The Snow on the Cross (6 page)

I nodded.  “Yes, go find Bjarni.”

The two men looked at one another. 
My head began to hurt, and I could see the piles of furs that were once my
prison lying on the floor where I had kicked them.  The coolness of the hallway
was overtaking my chilled body, and I began to shake.  I pointed at the furs,
hoping that one of the men would hand some of them back to me, wet or not. 
Across the way, the fire in the fireplace was producing no heat that I could
feel, and not for the last time did I think about the fire on the beach to
welcome my arrival.

“Bjarni,” I whispered.  “Go get him.”

My weakness was returning.  Soon I
felt I would return to the restless slumber that had plagued me since my
arrival.  I didn’t care anymore if Bjarni came or not.  He spoke my language,
and I could communicate to him. 

“Bjarni,” I said before drifting
away.  Somewhere as I slept, I felt the weight of the furs being stacked over
me once again.

* * *

It may have been days until I awoke
again.  As I slept, I dreamt of smoke and shadows and felt as if someone was
watching me.  It would turn out to be Eirik, always Eirik, who kept a stern
vigil by my bedside, even though I didn’t know it until much later.   I
muttered in my sleep, and apparently I kept saying Bjarni’s name.

When my fever returned, I knew I was
ready to die.  I felt the fires of hell licking at me from beneath my furs.  I
was trapped between circles of ice and fire as I shivered and sweated
simultaneously.  This was not part of the plan.  The end would come for me,
Bishop Arnald of
Le Mans
, on a dirt floor in the Viking
household of Eirik the Red.

But it was not to be, as my eyes
opened through a haze of cotton only to see the fireplace roaring and spitting
with as great a blaze as I had ever seen.  The silhouette of a man sat beside
the fire, half-lit in profile by the light.  Although I could not see much
about this man, I saw the color of his beard, and I knew Eirik was watching
over me.   As it would turn out, Eirik was concerned that I might die, and so
he wanted to keep Thordhild happy by making sure I didn’t.

Although Eirik had kept watch over
me, he did little else for me.  I would often feel rough hands pressing my
forehead to see if I was still burning to the touch, but I knew Eirik never
touched me.  To this day, I do not know what on that island made me so ill. 
Perhaps it was the cool temperature combined with my dislike for the place.  I
had barely glanced around when I stepped off Bjarni’s boat, but I knew this
Green
Land
held
nothing of interest for me.

So when I emerged from my
half-conscious state some time later, I felt my fever had ebbed away and left
me an empty shell.  My body quaked with hunger, and my robes were sticky with
sweat.  The light coming from the fireplace was dim, and I did not know if it
was daylight or not, for I could not see any windows.  As it would turn out, it
was daylight, and I assumed it would be for another few months.  I often
wondered what kind of person would settle in a land of no nightfall, but then I
had never met Eirik the Red before, either.

The men pressed their broth upon me
again, and this time I sipped a bit of it.  It was bitter, but the warmth
spread through my body.  I never thought to ask what it was made of.  Instead,
I ignored again the tiny flecks floating in the bowl and drank again.  I grew
accustomed to the taste and was able to swallow a bit more with each mouthful. 
The men watching me seemed satisfied, as if making up their minds that I was
going to live.  One of them stood up and, as I watched, pulled back a dark cloth
that had been draped over a small window.  As he removed the cloth, the natural
white light of outside gushed through the dimness, and I was left sitting there
dazzled by its brilliance.

“The dead lives,” a familiar voice
wafted from the shadows.  “Your god is strong, Bishop, if he can return you to
us.”

I recognized the voice as Bjarni’s,
but I could not see him.  I held my hand up to try to block out the light
coming through the window, but it was too strong.  I was left staring in the
direction of a disembodied voice, hoping he would step forward so I could see
him.

“How long?” I asked, and I remember
my voice was harsh, like hammers dragged over rocks.

“How long what?” Bjarni replied.  I
could detect the faint trace of anger still deep within his voice, so I knew I
had to be careful.

