Geirmund waited until the large monk had gone, and until the other priests nearby had turned their backs. Then he darted for the hot loaves, racing through a field of turnips, their green leaves slapping against his boots and legs, thinking he probably looked a fool to his Hel-hides who watched him. He reached the bread, grabbed a loaf in each hand, and as he turned back towards the woods a pole struck him hard in the face.
Geirmund fell on his back with a loud grunt, eyes watering and nose bleeding, which was not part of the plan. The baker was quicker than expected, and Geirmund then felt the end of the pole jab him hard in the chest, pinning him to the ground. He let the loaves roll out of his hands.
“Weigh your next words and choices carefully, thief,” the monk said, standing over him, “or I promise you’ll regret them.”
Geirmund believed the man could keep that oath. “Please,” he said, “I’ve had no food in days.”
“You should have started with that, instead of trying to steal.”
Geirmund heard and saw other priests coming closer to see what had happened, and he searched them for a familiar face while the large monk kept the end of his pole wedged in his ribs. Geirmund swallowed the blood that slid down the back of his throat from his nose, hoping he wasn’t mistaken about the man he’d seen from the trees.
“Who are you?” the baker asked. “Are you a Dane?”
“I am Geirmund,” he said, and then the gathered wall of monks around him parted to let one of them through.
“Geirmund?” the newcomer asked. “Surely not–Brother Almund, get this man up. I need a better look at him.”
The baker hesitated only for a moment. “Yes, Father,” he said and pulled the end of his staff away from Geirmund’s chest. Then he reached down with his large hands and hauled Geirmund to his feet with ease.
The other monk stepped closer to look in Geirmund’s blinking eyes. Geirmund wiped the blood from under his nose with his hand and sleeve as he also studied the priest, pleased that he had recognized the man rightly, though he did seem younger than when they had first met through the window of a wooden tomb.
“Torthred?” Geirmund said.
The use of that name sent a murmur through the other monks, and they all turned towards the priest, who smiled broadly. “I was thirsty, and you gave me drink,” he said.
“I am very glad to see you.” Geirmund looked around them. “But I am surprised to find you here.”
“I am here because the Danes at Ancarig left very suddenly, and in much anger. Not long after you departed, I might add. I do believe something caused them to forget about me in my anchorhold. But I am also here because of something you said to me.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, and I decided you were right. God did not want me to stay and starve and die alone.”
“This thief tried to steal bread, Father.” The baker still gripped his staff as a weapon.
“I assume he is hungry,” Torthred said. “Even were it not our Christian duty to feed the hungry, I would owe this man the kindness he once showed me. And I would also remind all my brothers that there is a peace with the Danes in Mercia. Now, please fetch him a loaf, Brother Almund.”
The big monk relaxed and bowed his head. Then he bent to pick up one of the loaves that had rolled from Geirmund’s hands, brushed it off, and gave it to him. Geirmund accepted it, but resisted tearing into it, hungry as he was.
“I still doubt my luck in seeing you here,” he said.
“It is not so surprising to me,” Torthred said. “I haven’t travelled far. We are but forty miles from Ancarig. This monastery sits on land belonging to the abbey at Medeshamstede, and I am now the abbot here. But perhaps you have travelled further since I last saw you?”
“Much further,” Geirmund said, “only to come back to where my journey in England began, it seems.”
“Perhaps the hand of God has guided you here.”
“Fate alone led me here,” he said.
Torthred smiled. “You seem very tired, Geirmund. Would you like to rest awhile?”
Geirmund nodded. “I would.”
“We have a small cottage for guests and travellers, which you may use.”
“I can pay you,” Geirmund said. “I have silver–”
Torthred held up his hand. “We ask for no silver.” Then he lowered his voice and spoke from the corner of his mouth. “And, that is not because I fear how you might have acquired it. Come.”
