The Snow on the Cross (12 page)

The men on the ground had spotted me,
and I thought it would be a good idea to duck down when I saw the archer
stringing another arrow to shoot at me.  They were not aiming to kill me, I
realized.  They were trying to get my attention.  I wanted to tell them there
were better ways, such as calling out to me or waving a flag, rather than
shooting arrows at me, but I figured something would be lost in the
translation.  Something always is.

I waved timidly, and the archer put
down his bow.  I climbed over the rocks and began half-sliding, half-walking
down the other side of the hill.  I slid until I rested at the bottom, and I
could see these men more closely.  I could see the blood on them, which did not
fill me with much confidence.  Nevertheless, I stood up and began approaching
them, putting my trust that God would not let any harm come to me.  He had been
good about it so far, other than my shoulder.

One of them had a sack over his
shoulder of which the bottom looked very wet.  I assumed it was from their
hunt, and I also assumed they had dressed some reindeer here on the ice, like
Eirik and his men had done, for the ground was quite saturated with it upon
closer inspection.  I waited to see if they were going to attack me.  They did
not, or I would not be telling you this now.  They stood looking at me with
their dark and wild eyes, waiting for me to do something.

I mumbled a small prayer perhaps
hoping God would let me ascend into Heaven as he had Elijah, but I stayed
firmly on the ground with these strange men looking at me like I had just
crawled out of a fissure that had opened in the earth.

The man with the sack said something
to the others, and one of the others nodded.  The man with the sack then took
it from around his shoulder at threw it at me.  I flinched and stepped back
because I was not expecting it.  More reindeer meat, I assumed.  Perhaps they
were taking pity on me and were giving me food for the journey home.

To my horror, the sack burst open at
my feet, spilling its contents.  Several heads rolled out, chopped neatly off
at the neck, staring endlessly at me with those dead eyes.  I recognized them. 
Some of them, anyway.  I can tell you this now because enough time has passed
since the occurrence that my sanity has healed itself.  One of those heads was
Bjarni’s.

It would do me no good to try to
explain what happened that night on the ice plain as I slept.  These men are
born of a senseless and brutal culture, and their lifestyle is such that such
barbarism is commonplace.  It is the act of a man who can spear a bishop while
he is screaming prayers and hang him on the spires of his cathedral with his
only worry being how much ale he will consume that evening.  It is the act of
these men who stood before me.  These men who, during the night, apparently
came across our sleeping party and slaughtered them for no reason other than
the fact they were there.  I was spared from the slaughter, but now I faced the
killers of my companions.  Bjarni’s face, I noticed sadly, had the great purple
bruise on his cheek where Eirik had struck him.  The bruise had followed him
into death. 

Eirik’s head was not among those in
the sack.  He had escaped because he had left the fire the night before.  I
scanned the ice plains for a sign, but there was no indication of him.  He was
probably back at Brattahild, sitting by his fire and drinking from his favorite
silver cup.  One of the Vikings, the one with an unusually long spear, poked at
me with the tip.  It scratched my arm, and sent pain charging up my shoulder.

One of them said something to me, but
I merely shook my head.  They knew I was no Viking, which was probably why they
did not kill me immediately.  I kept glancing down, wishing Bjarni would quit
staring at me.  I resisted an urge to kick the head away with my boot.

“Brothers,” I said in as calm a voice
as I could.  “I am Bishop Arnald of
Le Mans
, a missionary sent here to
Greenland
by King Robert II the Pious.  I am not a warrior, and I am not a
Viking.  I am a man of God.”

Whether or not they understood my
words was irrelevant.  I had made my statement as clearly as I could, and now I
simply left the rest up to God and His divine will.  I knew I could not run,
for an old man like myself would be too easy to capture.  I was patient as I
waited to see what the men would do.  Would they kill me?  If they were like
Eirik and his men, being a man of God would make no difference, and my head
would be carried in a sack.  I tried not to worry too much about that, but the
thought was always there.

