by Brian Fitts
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.
Eirik and his men reached the ground where I was lying and kept running past me, chasing down those who ran before them. Eirik did not give me a second glance as he passed. This was not a rescue attempt. Eirik could have cared less about me. This was revenge for his butchered fellow hunters, and he had been tracking us for days. I was a by-product. If I was killed in the melee, then I would simply be a casualty of war. If I survived the careless attack, then at least I could be dragged back to Eirik’s church so Thordhild would be happy. I felt no comfort in the thought as the men roared past me. I sat up to watch them run up and over the hills. One by one, they ran down my former captors, and one by one, their heads were mounted on the spears Eirik and his men carried.
I wanted them not to butcher those men, but even as I shouted, my voice was not heard amid the fray. I saw Eirik, triumphant, standing on a hill with his spear raised, letting out a cry of victory. He had one of his fallen enemies at his feet and, as I watched, he pierced the body and hoisted him up, impaling him on the spear as the body slid down, pulled by its own weight.
His men cheered. I felt nothing but bitter loathing as I began to dread the long walk back to Brattahild. I began to wonder if I hadn’t been better off with my abductors, for then at least I could have returned to France after my ransom. It was another sign, and God was sending me back to play out my fate on Brattahild. I watched the vessels of God’s work, the ones who were taking me back to my destiny, descend from the hills, bloody and grinning, heads swinging from their spears. I got wearily to my feet, turned without waiting for them, and started walking west. I knew they would follow. It was the only way back to Eirik’s farm. When they caught up to me, I looked at Eirik. His face was flushed, and seemed unquestionably happy at his vengeance. I began to wonder about my vengeance. The ones for my brothers slaughtered at Tours, Abbeville, and Lindisfarne. Who would avenge them? I was a man of God, not a fighter. I had no strength for revenge, and even if I did, the most holy word of God forbids me to take action. That is a job for others rather than me.
If I could redeem this man, and make him change his ways, it would take a miracle, and unfortunately, at that point in Greenland, I knew there were none to be found, especially by me.
The Vikings celebrated as they walked, and I thought again about Eirik’s character. The kind of man who would carve out a living in this desolate place, the kind of man who would lead his men on raid after raid of innocent monasteries, was exactly the kind of man who would track his prey across the plains of ice for three days for a five minute slaughter and then a three day walk home. This was Eirik the Red, and again I felt no comfort that at that point, I would be spending the next two years living in his company.
***
The walk back to Brattahild was misery. The Vikings might as well have strapped a cross on my back for the entire journey, except there would be no one to offer to carry it like there had been for Christ. The burden was mine alone, and it was only through sheer will that I forced myself to take step after step. Eirik did not believe in wasting time, and he kept his men on a vigorous pace. Unfortunately, I began to fall further and further behind as we traveled, and again, no one seemed to care that I was struggling as I walked. I thought about what Bjarni had told me the first night of our hunt about Eirik watching me. I didn’t believe Bjarni then, and I surely do not believe that now. I was a tool to Eirik, like his axe or his spear. My only hope as I walked back to Brattahild with the others was the thought of seeing Malyn again. I had missed the poor girl while I had been out. More importantly, I believe, I missed someone who I could speak to. I was not alone on the ice, but I might as well have been for the language barrier was a wall that divided me from all the others. Even after a month of hearing that strange language, I understood no more than I did when I first set foot on Greenland. Bjarni was forever dead, and Malyn remained my last hope for a translator. I was determined to sit the girl down when I returned to Brattahild and make her teach me some of Eirik’s language. It was the only way to make any kind of progress there.
The trip was a hazy blur of trudging up and down hills, and I kept my mind on the thoughts of God’s holy work to give me strength. However, more often than God’s work, I found my mind lingering on images of Le Mans and my beloved cathedral that seemed so distant now. I had a sad feeling about Le Mans, as if I knew even then I would not see it again. My assumptions would turn out to be correct, but at the time, the thoughts of Le Mans and my home and my returning there was my only comfort. I was craving a good, ripe strawberry, and I could see my plants in my mind, tiny yellow flowers just beginning to emerge on the vines, giving promise to what would come next. Instead, I saw only the forsaken grounds around me, empty and white and hopeless.