He ushered Geirmund west along the wall and then through an open gate, trailed by a few curious monks. They entered a small square that lay beneath the temple, where chickens clucked and pecked at the dirt in the building’s shadow. Two doorways offered outlets from the yard, one into the temple, and another into the rest of the monk-hold. A stone well sat in the middle of the square, and a cottage not much larger than Torthred’s wooden tomb had been leaned against the temple.
“You’re not going to seal me in there, are you?” Geirmund asked.
The priest grinned. “Even were you baptized a Christian, I do not think you would belong in an anchorhold.”
“Where does that lead?” Geirmund nodded towards the northern door.
“Our dormitory and refectory,” the priest said. “We sleep and eat apart from the world. I would ask that you stay on this side of that portal, but you may otherwise come and go as you wish.”
“Thank you,” Geirmund said. “But I must tell you, I am not alone.”
Torthred paused. “And what does that mean?”
“I have five Danes with me. They wait in the woods.”
“What do they wait for?”
“Your leave for them to join me here. They are sworn to me and I to them. They are warriors of honour and will do you no harm.”
Apart from some surprise at first, Torthred’s face betrayed no other feeling or thought. He simply looked at Geirmund for several moments. “I would give you my leave, but I must first speak to some of my brothers about the matter. They may ask you to–”
“We will not be baptized Christian,” Geirmund said.
Torthred smiled. “We will not ask that of you. Will you wait here?”
“I will.”
The priest nodded and left the yard with his tail of monks through the corner door, and Geirmund went to the hut, where he leaned on the door frame and poked his head inside. The cottage had but one room that contained a wooden box-bed, long and narrow, filled with straw, and covered with woollen blankets and furs. The hut also held a small table, a stool, and above the bed hung a cross that reminded Geirmund of the hall where he and John had spent one night.
Geirmund decided to rest while he waited for the priest, so he went to lie down in the bed on his back with his hands behind his head. He looked up at the low roof of thatch, thinking that fate had surely guided him to that place, for the consequences of his many choices at Ancarig had not only driven him from Lunden but had also brought him to a place of shelter.
Torthred returned a short while later, looking pleased. “You and your warriors may stay,” he said. “Our food and our ways are humble, but we will share them with you if you share in the work of growing and defending this monastery.”
“Defending?” Geirmund knew well why he had chosen that place, but it surprised him to hear Torthred speak in similar terms. “Is there not a peace in Mercia?”
“There was also a peace at Medeshamstede and Ancarig. You and I both know there are those who do not respect it.”
“I have fought such Danes, and I have made enemies of them. If any should come here, I will fight them again.”
“Let us hope you won’t have to.”
Geirmund agreed to Torthred’s terms, and then went to tell his Hel-hides, who all had deep misgivings about living with priests, despite Geirmund swearing they would not have to be baptized.
“They are
weak,” Rafn said. “I have no respect for monks. They are like– like…”
“Unfledged birds,” Vetr finished for him, “with those bald heads of theirs. Or worse, fledged birds that never learned to fly or hunt, and choose to stay in the nest.”
“The monks matter little,” Geirmund said. “We agreed we would find no better place than this to stand against Krok. We also agreed to keep the peace with Burgred. This is the only way we can do both.”
“He’s right,” Birna said. “I don’t like it, but the Hel-hide is right.”
“I agree,” Steinólfur said, though his tone suggested he didn’t, and after that Rafn and Vetr let go of their unwillingness.
Back at the monastery, the Hel-hides turned the courtyard around the hut into a small encampment, but only for the men. Upon realizing that Geirmund had a woman in his company, Torthred had insisted the cottage belonged to Birna alone. The priest had reacted with such shock and horror at the sight of the shield-maiden that Geirmund thought the monks may have refused the Danes if they had known about her. It seemed they lived by a law under which they seldom saw women at all, and almost never spoke to them. Only Torthred had that freedom as the abbot. Birna seemed little troubled by it, and even claimed to feel grateful that she would not have to talk to the monks, and Geirmund suspected she also liked having the hut and the bed to herself.
