The Snow on the Cross (20 page)

                                                                           ***

When I went back to my church in
Greenland
, I was surprised to find Thordhild
kneeling there before the wooden cross, praying.  I didn’t mean to interrupt
her, but she saw me and motioned me to come inside.

My face was stained with blood and
smoke, and the scent was trapped deep within my clothes.  Thordhild wrinkled
her nose at my appearance, and she told me she would have Malyn fetch me some
water so I might wash the grime off.  I told her I appreciated her gesture.

“What happened?” she asked in a small
voice.  I told her.

“Eirik was a man possessed,” I said,
trying to keep the rage from my voice.  “He and his men slaughtered them all,
all except the ones who escaped.”

Thordhild wiped some tears away, and
she looked at me in all seriousness.  “I tried to stop him, Bishop.  I prayed
to God to stop him, but He didn’t.  I prayed to God to do something, and He
did.  He sent you with Eirik.  God put you in that boat and took you to the
Isle of  Kells.”

I shook my head.  Did having faith
suddenly mean you lost your mind in the process?  “Thordhild,” I said, as
calmly and as rationally as I could.  “God did not send me to the Isle of 
Kells.  Your husband abducted me and made me watch the slaughter as one of his
cruel jokes.”

But Thordhild refused to believe the
rational explanation I tried to give her.  “It was a sign,” she said.

I sighed.  The trip from the Isle of
Kells had left me weak and hungry, for Eirik refused to let me eat on the
entire voyage home.   “I think I need some sleep now,” I told her.  “You may
ask Malyn if she will bring me some food, and I can speak with you some more in
the morning.”

Thordhild nodded and left, touching
me on the shoulder as she passed.  I tried to sleep, but my dreams were filled
with smoke and my mind was full of many unanswered questions.  Thordhild
believed I was making progress with Eirik, but all I saw was his fury directed
more towards me each passing day. 

                                                                           ***

Malyn came to me after I had finally
drifted off into a black haze that could have passed as sleep.  I heard her enter,
and I opened my eyes.  She was smiling, and she knelt down, touching my face.

“I am glad you returned, Bishop,” she
said.

I sat up, my head a bit dizzy.  “I
have come to the conclusion that I am blessed,” I said as I took the food she
had brought.  “I am blessed to have you here to help me, and I am blessed that
even though the weather grows colder, I have a fire to huddle beside, and I am
blessed that my head is still attached to my shoulders.”

Malyn smiled again.  “What did you
say to Eirik on your voyage?”

I stopped eating long enough to
think.  “What are you talking about specifically?”

“When he came in his was shaking and
pale.  Thordhild put him to bed and gave him some hot broth, but it looked as
if he was scared about something.”

“The ecstasy of the battle has left
him,” I said, eating some more as I spoke.  “I suppose he is drained.”

“No,” Malyn placed her hand on my
knee.  “You said something to him that frightened him.  What was it?”  I
realized that was the reason Malyn was so happy this evening.  She was taking
pleasure in the fact that Eirik was suffering. 

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I said many
things to him.  I told him Olaf was going to kill him, perhaps?”

Malyn shook her head.  “He is not
afraid of Olaf.  He has said so many times.  You said something else.  Did you
talk about your god to him?”    

“Hmm,” I chewed on a piece of fish,
trying to remember.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.”

The truth was, Eirik did not go to
bed because he was frightened.  He was growing sick, and he coughed endlessly.  I
could even hear him at night hacking and spitting.  He had inhaled too much
smoke on the Isle of Kells, and it had destroyed his lungs.  Now, truly, Eirik
thought it was retribution by God against him, and I encouraged him to think
that, but I had some knowledge of medicine, and I had seen what the smoke had
done to the peasants of
France
as the Vikings burned their
villages.  They too, coughed until they could no longer breathe.  The same
thing was happening to Eirik, and I began to worry he would die.

I went up to Brattahild to visit the
sick Viking, but he turned me away.  Apparently he was blaming me for his
troubles, and I stood outside of his door, listening to him cough until his
face turned purple.  I began to worry about Malyn, and she, too, was growing
frightened with each passing day.

“He will live, right?” she asked me
one night in a timid voice.  We were gathered by my fire one impossibly cold
night, for the darkness of winter had hit with a blinding fierceness.  Thick
drifts of snow swept around my church, and I never ventured outdoors for the
cold.  I spend all of my time freezing and worrying about how I would stay
warm.  Wood was scarce, and the Vikings were burning dried cattle dung for
fuel.  It smelled unpleasant, but it burned quite well.

“He should live,” I said, but the
truth was, I didn’t know.  How could I know?  Only God knew, and even if the
man did live, he would never be quite the same again.  Smoke and flame had
seared his lungs, and I began to fear that I was the cause.  If I was the
cause, then I had effectively condemned poor Malyn to die as well.  These
thoughts always worried me.  If Eirik had died on the Isle of Kells, his body
would have remained there, for it was Viking custom for the fallen to be burned
on the battlefield so their spirit could rise in all haste to the Halls of
Valhalla.  A silly superstition, but one that would have saved Malyn.  Now,
with Eirik back in
Greenland
hovering between life and death, who
knew?  If he died here, Malyn would die as well.

“He should live,” I repeated, as if
saying that would make it nearer to the truth.  I knew Malyn had faith in me,
and again I thought about how I should have taken her to Leif that night.

“Eirik told me we will have bad
storms this year,” Malyn remarked.  “He says the tide is down too low and the
wind is coming from the north.”

“Eirik is quite the wise man,” I
murmured.  “What does Thordhild think about him?”

Malyn shrugged.  “She said she thinks
he will die.  Soon.  But that is not what you say, is it?  He will live, and I
will live until you convert him, or persuade him not to take me with him.”