By the time we arrived back at Brattahild, I feared I was near death. My mind was blazing with delirium, and my stomach was twisting savagely. My last mouthful of food, a raw lump of deer meat, had come up as quickly as I had swallowed it, and I ended up spitting it out all over the ice. Some of the Vikings chuckled, but Eirik gave them a stern glance, and they fell silent. Apparently, Eirik was growing concerned about my health, as if he knew I was being pushed to the end of my endurance. I had not taken a morsel of food since, and that was two days before. My weak constitution was not used to eating meat, for we rarely had beef or venison at the cathedral in Le Mans. Our diet consisted mostly of grains and vegetables (and my beloved strawberries.) As such, my health was conditioned to a lighter fare, and this heavy meat the Vikings k
ept forcing upon me did little for me other than make me sick. I longed for some of the bread and perhaps even a small piece of fish Malyn would have given me.
If I had gone insane out on the ice, it is unlikely the Vikings would have noticed. The continuous glistening of the snow and the perpetual sunlight was enough to make any normal man mad, so perhaps I was right about my initial assessment of Eirik: he had been driven insane by this green land which wasn’t even green. When we crested the last hill and I saw the stretch of pasture that marked the edge of Eirik’s farm, I practically wept. Even my humble stone church, drafty and chilled, seemed a palace to me.
I would have crawled over the rocks to reach my church, but as it turned out, God had blessed me with a reserve of strength, and I began running down the hill and toward home. All I could think about was my fire and sleep. Blissful, warm, sleep.
I saw Malyn standing by the fence as she watched our approach. The look on her face as she saw me told me the trip out in the wilds of the north had not been good for me. A ragged old man bounding down out of the hills, raving with fever, hallucinating for lack of food, driven insane by a relentless sun that refused to set. This is what she saw, and the shocked look she gave me was a better reflection than any mirror. I put my trust that she would bring me what I needed to restore myself. The Vikings were coming in from behind me, and I knew Malyn had spend the last few days preparing for Eirik’s return with enough food to feed six hundred men for the entire winter. I am exaggerating, but the food was there, piled high along the tables for easy consumption. I couldn’t look at it without gagging, so I turned away as the others came up to Brattahild behind me. Let them go first. Let them satisfy their hunger. I will rest by the fire and pray.
I slipped out of Eirik’s home and made my way to my church. I opened the door to find Malyn had been here before. She had lit a fire that was burning brightly in my fireplace. Blessed girl, I thought as I settled on the bench that served as my bed. The heat gratified my bones, warming them nicely. I forgot about my food, and I didn’t even notice when Malyn came after I had fallen asleep and left a giant plate sitting by the fire for me when I awoke. My sleep that day was heavy and dark and dreamless, and I felt nothing but the warmth as I slumbered.
***
When I awoke, it was as God Himself had come down and healed me. The food Malyn had brought was a banquet, and the mead was the quenching of the fires of my mind. Restored with food and rest, I felt almost human again, and the delirium, which had started to worry me quite a bit, subsided.
When Malyn came to me in the midday, she was glad to see me sitting up and meditating. I had washed my hands and face with the deep bowl of water she left and, thus refreshed, I felt adequate to receive a visitor.
She came in and asked me about the hunt. She had heard Eirik’s version of the events on the ice, now she seemed to want the truth. I asked Malyn about the reindeer heart, and if it was truly a custom among the Vikings to eat it.
“I have never heard of such a custom,” Malyn told me. “But I am not a Viking.”
There could have been some truth there. She had herself only been here two years. How could she have known everything about these men?
“I was saddened to hear of your capture,” Malyn added quickly. “But I am glad you are all right now.”
“Indeed.”
I sat her down and carefully explained to her that I wanted her to teach me some of Eirik’s language. It was imperative, I told her, to communicate with him.
“His language is not that hard to understand,” Malyn said, as if an educated man like myself should have been able to pick it up if she had. “It has a lot in common with our language. Some of the sounds are very similar.”
She took a stick from the fireplace and began to sketch letters in the ash. These were the Vikings’ alphabet, she explained. And this was how they sounded, she told me.
Every day Malyn would come to me and teach me the sounds. I was a fast learner, and soon I felt I had enough of the sounds down to compose at least simple sentences.
“Where is my food?” I asked Malyn in the Viking tongue. She clapped her hands and looked very excited.
“Perfect! Now do another.”
“Bring me some mead.”
“Good!”
Malyn had found my pages of parchment I had written on before we left for our hunt, and she borrowed my quill. She began to scratch words in the margins, where there was a little space left.
“Read this,” she commanded.
I looked at her marks. The girl’s script was barely legible, but I could make out the individual letters. I felt like a child again learning my Latin phrases over painstakingly long hours. I have a sharp mind, and what Malyn had taught me served me well. The sounds came back, and I slowly began sounding out the words she had written for me.