“How long have I been here?”

One of the other men, and I think it
may have been Broin, began speaking in his guttural language.  Bjarni responded
to him with the same strange tongue.  I could have understood, if the heathens
had not defiled my God at the
tower
of
Babylon
.  I strained for a familiar sounding
word, but there was none.  Perhaps Bjarni would tell me what the other was
saying.  This was always my hope that one would step forward and translate the
speech for me, but it never happened.  Time and time again, the Vikings would
speak in their language in front of me, and I was helpless in understanding
it. 

As I lay there, the half-empty bowl
of broth all but forgotten in my hand, I thought about
Le Mans
.  Spring was close, and it would be
about the time my first plants would begin to take root in the fresh soil I
would have carefully prepared for them.  I heard Bjarni laughing, but I did not
know if it was directed toward me or not.  I resisted the urge to throw my bowl
at the men and waited.

“Bishop,” Bjarni’s voice abruptly
switched from his language to mine.  “Are you feeling well enough to walk? 
Your company is requested.”

My head was spinning, but I nodded. 
I decided it would do me good to walk around a bit to regain the strength in my
legs.  I wobbled to my feet, holding on to the wall for support.  The Vikings
made no move to help me stand as I swayed and almost fell back.   I could sense
them as they stared at me with impatience, as if I was keeping them from their
business.  I took a hesitant step toward them, my broth sloshing over the rim
of my bowl.  I left a trail of liquid after me as I walked and eventually I
dropped the bowl.  It clattered on the ground near the fireplace, the rest of
its contents splashing around it.  I looked at it quickly.  Good.  Let them
clean it up.

I stepped through the shaft of light
and into the shadows where the Vikings waited.  I then saw it was Broin after
all who had been standing there, so my earlier assumption was correct.  Bjarni
was standing beside him, half glaring at me as he looked back at the mess I
left behind me.  I nodded to both of them.

“Who has requested me?” I asked, not
knowing if they would tell me Eirik or Thordhild.

I secretly hoped they would tell me Thordhild.  I desperately
wanted to see the woman who was responsible for bringing me here, and the kind
of woman who would dedicate her life to living with these men.

“I did,” said Bjarni.  “I have
requested you.”  He laughed at his own joke, punching Broin in the side as he
continued.  Broin, I assume because Bjarni was speaking in my language, didn’t
understand why Bjarni had jabbed him.  A shadow passed over Broin, and he
suddenly looked ready to draw his axe.  Bjarni was too busy laughing at my
earnestness to notice Broin’s reaction, and he continued to slap and punch him.

I frowned at this display.  Bjarni
did not strike me as a frivolous man.  On the ship he had seemed serious and
stern, and his men who sailed with him seemed to respect that.  Now, home again,
Bjarni had metamorphed into some kind of buffoon.

My head began to hurt.  “For God’s
grace,” I said.  “Be serious and tell me who wants me, otherwise, I will return
to my bed.”

Bjarni’s laughter faded and he
cleared his throat.  “Bishop, forgive me.  We are walking south today, to the
seashore.”

“Why?” I asked, my patience draining
away.

Bjarni grinned.  “We are going to
Brattahild.”

* * *

Brattahild was the name of Eirik’s
farm, and it was not to the south, as Bjarni had said, but rather to the east. 
I stepped outside, blinking in the harsh light and twitching with cold.  I saw
hills in the distance, but no trees.  Again I noted I saw no color green here,
only brown and gray rock, dotted by pale scrub brush.  This stretched in miles
for all directions, although I could see streams of smoke coming from other
stone houses nearby.  I could smell the scent of saltwater, and so I knew the
sea was just over the hill to the south.  The sound of the gulls crying was
easily heard, even if the birds could not be seen.  Bjarni and Broin stood
looking at me as I stared all around me.  I noted their impatience drawn in
clear lines on their faces behind their heavy beards, and Bjarni’s eyes
narrowed.