As for him, he slept well enough on the ground, but awoke after the middle of that first night confused, and it took him a few moments to remember where he was. Men chanted together as one nearby in a tongue he didn’t know, their mournful voices rising and falling like the endless waves of the sea. Geirmund sat up rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm and discovered Skjalgi awake nearby, the whites of his eyes showing in the darkness.
“Is that some kind of Christian galdur?” the boy asked.
“I don’t know.” Geirmund looked up at the temple and saw a faint warm light flickering through the tinted glass of its windows. It seemed the chanting came from inside. “Perhaps it is,” he said.
“It does not sound evil,” Rafn muttered, apparently awake, but not upright.
Geirmund agreed. The chanting even soothed him somehow, so perhaps it was a healing charm the monks worked. He and the others who had been awakened by it stayed up listening for a while, until the chanting stopped and the light in the windows went out. Moments later, the door to the temple opened.
Torthred emerged first. He carried a lantern, and the other monks all followed him in a silent line, the deep hoods of their cloaks drawn up, hiding their faces. When the abbot noticed Geirmund awake, he came over and crouched beside him as the monks glided onward across the yard to the north-eastern door.
“Are you all well?” the priest asked. He held the lantern up, his face and cheek aglow on the side near the flame.
Geirmund swallowed, his mouth dry. “We are well, thank you.”
“What is that galdur you chant?” Skjalgi whispered.
Torthred swung the lantern towards the boy, tossing shadows that danced. “Our galdur?”
“Your spellwork,” Geirmund said.
“Oh, you mean our prayers?”
Geirmund nodded. “What is it you pray for? This is an evil time of night.”
“Perhaps that is why we pray at this time of night.” Torthred stood. “We ask for God’s mercy. What do you ask of your gods?”
“Full harvests and larders,” Geirmund said. “Good seas. But mostly we ask for strength and glory in battle.”
“Many Christian warriors pray for the same,” the priest said.
“Then perhaps one day we will see which is stronger,” Rafn said. “Our gods or yours.”
“Perhaps,” Torthred said. “But there are many kinds of strength.” Then he bade them a good night and left the courtyard.
Over the next few days, Geirmund learned that the monks at the monastery had come from many places, often as children and young men. Most were Mercians, but some were of Wessex and Northumbria, and one monk called Brother Morcant had been born in Wealas. It was their god and their prayer they held in common, though it also seemed that most of them were the youngest sons of ealdormen with many children, and they had long known they would inherit nothing from their fathers. Instead, their families had given them over to the monastery and the life of a monk, thereby preventing conflict, while also gaining favour from their Christian god.
Geirmund knew what it was to be a second son, and if Rogaland were a Christian kingdom, perhaps he would have become a monk himself. That thought made it easier for him to satisfy the terms of the bargain he had made with Torthred as he and his Danes worked beside the monks in their fields, and as they helped them to construct a wooden outer wall around their monastery to protect not just their temple but also their livestock pens and gardens.
In return the monks provided Geirmund’s war-band with plenty of good food. They ate little meat there, but they had abundant eggs and cheese, and Brother Almund baked rich bread. Another priest, Brother Drefan, brewed a strong ale he flavoured with honey and yarrow that Geirmund grew to enjoy, and where Lunden had turned the days into weeks and months with all that it offered to delight his senses, the monastery did the same with simple hard work in which he took a measure of pride.
Rafn and Vetr scouted daily, reaching far, but they found no sign of Krok, though on a few occasions they did pursue thieves hunting in the monastery’s forests, but word of the warriors’ presence there soon seemed to frighten most poachers and other threats away.
The idea that the monastery and its monks owned land like jarls or ealdormen confused Geirmund. “In my country,” he said to the abbot one day, ‘seers do not rule as jarls or kings. I have never known a seer to even desire land or wealth.”
