The Snow on the Cross (8 page)

I looked at this young girl who was
bandaging my hands.  She was unremarkable, save for her youth, which she told
me was nineteen.  She was taken from her home when she was seventeen.  Eirik,
apparently, had become enamored of her looks and had insisted on taking her. 
Her story was not anything I hadn’t heard before.  The monks, especially Jonah,
had told me similar stories of the abduction of peasants by the Vikings who
used them as slaves.   This girl had gotten lucky.  At least she was living in
the largest home in
Greenland
when she could have been out digging
rocks to fence off more pasture.

I saw no sign of Thordhild, and I did
not ask Malyn where she was.  I simply sat and let the heat seep into my
bones.  The feast would be here tonight.  Malyn had been in the midst of
preparations when I knocked.   It was strange that I noticed, but I had seen
very little signs of life during my time here.  Aside from the men who met me
at the shore when I arrived, this girl was the only other soul I had seen
here.  Fourteen ships had come to
Greenland
with Eirik, at least that was the story, but I had barely seen ten men. 
As I began to wonder if I had come to the wrong land, Malyn offered me a cup
brimming with steaming liquid.  I sipped it.  The honey-mead was rich and the
sweetness of the fermented honey burned into the pit of my belly.  I nodded in
thanks.  I had indulged in the drinking of wine often in
Le Mans
, but this was the first time I had
tasted mead.  I found it soothing, and it seemed to restore my strength.

“I must finish my chores,” Malyn said
in her strangely accented voice.  “You may sit here and warm yourself until
Eirik and the men return, if you wish.”

I thanked her and almost considered
blessing her, but I restrained myself.  The wrong word could be taken as an
insult, as I remembered my hasty remarks about
Valhalla
on Bjarni’s ship.

Instead, I sipped more mead and
watched the girl return to her baking.  She was in the middle of pounding out
flour into dough to make an impossibly huge loaf of bread.  She had her back to
me as she went back to work, and I settled by the fire, almost dozing. 
Brattahild was a rich place, but I wondered what Eirik had done to deserve such
a reward for his crimes.  I looked to the end of the room where a doorway led
into a sleeping room.  Perhaps Thordhild was here; perhaps Eirik had killed her
and buried her out in the snow somewhere.  I thought of the cold ashes in the
church fireplace.  Not used in quite some time.

Malyn rapped the dough and flipped it
over, shaping it like a lump of clay.  Here was the result of Eirik’s conquests
in the flesh.  The human reward of looting.  But Malyn did not seem
mistreated.  In fact, she seemed to be acting like any other servant in a large
household: mindful to her tasks, bound by a sense of duty.  She did not seem to
be a slave.  More like a daughter running the household.

“Eirik has spoken many words about
you,” she suddenly said, still working on the bread.  I sat up, taking notice. 
“He said you will die by the first frost in the autumn because you will have no
one’s protection.”

My hand holding the mead cup shook,
and I fought to steady it.  “Are you sure?” I asked her.  I saw her nod.

“Thordhild is gone,” she said.  “She
left for
Iceland
four days ago.  I don’t know if she
will be coming back.”

Malyn’s words struck me, and I felt
the chill creeping over me despite the fire.  “Thordhild is gone?” I repeated,
trying to understand what Malyn was telling me.  My only ally in faith.  The
one person who wanted me here.  The one person I was counting on to help me
with my mission: gone.  I had a sudden desperate longing to return to
Le Mans
, to rush to the seashore and climb
on a ship, any ship, and begin sailing south.  I could not stay here without
Thordhild’s help.  Eirik would either kill me, or I would freeze to death in
the snow.

If Thordhild had left four days ago,
then how long had I been in and out with my illness?  I know now that I had
been drifting in and out for over a week.  I began to wonder if Thordhild had
still been here, would I have been subjected to moving into the drafty stone
church outside?  It seemed unlikely.  My depression wandered over me, and I
sank down into my chair.