Poor, poor, Malyn.  The monks at
Toulouse
should have composed a hymn just for
her.  She was in denial.  She was holding out hope that Eirik was going to
convert.  The room had grown noticeably colder, and I began thinking about the
fire the North Men had lit upon my arrival.  How good would that fire have felt
right then?

                                                                           ***

The sun did not emerge the next
morning.  Instead, the moonlight made the heavy piles of snow glare, and it
nearly blinded me as I opened my door to trudge out into the deep, deep snow. 
It was over my boots, almost to my knees, and my breath steamed in front of
me.  I had never felt air so bitterly cold as I did that day.  The cold drew
icicles over my bones and made me quiver.  But I saw the smoke rolling out of
Brattahild, so at least Malyn was warm today.  I took my cross, the one Leif
had given me, and hung it over the door to my church on a small dimple of stone
that stuck out a fraction further than the rest.  I shut my door and looked at
it from the outside.  It was a nice touch, and it made the church seem holier
for some reason.  My other cross, the golden one, I gripped in my hand as I
tramped through the snow toward Brattahild.  It was time to be a good Christian
and visit the sick, I had decided.

When I reached the door, I was
panting for air, and I waited a moment to collect myself before pounding on
it.  Thordhild greeted me, and she seemed truly glad that I had come.  I
stepped inside and shook the snow off of me like a dog coming in out of the
rain.  I stood beside the large fireplace and began to drip.  Malyn was there,
and she brought me a cup of mead, for which I was grateful.

I could hear Eirik coughing in the
other room.  I looked at Thordhild, and she shook her head at me.  Eirik had
been bedridden for a week now, and he was losing his strength.  He did little
but sleep and cough. The coughing always exhausted him to the point of sleeping
until he was awakened by another bout of strong coughing.  It was a cycle, and
it was impossible not to feel a little sympathy for the man.

“May I speak with him?” I asked
Thordhild. 

“He doesn’t want to see you,” she
told me.  “But I think he’s just being stubborn.  I think a visit from you
might be good for him.”

When I saw the man there in his bed,
I knew immediately that Malyn was going to die.

Eirik turned his head as I entered
the room, and I saw how his eyes had recessed into his head, like they were
sinking.  He did not look so grand lying down.  Now he looked like any other
man.

If I tried to keep him alive, then
Malyn would live a bit longer.  If I turned away from him, he would die, I was
sure of it.  I had seen the Vikings gathering wood for the fire, as if they
knew what was coming.  I pulled up a stool and sat beside his bed, a gesture I
had done many times for the suffering of
Le Mans
.

“What do you want, Bishop?” Eirik rasped,
his usually booming voice dry and thin.  “To gloat?  To tell me this is what
your god has done to me?”

Poor, confused man.  I shook my
head.  How could I make him understand?  “Convert for me, Eirik.” I whispered
to him.  “Convert to the true faith, and perhaps God will spare you.”

Eirik closed his eyes.  “Never.”

The stupidity of the man!  I had to
try reasoning with him.   I knew Malyn was waiting in the other room.  I pulled
out the golden cross and held it over the large Viking.  “Look here, Eirik,” I
said.  “This is the icon of your salvation.  These are the emblems you have
raped from the monasteries for your own greed.  But,” I paused for a moment,
waiting for Eirik to open his eyes.  “But what if I told you my God has
possessed me with healing skills?  I could ease your pain, and you could get
out of bed, perhaps?”

Eirik opened his eyes, first glaring
at me and then at the cross I was swinging over him.  I wanted to scream at
him, to put him out of his worthless misery, to take Malyn home with me to
Le Mans
where she would be safe.  I did not
care about this man’s soul.  I was doing it for Malyn, and God will have to
forgive me for that.

“Think about it, Eirik,” I said. 
“Why are you so afraid?  Do you regret what you have done, now that it could
mean your death?   You saw the eyes of the monks at Kell.  Did you not think
they were cursing you?  Condemning you?  Calling down the might of God to stop
you?”

I watched with slight satisfaction as
Eirik’s face whitened.  I knew he was thinking the very words I had uttered,
and now that I had expressed them, the message was sinking in.  “What about the
others?  The monks at
Lindisfarne
? 
Tours
?  Abbeville?  The years of slaughter you have wrought upon
the innocent is coming back to greet you.  But there is a chance for you, yet.”
I waved the cross over him again.  “God can forgive you, even after all of the
crimes you have committed.  Think about that.”

Fear had always been a most effective
tool for conversion, and I watched as Eirik gasped for air, fighting for his
next breath only to explode in a burst of coughing.  “You call for me when you
are ready,” I said in a low voice.  “Otherwise sit here and die.”

I left Eirik trembling for air, and
he was coughing so much I did not know if he heard my last words to him.  I
left anyway, shutting the door behind me and muffling his hacks.

Malyn was looking at me with hopeful
eyes, and I noticed she was absently rubbing the long scar on her arm, almost
as if trying to wipe it away.

The coughing sounds ceased.  I shared
another cup of mead with Thordhild before I decided to venture out into the
snow again.  I couldn’t leave my fire for very long for fear it would burn out,
and I didn’t cherish the thought of going out into Eirik’s cattle pasture to
dig up more fuel.

“He may convert,” I told Thordhild
later after she had sent Malyn out.  “But only if he is truly afraid is his
going to die.”

Thordhild sighed.  She looked tired
of being her husband’s caretaker.  It was a sign that worried me.

“Do you have enough fuel for your
fire, Bishop?” Thordhild asked.  “You may help yourself to our stock, if you
find yourself running out.”

“Thank you, madam.”

Thordhild leaned toward me and said
in a slight voice, “I don’t think Eirik will live to see the spring.”

She was almost right.

The Fall