stop thinking of frightening things. I said it again and again. We were safe.

2

I touch Sindri’s cheek to make sure it’s warm and he’s alive. I tried to stay awake, but I slept until my back ached with the cold and bruises and the pain woke me. My arms hurt from falling in the fight. I can’t move them. But the wind’s dropped, and the snowstorm is far out to sea. We made it through the night.

There’s enough light to start again. The water in the bay is the colour of dark steel. A flock of eider come around the headland and paddle in our direction until they see me, and then they turn away and press on to the other end of the beach, where they shake their wings dry and begin to forage in the shallows.

I don’t want to wake Sindri, but we should get moving now that it’s nearly dawn. The men will ride out. They’ll be searching for our bodies in the snow.

They don’t get that joy.

‘Wake,’ I tell him. I kiss his red hair, but he hums and turns and doesn’t want to open his eyes. I’m too soft, and I let him sleep, at least while the wind’s down and it’s still dark inside our shelter under the shield.

He brushes his face like he’s pushing something