The Snow on the Cross

by Brian Fitts

  I ducked as Eirik took the goblet that Thordhild had just brought to him and sent it sailing at me. The mead splashed as it hit my shoulder, the cup bouncing away.

  Dying or not, Eirik was still an excellent shot.

  Chapter Twelve

  Smoke and Spirits

  Malyn kept me informed of Eirik’s progress which, more often than not, was not good news. The infection seemed to be spreading throughout his body and he began suffering from great fevers, in which he was seeing strange visions.

  “He keeps saying over and over that he sees his death, and the following funeral,” she told me sadly one evening. “And I will go with him.”

  The endless darkness had broken into a blistering white springtime and foliage was springing up everywhere. I was grateful at some semblance of normality as the sun rose and fell like it was suppose to. I knew it was short lived, and it was only a matter of weeks before we settled into the endless days of summer again, but for the time, I was in bliss, and I felt my sanity coming back to me in the process.

  At least I could mark the days again, which I had started to do by scraping lines across the stone walls of my church. According to what Malyn told me, we had only twelve days of sunrise and sunset before the summer settled in, and we would have no darkness for many months. The stacks of wood on the beach were growing steadily with each passing day, and each day Thordhild reported on Eirik’s health, more wood was added. The Vikings were determined to burn Eirik quickly with the hottest fire they could muster. The faster Eirik burned, the faster his soul would rise with the smoke to get to Valhalla.

  Unfortunately, they applied the same school of thought to Malyn.

  I had tried speaking with some of the other Vikings about possibly converting to my faith. I assembled small groups of them and preached to them, sermonizing and telling them all about how the true faith came to our land, and what our reward would be in the afterlife. They had been following Eirik too long, and they were too isolated out here on Greenland. They did not understand the conversions that had gone on without them in their native country, and they did not see themselves as being left behind in matters of faith. The more I preached to them, the more they turned away from me until the only audience I had left was the one I had always had: Malyn and Thordhild.

  But no one could say I didn’t try, even Robert II the Pious. Even though I told Robert the Pious specifically I was not the right person for this task, I tried anyway. Day after day I would stare at the sea and think about returning to France. How much had changed since I had been gone? Was Robert II the Pious even still in power? Most importantly, did anyone remember I was here, or had they assumed I died long ago?

  It was on the twelfth day of our sunlight, the last day before the start of the summer season, when Malyn came to me with the news. Night had just settled in, and I was sitting outside watching the stars for the last time. Malyn was in tears, and she sat down beside me and looked up at the stars with me.

  “Soon,” she said. “I will be up there with those stars as my spirit rises as I am burned.” She choked a little at the thought. “My time is over here.”

  “What do you mean,” I asked, knowing the inevitable was about to be revealed to me.

  “Eirik is dying,” she whispered in a voice so low I could barely hear her. “He has asked for absolution and the blessing of his soul before his passage. It is the final step before he passes.”

  “The fever?” I asked. “Or the infection?”

  Malyn looked at me with watery eyes. “The infection has caused the fever, and they are both ravaging him. He can barely speak, and when he does, he is clearly out of his mind.”

  I had run out of time. Eirik would be dead by morning, and a few days after that he would be destroyed and his spirits would mingle with the smoke of his funeral pyre. But at the same time. . .

  I looked at the poor girl. Was it too late for her as well? Was Eirik’s fever so great he was past the point of rational thought? Could I attempt to speak with him and reason with him once more? I stood up, but Malyn held me back.

  “The preparations are being made,” she said. “There is nothing you can do.”

  “I have failed you,” I said, and my voice was quivering. “And I hope you will forgive me.”

  We sat there in silence, gazing at the beauty of God’s heavens on what was possibly Malyn’s last night connected to this world. I think she had come to accept what her fate was going to be, but the thought still haunted me.

  ***

  I was convinced a rational man would not burn an innocent girl alive in order to accompany him into the afterlife. Whatever nonsense their faith taught them, above all, I was sure burning Malyn would not help Eirik in the afterlife. One does not need a servant while one is in Hell. Apparently, from what I gathered from Malyn, the funeral ritual itself was quite simple. Eirik’s body would be burned quickly and then set out to sea on a small raft. Malyn, however, would not be put out to sea. Her body would remain on shore so her spirit would rise with the same speed as Eirik’s, and together, their spirits would merge in the smoke.

  Unfortunately, Malyn was going to be slaughtered for a false religion, therefore, no matter how much Eirik professed his faith to me, in my opinion it was murder, and as I left my church to go to Brattahild for the last time, I looked back to see Malyn, who had fallen asleep near my fire, sleeping as if she would live forever. Now that the moment was here, I should, God’s truth, have put her on the ship with Leif. But now Leif was gone and my time was running out.

  Dawn, the last dawn of many months, was beginning to crack open the sky, as I jogged up the hill to Eirik’s house. From the view on the hilltop, I imagined I could see the beach, and the gatherings going on there. Soon, I would be a witness to the events that would take place there, but not yet. First, I had to try reasoning with Eirik before he was gone.