One of them pushed me down, and I
sank to my knees in the bloody snow.  Here would be the end.  In a moment I
would feel the whistle of the blade come down upon my neck and I would meet my
creator.  I shouldn’t have worried too much.  After all, a man in my position
should look forward to being in Heaven if he has followed the righteous path. 
I closed my eyes, for I could not bear to see the blade, even if it was to be
my last sight of this earth.

But the blade never came down,
friends.  I felt hands being bound with rope, and I was suddenly hauled to my
feet.  They began walking, leading me behind them like an animal.  My hands were
not tied too roughly, and I was sure I could break free if I wanted to, but
there would be no point in that.  They were going to ransom me back to
France
, but that meant I would have to be
their guest until the emissaries departed and then came back, which might have
taken months.

I hoped when the emissaries arrived
in France, Robert II the Pious would be in a good mood and think I was worth
ransoming.  It was the least Robert could do in return for all the strawberries
I had given him.

Strange Days

Woe to the man of God who is
persecuted for his faith.  Woe to the man who undertakes a divine mission only
to see it go unfulfilled.  This was part of the Prayer for the Martyrs, and the
monks at
Toulouse
sang it often.  But the monks’ pilgrimages
were never to such heathen lands, and they never had to deal with what I
suffered.  Woe to the poor bishop who is sent on a journey he didn’t want to go
on.  Woe to the bishop who is freezing and starving amid the wastes.  This was
my new Prayer for Bishop Arnald, and it was one I composed by myself as my new
captors led me over the hills and across the ice.

When animals age and outlive their
usefulness, they are slaughtered.  Not so for aged bishops who have outlived
their purpose.  There would be no merciful end for me.  These men talked to one
another the entire time we walked.  What they said I don’t, to this day, know. 
It was obvious they were talking about me, but they never spoke directly to
me.  There were five men who were escorting me to their home, and by the
position of the sun, I could see we were heading west.

“Stop,” I suddenly said, not
realizing why.  The men, startled by the sound of my voice, stopped talking,
and the silence settled quickly over us.  They turned to look at me, waiting
for me to either speak again, or fall down and die.  I decided diplomacy was
the only option I had.  Do unto others . . .

I held my hands out and nodded with
my head toward the rope.  “Please,” I motioned.  “Untie me.  I won’t run away. 
Where would I go?  I am an old man.  Have pity.”

The men halted in their tracks.  One
of them drew a knife that seemed to cut the very air as he pulled it out. 
Whether he meant to shut me up with it was a question I debated until he took a
quick step over to me and slashed quickly, almost without looking.  Finite
strands of hair were neatly shaved off my wrists as the knife chopped through
the rope in a single motion.  My bonds fell away, and I felt free.  I couldn’t
help but wonder if Eirik would have done the same.

“Thank you,” I said, but the men had
already started walking again.  I began to follow.  These men had plans for me,
but apparently they did not involve my death, yet.  We walked the rest of that
day and although I was tired, I did not feel as weary as I did when I traveled
with Eirik and his men.    The men stopped once for a quick meal of dried fish,
and they offered some to me, which I accepted.  The fish was tough and hard to
chew, but one of the Vikings handed me his flask and I sipped some of the cool
honey mead.  It tasted much like the mead I had drank at Eirik’s house, and the
effect was the same.  Warmth spread through my body, and I felt renewed.

I wasn’t sure how much farther they
were going to take me.  They never spoke to me other than to tell me it was
time to go.  They kept their silence after our
midday
meal, as if the entire walk was a time for reflection.  I,
too, reflected on the events that had brought me to this place and time, and I
was surprised at my own thoughts.