“Where are you from, Bishop?” Malyn
asked, and she sounded genuinely interested as she continued on the bread.

“
Le Mans
,” I told her, trying to keep the misery out of my voice.

“
France
,” she replied, nodding.  “Your country borders my homeland.  My father
used to speak about Hugh Capet many times.  He admired your king.  He said he
was a strong man.”

“Alas, I do not think any king could
help my homeland from the raids of these men.”

Malyn knew I was speaking about the
Vikings, and she looked somber for a moment, as if remembering the raids on her
own land.  She held up her hand where a long scar ran from her wrist almost to
her elbow.

“Do you see?” she asked me.  “I am
marked.”

“Marked for what?”

She turned her attention back to the
bread she was feverishly working on, but not before I saw the glitter of tears
spring up in her eyes.  “Death,” she said, her voice trembling.  “When Eirik
dies, I have been marked to journey with him into the afterlife.  I am told it
is a great honor.”

My own amazement overcame my speech,
and I sat in silence.  A custom of choosing loyal servants to die with their
masters was something I had never heard of before.  Certainly in the civilized
world, one did not practice such brutal funeral rites.  As I write this, my
memory serves me well.  The girl did die with Eirik two years later, burned
alive with Eirik’s corpse.  It was a sad thing to witness, for poor Malyn had
no choice in the matter.  The Vikings had praised her loyalty as they applied
the torches to the wood beneath her.  Malyn told me, much later after that day
in her kitchen, that she would end her own life if given the chance.  But
somehow, she lacked the courage, and when she came to me one night in the
church months later, she had asked me to end her life for her as she pushed the
knife into my hand.

It was not known how close to death
Eirik was, and I told her he might live many years.  I convinced her that her
worries were pointless, for I did not believe the Vikings would carry through
with their strange sacrifice when the time came.  I even told her that she may
outlive Eirik, and that taking her own life was premature.

I was wrong.  It would not have been
the last time.

But until that day came, Malyn seemed
somewhat cheerful when she had the opportunity.  I sat there and watched her
cooking the feast, thinking she should have had a different life; one with
choices that she would make, whether it be to have a family or to fall in love
and marry, or stay at home to raise wheat.  Eirik had taken those choices away
from her when he captured her, and now it would seem he was going to choose
when her life would end as well.

I stayed there in Eirik’s house until
nightfall, talking with Malyn and helping her if I could.  I confess I know
little about cooking, so I was not much help in the preparations.  She seemed
to enjoy my company, however, and the hours flittered away.  She began to set
the table with bowls and knives.  Our meal was going to consist of mostly
salted fish and bread with strong honey mead for drink.  At that moment I
feverishly desired a ripe, red strawberry to accompany the meal.

“I believe Eirik and his men are
returning,” Malyn told me as she glanced out the door.  I saw past her shoulder
the bright shimmer of fire coming over the hills.  I started to grow nervous as
the Vikings came to Eirik’s house.  Would Eirik be upset that I had entered his
house and kept his servant company?  I knew he had a bad temper, and he had
killed men for much more minor offences.  I started to ask Malyn if she thought
it was best I return to the church until I was called for, but she waved me to
silence as the torchlight approached.

Meetings

I felt like cowering by the fire as
the men grew closer to the house.  Malyn propped the door open for them as the
first one approached.  His face was streaked with blood and grime and he stood
in the doorway for a long moment, staring at me.  Malyn motioned him over to
the side where she was pouring a huge pitcher of water into a bowl.  The man
plunged his hands into the water, and they turned from bright red to pink.  I
hoped it was the blood of whatever animal they had tracked down and killed.

