Read On the Cold Coasts for Free Online

energetic,” he said, speaking slowly and with a foreign accent, though he was easily understood. “If his mother is willing to have my cloak sewn, we shall call it even.”
    Ragna curtsied and gave Michael a poke. He bowed down as far toward the sand as he could, and an audible sigh of relief passed through the crowd. A moment later people had begun to chat as though nothing unusual had taken place. Michael had planned to sneak away to get a better look at the bishop’s ship, the three masts so amazingly tall that it would take a true hero to climb up to the highest rigging without catching vertigo, but his mother refused to let go of his hand. To his relief, however, she said nothing about the unfortunate event. She rarely scolded him, in any case; she treated him more like a friend than as a child. If he was to be punished for misbehaving, she usually got him off, and she never hit him. Thorsteinn mostly ignored him, and his aunt Kristin—who was only seven winters older than he—was kind to him and even spoiled him a little. Thus he had more freedom than many children of the same age and could come and go as he pleased without anyone chiding him for it, so long as he carried out those few chores that he was assigned. He was taller than most of his peers and fought with knuckles and fists against anyone who dared tease him about the absence of his father.
    “My father is an important sea captain in England,” he boasted to anyone who would listen. Except of course the people back home, at Akrar. There was not much talk of this there, and indeed many things were not spoken of.
    For the most part, it was his grandmother Sigridur who disciplined him, but she, too, took pity on him when something was amiss. Perhaps there was something about the boy that reminded her of her sons who were buried in Greenland. He could just as well have inherited his dark appearance from Gauti, who had had Skraelings among his forebears, as from his father, that hapless Englishman.

    Immediately on his arrival in Iceland, it became evident that John Craxton did not lag behind his countrymen when it came to trade. He produced a signed permit from King Henry V authorizing him to import flour and malt and to send his ship back to England loaded with stockfish from the Holar stores. Before long the bishop had taken full control of Holar. He began putting in order various matters that had been allowed to slip in the years when the diocese had been without a bishop and was governed by leaders of varying competence in both worldly and spiritual affairs. He made a point of having good relations with anyone who mattered. That summer he paid visits to chieftains throughout North Iceland and was generous with the malt. In other words, he was a clever ruler and a lackey to no man. One by one he dismissed those men who had been appointed during the reign of his Danish predecessor, whom he considered to be a little too partial to King Eric and at the same time opposed to the influx of the English. That included Father Jon Palsson, who had made no secret of his loyalty toward the archbishop in Nidaros and, indeed, had visited him there several years earlier. No one could therefore doubt that beneath the bishop’s adornments beat an English heart, despite Craxton’s maternal lineage being Nordic.
    The bishop rode into the farmyard at Akrar with a dozen men on a calm fall day, shortly after the slaughter season. The sky was nearly clear, though spotted with wispy white clouds, the sun hanging low in the sky. It was cold and the shoes of the horses clattered on the frozen ground. The general appearance of the entourage suggested that a person of influence was among them. The men were well attired, their capes and hats trimmed with fur, their boots high on the leg, and their tight hose colorful. They had English ale to drink, spoke loudly, and laughed easily. The bishop presented the lawman with a keg of hops as a gift, to have mead brewed for his church.