“Bishop, come,” he spoke sharply as
if calling his dog.  He and Broin started walking, leaving me shivering in the
doorway of the house I had lain in for no telling how long.  My knees were
buckling from my weakened state, and I had no fur cloak like the Vikings had. 
The soft wind cut through me with ice teeth, and I slumped against the doorway,
moaning.

“Help me,” I murmured.  My body was
giving out.  The weakness of the flesh:
St. Augustine
wrote of it often.

I sank to one knee, and it touched
the ground.  The sharpness of the rocks jabbed my knee, but I paid it no mind. 
I simply watched the bundles of fur walking away from me up and over the far
hill.  How could they not notice I was not following them?  The stupidity of
these men was staggering to me.  My eyes closed, and I found myself thinking of
my gardens in
Le Mans
, and the sound of my quill, and the
warmth of my fire . . .

Coarse hands grabbed my shoulders and
hauled me to my feet.  I looked into the faces of the Vikings who had returned
for me.  They hoisted me up, brushed me off, and dropped an impossibly heavy
fur around my shoulders.  Broin said something and Bjarni began laughing.  I
felt my face burn.

“Tell your god to give you strength,
Bishop,” Bjarni said, his voice mocking.  “We have a long walk.”

I took a step forward.  The fur
helped against the cold air, but my body still shook from its weakness.  They
were taking me to Eirik’s farm.  I didn’t know how far it was, but when you are
not used to walking anywhere, the smallest distance seems endless.  I followed
the two men.  I found it hard to look up as I walked, so I focused on putting
one foot before the other until we arrived.  The Vikings were traveling at a
brisk pace, but not so fast as to lose sight of me.  At least for that I was
grateful.

Apparently, the house I had been
resting in was apart from the other homes of the village.  It sat by itself
nestled between two hills.  As we crested the hill to the east, I could see the
landscape of
Greenland
.  As I have said before, there was
not much to it.  This time, however, I could see the water and the blackened
remains of the wood that had been burned at my arrival.  It looked like a
flattened spider against the beach, and the water kept creeping up to it to
steal a little bit at a time.  Soon, it would be gone, washed away toward
infinity.  I looked to the south out over the water, and I kept picturing the
coast of
France
out there, and beyond that,
Le Mans
.

The other stone houses were lined up
against the hills.  I counted five of them.  All looked the same: small,
square, with a woven roof.  Stone chimneys jutted out of the thatched roofs,
and puffs of smoke, endlessly, coiled toward heaven.  I never considered what
the Vikings were burning for fuel, since there was no wood to speak of on the
island for easy harvest.

“How far is Eirik’s farm?” I asked,
trying to catch my breath as we walked.  Old men do not travel well up hills.

“Not far, Bishop,” Bjarni called from
ahead of me.

Bjarni’s definition of “not far” it
turned out, was quite far indeed.  Before we had left the sight of the building
I had lain in, my legs were aching and my heart, which was thudding so hard it
hurt, did not seem able to keep up with the rest of my body.  I knew my heart
was going to rupture if we did not stop for a rest.  The muscles in my legs
were on fire as they tightened up.  We climbed yet another hill, and I lost
sight of the houses near the beach.  There were no more in sight, and my
spirits fell.  Bjarni and Broin, however, showed no signs of slowing.

I decided for them.  I sat down at
the crest of the hill we were climbing and felt the blood roaring through my
head.  The pain in my chest subsided, as my heart finally seemed to catch up. 
My legs, however, started to cramp, and I rolled over in the cold grass, trying
to straighten them out.  They refused and curled up beneath me.  Christ on the
cross could not have possibly suffered more than I did at that moment.  Every
breath was an inhalation of fire.

The pain in my body was replaced by
the bitter cold that seeped into me as I sat there.  The ground was ice, and
soon I felt numbness only to be shattered by the cramps in my legs.  I began to
call out to my companions, who apparently had not noticed I was no longer
vertical.