The others stomped into the room,
crowding around the bowls of water and barely giving me a second look as they
focused on washing their hands.  I thought they seemed a little too preoccupied
with the scrubbing of their hands.  It seemed odd that such men would be overly
concerned about the cleanliness of their hands before they ate.  There were
only seven of them.  Eirik, apparently, had not come in with them.  Bjarni was
also not there, so the men laughed and shouted at one another as they splashed
water all around.  Malyn stood nearby with more pitchers of water and, at the
Vikings’ command, she would pour more into the bowls, sometimes pouring the
water over their hands in the process.

When the men had washed all they were
going to, they moved around the large table and sat down, reaching for their
cups and happy to find that Malyn had already filled them all.  They began
their drinking, leaving me sitting by myself near the fire.  Not one of them
made a motion for me to join them at the table, so I stayed beside the fire,
watching.  Malyn began her rounds with the pitcher of mead, filling the cups
whenever one of the men motioned.  They spoke in low tones in their gritty
sounding language as Malyn brought out the loaves of bread I had watched her
prepare.  Before waiting for the bread to be cut, the men simply reached out
and began ripping off large chunks of it until all that was left was a sad
assortment of crumbs scattered around the table.  The men choked down their
hunks of bread, laughing and spraying bits of crumb at each other in the
process.  Still, I waited.  Where was the hospitality befitting a man of my
office?  Where was my share of the bread?  Why had I not been invited to sit at
the table?  I began to fume off by myself, as I watched Malyn make yet another
journey around the table with her mead.

The smoked and salted fish came out
on a large platter, and Malyn set it in the center of the table, almost
dropping it in the process as the men speared the pieces with their knives.  I
had seen packs of dogs eat with more civility than these men.  They gobbled and
grabbed at their food, mostly using their hands, sometimes their knives.  Some
of the knives they used, I noticed with a sick feeling, were their hunting
knives, and I could see bits of blood and hair on the blades as they ate their
fish.

Apparently, it had been a successful
hunt, for the men all seemed hungry and in good spirits as they ate.  Judging
by the amount of blood most of the men still had caked on them, it would seem
the hunt had been plentiful, too.   The men settled into the meal, and Malyn
stepped away from the table to take a deep breath.  I could see she was tired,
but she looked over at me, and noticed how I was watching these men.  She
stepped over to me quietly with the pitcher and motioned for my cup.  I offered
it and she filled it to the brim, smiling at me.  A good woman, I always
thought.  When she went back and brought me a small bowl with some bread and a
large piece of smoked fish, I truly felt God’s blessing come down upon us.  I
began to eat, blocking out the sounds of the men at the table.  The fish had a
rich, almost bitter taste, but it was warm and good, and it seemed my strength
began to return.  The bread was good as well, although it had begun to harden
just a bit.  It crunched as I chewed it, but I noticed most of the men were
dipping their pieces of bread down into their mead cups and soaking them.  I
tried it with a small corner piece.  It softened the bread and, as I ate it,
the pleasant honey of the mead had mixed with the texture of the dough, giving
the bread an unusual, although not unpleasant taste.  I ate it all and looked
sadly at my bowl as it emptied.

There was a loud, abrupt bashing
against the outside door, and the men paused and turned simultaneously. 
Another thump, and the door crashed open.  There stood Eirik the Red, covered
with blood, holding a large animal’s head in his arms.  The head was still
dripping in large puddles on the floor, and, God knows the truth, I think the
eyes on that severed head blinked at me as I stared at it.  I was half in
shock, half nauseated.  It was a horned beast, vaguely resembling a deer, for
Eirik held it by two large antlers that jutted out of either side of the poor
creature’s head.  He was laughing as it held it up, and the men cheered him,
thumping against the table and hooting some strange words.  The head was almost
as half as big as Eirik, and I could see the cut he had made: a ragged slice of
fur that turned impossibly dark around the bottom edge.  The creature had been
matted with its own blood, which, I might add, Eirik was splattering all around
him in a crimson rain as he hoisted the head up and around, making sure
everyone could see it.  I felt the fish I had eaten threaten to come back up,
but I found the strength to keep it down.