They walked in the monastery’s apple orchard, where the abbot checked the ripeness of the fruit, which would not be ready to harvest for several weeks yet.
“We do not desire any of this for our vain glory,” Torthred said. “We are but stewards of the monastery’s holdings, not its rulers.” He stopped and spread his open hands wide. “Every apple on every tree is an expression of our love for God, and of his love for us. We are building the kingdom of God on earth.”
“Why does your god need lands or a kingdom in Midgard? Does he not have his own lands? His own hall?”
“N-no.” Torthred frowned, shaking his head. “God is in heaven.”
“Is that like Valhalla?”
Torthred chuckled. “From what I know of Valhalla the two are very different. If it is Valhalla you seek, I think you would be very disappointed in heaven.”
Geirmund shook his head. “I do not understand your god.”
Torthred looked at Geirmund with a sudden smile. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“You shall see,” he said, and he led the way back to the courtyard where Geirmund’s warriors idled, but the abbot went towards the temple. “You have never asked to come inside our chapel, Geirmund.”
“It is often locked,” Geirmund said. “I assumed you didn’t want pagans like us inside it.”
“I thank you for that respect,” Torthred said. “But I am now inviting you inside, if you wish to see it.”
Geirmund had been curious about the building where the monks prayed since he had arrived there, but not curious enough to sneak inside and risk offending his hosts. “Very well,” he said. “I will go in.”
The abbot nodded. They reached the door, and he unlocked it with a key he wore at his belt. Then they went inside.
The temple echoed with the sounds of their footsteps, and it smelled of damp stone and beeswax. The light that found its way in passed through coloured glass that softened it, casting the hall in a warm dim glow that kept the rafters overhead in shadow. At the far end of the temple an altar sat beneath a large window that held the figure of a man form
ed by the joining together of many irregular pieces of coloured glass. Upon the altar stood a tall cross either made from silver or clad in it, ornamented with carvings, and encrusted with jewels.
“If all Christian temples hold such riches,” Geirmund said, his words loud and multiplied by the stone walls, “I see why the Danes plunder them.”
“Silver and gold are meant to remind us of the spiritual riches that come from God.”
Rows of wooden benches ran the length of the hall and flanked the altar. Geirmund imagined all the monks of the monastery chanting their prayers as one in that place, with its coloured glass and its imposing fortress walls, and he could admit he felt power there. Whether the abbot called it galdur or not, Christian magic in that temple seemed little different from seer magic done in a stone circle, other than the name of the god and what was prayed for.
“We are also blessed to have a sacred relic here,” the abbot said. “A bone from the throat of Saint Boniface. I often think of the many prayers and sermons that passed through that bone as their holy speaker gave voice to them.”
“Is that why you honour him? He talked?”
“His teaching brought many souls to Christ.” Torthred leaned towards him. “And he even cut down an oak tree of Thór that the pagans worshipped.”
Geirmund shook his head. “To risk the anger of Thór is foolish. What happened to Boniface after that?”
“He was murdered for his faith.” Torthred seemed to feel a defiant pride in saying it. “His killers wanted gold, but all they found in his chests were sacred books.”
“Books?”
“The holy scriptures, which are infinitely more precious than gold.”
“Perhaps to those who can read them. The Danes will take your gold and burn your books.”
The abbot sighed, his eyes downcast. He seemed disappointed, as if he had hoped the sight of his temple would cause Geirmund to become a Christian in that very moment. But then Torthred suddenly looked up again. “Let me show you something else, if I may.”
Geirmund shrugged. “You may.”
They left the temple, which Torthred locked behind them, and walked towards the north-east door on the other side of the courtyard. They stepped through that entry into the part of the monastery that Geirmund had never seen, where a roofed pathway surrounded a second, larger courtyard filled with flowers and bushes. Several monks stopped what they were doing at the sight of Geirmund there, but they moved on when they noticed he walked with the abbot. Torthred called that place a cloister, and he led Geirmund along one side of it, until they reached a second doorway.
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