I realized I had saved Eirik’s life. 
Yes, I am sure of it.  Even now, years later, I have convinced myself that if I
had eaten that reindeer heart instead of refusing it, Eirik would not have lost
his temper and left the fire that night.  He was spared the fate of his men by
my making him so angry that he left in a fit.  I couldn’t help but wonder if
Eirik was aware of that as well.  Even though he would probably never admit it,
I should have taken it as a sign that Eirik could be converted.  I had saved
his life, now all I had to do was save his soul.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts, I
did not realize the extent of my fatigue until my legs, unmindful of the rest
of me, locked up and refused to go any further.  This surprised me until the
cramping starting, and I howled in pain.  The Vikings turned to see me
clutching at my calves, desperately trying to relieve the pressure there.  I
could not walk anymore.  I was not seasoned well for travel, especially over
the hills of this land.  The men whom I walked with did not seem to understand
why I was literally crying as I stood, legs buckling and trembling.  Would they
carry me, or abandon me?  Not for the last time did my mind turn to
Le Mans
and its comforts.

The air was warmer here, and I felt
myself not shaking as much as the wind blew past me.  I slumped to the ground,
tired.  If they were going to kill me, then they should have just done it and
gotten it over with.  I closed my eyes, not caring about the journey or even
Eirik anymore.  I simply wanted to rest.

The Vikings stopped as they saw me
fall to the ground.  I do not know what their intentions were at that point,
but they showed no signs of abandoning me there on the ice.   We stayed there
for hours, with me dozing fitfully, and the others sitting and talking
quietly.  As we passed the remainder of the day, I opened my eyes enough to
watch the sun settling over the hills, causing the white of the ice to glow a
vivid orange.  It was a beautiful sight, as if God Himself was casting a
blessing over the land.  When the sun finally sank below the hills and cast us
into shadow, I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see a sunset for a
long while.

The spring equinox had arrived while
we sat there on the ice, and suddenly there was no more nightfall.  The sun
continued to rise and set, but there it sat squatting on the horizon refusing
to sink any lower.  For months, I would watch the sun make its journey across
the sky only to be stopped near the horizon until it was time to climb back up
again.  It was a strange phenomenon, and it would not let me sleep for a long
time.  The glow I once thought so beautiful had turned into an eerie, putrid
light that cascaded across the surface and caused the ice crystals in the snow
to glimmer endlessly to the point of madness.  I began not to look at the
ground, for if I did, the relentless twinkling of the snow nearly drove me to
insanity.

We may have journeyed across those
hills for two or three more days.  It normally did not take these Vikings that
long to make the journey themselves, but I was slowing them down, and we
stopped frequently for long rests.  I lost count of the days, since the sun no
longer set.  I was tired all the time, and the Vikings tried to help me, more
or less.  They spoke to me very little except to offer me some of their food,
for which I was thankful to God.

***

The morning of the attack we were
about half a day’s walk from my captors’ village, a small group of buildings
far to the east of Brattahild.  One of the men who was escorting me began
talking to me in his language, and I tried to piece together what he was
telling me, but the only thing I gathered was that he was referring to his
village because he kept pointing ahead of us.  I shook my head sadly to let the
man know I did not understand him.

It was about that time the first
spear that was lobbed by Eirik and his men jabbed strongly into the ground
ahead of us and made us turn and see our attackers.  Eirik and his men were
swarming across the hills behind us, some thirty strong.  Leading the charge
was Eirik himself, red beard blazing in the orange light of the sun, eyes
burning brightly.  He looked exactly as I had imagined he would in such an
attack: axe raised, voice booming across the hills.  It was this look I
imagined he had when he stormed over the walls that surrounded Abbeville.

Out of instinct, I ducked down flat
as more spears were hurtled past me.  One of them almost struck me, for which I
was very annoyed.  I thought of this as less of a rescue attempt and more of an
excuse to kill someone.  Since I was only traveling with six men, the odds were
not in their favor.  They broke for the direction of their village, screaming
as they ran.  I assumed they were warning the others, hoping there would be
some of their own out on the hills either hunting or clearing scrub bushes.