I sounded them correctly, but I did not know what they meant. Malyn had no translation in my language for me to compare it to. I finally gave up. I needed a book to translate the passages, and I needed more ink to write down my notes. Frustrated at my lack of comprehension, I shoved the parchment away from me. My head was hurting, and Malyn, although she was as patient as she could be with me, looked angry.
“You cannot expect to master Eirik’s language in a few days,” she snapped. “It has taken me two years, and even now, I do not understand it all.”
She left my church and went back to Eirik’s house. I watched her go with an increasing rage building within me. I felt near tears, a feeling I had not had since I was a child as the escalating feeling of discouragement swept over me. Malyn was right, always had been right, and she was just trying to help. I would apologize to her on her next visit, I decided.
I settled on my pew and watched my cheerless fire spit in its fireplace. There was nothing to do now but wait. Even time had stopped for me since the sun never sank. Each day was an uninterrupted cloud of light, always shining, always shining. A man truly could lose his grip on his senses if exposed to constant sunlight for an infinite amount of time. I realize the irony of it all now, locked here where I am, scratching these words. The balance of it all. I grew sick of the sunlight that never went away, and then upon my return from Greenland, I would not see sunlight again for over twelve years. A cruel joke played on me as the doors slammed shut and my light was vanquished forever. It still is. I sat there in Greenland much like I am sitting now, locked within a prison of sorts, nothing to do but think and think and think . . .
I have decided people do not care for me much on a personal basis.
I discovered it there in Greenland with the total apathy of the Vikings greeting me from all sides. Even Malyn, the poor girl who would later beg me to kill her, had begun to find me quite disagreeable. It was not my fault entirely. After all, did I want to make this journey to help these men? They did not want my help. They did not want to be converted, no matter what Robert or King Olaf of Norway said. They were quite happy here and quite happy with their gods and their lives, and I was not going to be able to change that. Not that I tried too hard. My main concern was my return to France, but that would not come until after Eirik’s death, which would not be for another two years. I decided I would sit here in my church and not leave. If I starved, then I would starve. If Malyn brought me food, then I would accept it and welcome her company, but I decided I would not see Eirik again, not go to his house, and not interact with any of his men. It was a long way from converting them, but at the time I knew Robert wouldn’t care. He would have been too busy dealing with his political alliances to worry about what I was doing here. I took wood and tried to cover the windows to block out that infernal sunlight, but I had no nails or hammer to fasten them. I stacked them the best I could over the openings, but in the end they always fell when the slightest gust of wind puffed through the church or something on the outside jarred against the wall.
Even with my eyes shut, I could still see the light. I would lie down, face covered, trying to not let the light into my hea
d. It was hopeless. Everywhere I turned, there was more daylight. I began to pray for darkness. To see a single star or a darkened sky now would truly be a blessing. But it was a matter of geography, and in the land of the Vikings, the sun would not go down for another five months or so. I began to wonder if I truly would go insane before the onset of winter. Malyn did not come to see me the next day, and I grew hungrier with each passing hour, like a dog waiting for its master to feed it. I began to not sleep. How could I sleep with the daylight always burning a path across the ice to blind me? As a result, my mind turned with the restlessness of insomnia. Woe to the poor bishop, indeed.
Chapter Eight
A Visitor
Since I had decided not to leave my church, the next few days were spent simply watching the fire and hoping it would not burn itself completely out. I would not go outside to gather wood, nor would I go to Eirik’s house to steal some of his cache. I watched my fire burn and began to wonder if anyone was asking about me. “Where’s the bishop these days?” they would ask Eirik. Eirik probably just shrugged and grunted some sort of reply of “he’s in the church,” or “I don’t know.” It was this kind of total unrecognition that drove me to truly despise these men I lived with. I entertained thoughts of stealing down to the beach one cold and clear night to take a boat, shove it in the water, and set sail for whatever land I happened to drift into.
In the end, I decided it was not worth it, for my fear of drowning persuaded me it would not be a good course of action. My head was hurting all the time now for lack of food, but Malyn still did not come.
When my fire finally burned itself out and the ashes were nothing but a warm soot, I decided I would at least go up to Brattahild to see what Malyn was doing, and to ask her why she had not been to see me in the last few days. It was as good as reason as any, but the truth was I was starving, and I knew Eirik was well stockpiled, even if he continually turned away from me. Many a friar in my order and other churches made a good living begging off the charity of others. I should not see why my position was any different.