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one, in honor of your first voyage to the continent of Vinland. Use it well!”
    Helge was overcome by the generosity of the gift.
    “But, I…you…” he stammered.
    Thorwald waved him aside.
    “No, no, this is yours. I have another.”
    Nils, too, was impressed by the gift. He resolved that on his return to Stadt he would investigate the possibilities of acquiring such a sun-stone for his own use.
    Helge carefully replaced the stone in its leather pouch, and the four men parted to attend to various tasks. Nils called after Karlsefni.
    “Could I talk to this Odin of yours?” he asked.
    The colonist looked at him suspiciously for a moment, and then smiled.
    “Of course. Come.”
    He led the way around and between the longhouses, and pointed to a rude hut, not large enough for a man to stand upright. It huddled against the outside wall of a sheepfold. Nils did not see how a man could survive the winter there.
    “Go ahead, talk to him,” Karlsefni offered. “But you can’t take him.”
    Nils walked over, to find the Skraeling sitting on the sunny side of the structure with his back to the wall. He was carving on a piece of bone or ivory with a small pointed knife. He looked up.
    Odin was not really old, Nils saw in a moment. He was leathery and wrinkled from a hard life of exposure to the elements. But his one eye held a gleam, an interest in his surroundings, and a curiosity. More than that, the gaze of the Skraeling bored right into his very soul. Nils was caught off guard, not expecting so powerful a spirit in this beggarly fugitive. Here was a man of some intelligence and insight, despite his ragged appearance and strange garments of ill-fitted skins.
    “You are Odin?” Nils asked.
    There was a long silence, and finally the barbarian nodded.
    “So they call me. How are you called?”
    “I am Nils Thorsson. I would ask you about the bay, the other end.”
    “Yes?” the one-eyed man asked, rather patiently.
    “Well, I…you have been there?”
    “Of course. That is my home.”
    “Not here?”
    “No. I was captured and brought here, many winters ago. I escaped.”
    “These Skraelings, here, are your enemies?”
    Odin spread his palms in unresolved question.
    “What is an enemy? Maybe a friend you have never met. There are many tribes.”
    “But, they held you captive?”
    “Yes, and gouged out my eye. But sometimes they were good to me, too.”
    Nils was finding the easygoing philosophy hard to understand, so he changed the subject.
    “I am told that there is freshwater, a river, maybe, at the head of this inlet.”
    “Yes.”
    “How many days there, to the river’s mouth?”
    “How fast do you travel?”
    Nils’s anger flared at the impertinent remark. Then he cooled a bit, realizing that the other man had asked a legitimate question. He smiled.
    “I do not know how to tell you. Faster than some boats.”
    The Skraeling nodded, understanding.
    “Maybe this many sleeps,” he said, holding up his hands with fingers extended.
    Ten days, thought Nils. A very deep gulf.
    “Is it a big river?” he asked.
    The man nodded slowly, seemingly in deep thought. Finally he spoke.
    “It flows out of the freshwater sea.”
    Nils was startled. Karlsefni had said nothing about such a sea. Surely he had misunderstood the meaning of the man’s remark. A large body of freshwater? Big enough to be called a sea? A lake, maybe? Interested, he asked more questions, but gained little information. The Skraeling persisted in referring to an inland sea, and repeatedly insisted that it was freshwater. Nils disregarded as a language problem the distinction between lake and sea, and as exaggeration one statement that this inland sea was only one of several.
    “You go there?” Odin asked, his one eye bright with interest.
    Nils shrugged.
    “Maybe. Who knows?”
    He had seated himself during the conversation, but now he rose to depart.
    “Thank you,” he said uncertainly.
    Odin only nodded.
    Nils turned away,