  I didn’t knock when I arrived. Thordhild seemed annoyed at my entrance, but I ignored her. I saw Eirik stretched out near the fire, his eyes closed. He was still breathing, but it was faint, and I watched as each breath he inhaled threatened not to come out again.

  Eirik had been dressed in his armor, bloodstains and all, and his hair and beard had been carefully washed and braided. I noticed his leg was tilted to a painful angle, and his arm lay stretched out beside him like a wing, but other than those things, he simply seemed to be sleeping.

  “Bishop,” Thordhild’s voice held anger. “What do you need?” I could tell she had been weeping. Surely, she wasn’t blaming me for Eirik’s state? I did the best I could setting his arm and leg. I could count on no hands how many Vikings helped me.

  “Can he speak?” I asked. “I need to talk to him.”

  Thordhild shook her head no. “He is slipping away. Do not try to awaken him. He will not respond to you.”

  “Then I will speak to you and try to reason with you,” I said. “When Eirik dies you will have some authority as his widow, right?” Thordhild nodded. “Then you have the power to help me.”

  “What is it you need?”

  I took a deep breath. “The girl, Malyn. Must she die when your husband does?”

  The look Thordhild gave me told me everything without her speaking a single word. Yes, Malyn would have to die, and she supposed she was doing me a favor by removing temptation from my sight, as if I was about to forsake my most holy God and partake in carnal lusts with the girl.

  “You will thank me when your soul is left pure,” she seemed to say.

  No matter what Thordhild thought of me as a man of God, she saw me as a man first and foremost, but if I had wanted the girl, I would have already had her, so it angered me that Thordhild assumed I was weak-minded and a slave to the flesh.

  “It is Eirik’s wish,” was all Thordhild said. “It will be honored.”

  “It is murder,” I said, trying to rationalize it to her. If she was a woman of the same faith as me, then surely she would have seen that. “Our God forbids it. Do not sacrifice this i
nnocent girl for the sake of your husband’s pagan ways. You have the power to change it.”

  Thordhild shook her head, and her eyes seemed distant. I knew her carrying out Eirik’s last wish wasn’t the reason for her wanting Malyn to die. She had been gone many weeks to Norway, and she knew the services Eirik expected of Malyn extended beyond the simple tasks of cooking and keeping the house. It wasn’t for Eirik that Malyn was going to die, I realized. It was Thordhild’s revenge upon the girl. After all, wasn’t it Thordhild who had called Malyn a whore?

  “I will stop you,” I said. “I will not stand by and let Malyn die.”

  “Go ahead, Bishop,” Thordhild said in a small voice as she turned away from me to stare out the door to the beaches beyond the hills. “Save her, but then save yourself. God sent you here for a purpose, and you have done nothing the entire time you’ve been here but sit and talk and complain.” She turned back to me and her eyes were sharp. “Your time here is finished. When I requested you, I thought I was requesting a man of God. You are a disappointment to me and our faith, Bishop. Eirik lies here damned because of your indifference. Now Malyn will die as well, also because of your indifference. You had a job to do, and you failed.”

  Her words stung, and I wandered outside in a daze. My father once had a saying and he spoke it to me often: Speak the truth and shame the devil. I heard the wail behind me, and I knew at that moment, Eirik the Red had passed from this life into the next.

  ***

  I went back to my church knowing I would have to reveal the news to Malyn. When I returned, Malyn was gone. I took a scrap of parchment, pricked my finger until it welled with blood, and wrote these words: In the Year of our Lord 1002 A.D. Eirik the Red died after a long illness. I wrote the date as 1002 even though I had lost track of time while I was here, and I had no way of actually knowing what year or day of the week it was. Malyn told me it was 1002, much to my surprise. At the time I was so bewildered by the lack of daylight and darkness I had not even realized how much time had passed since my arrival here. What I thought was one year, was actually two.

  I sat and stared at the swinging wooden cross Eirik had put up so long before I arrived. I had failed Malyn, and I had failed my king, and I had failed God. Thordhild’s words kept echoing through my head. A disappointment, indeed.

  Word traveled quite rapidly through the Viking village about Eirik’s death. Within hours, many men were lined up at Brattahild waiting to see the body. Some of the larger men were also there, waiting with the carrier to take the body down to the beach for the last sacred rites. I knew it would be the last funeral done in this fashion, for after Eirik’s departure, the pagan ways would be gone with him.

  I didn’t know where Malyn was, but I thought if I were in her position, I would have started running before the men could catch me and drag me down to the beach with my former master. Hours might have passed, I am not sure. Malyn did not come back to my church to say goodbye, and to my shock, I looked out and saw her up at Brattahild. She was angelic as she stood there near the stone walls, her white funeral gown just a shade darker than the snows around her. I wanted to run up there and take her, to hide her away in my church, but she looked sad and ready, much like I imagined Christ looked moments before they led him up to Calvary.

  I was speechless, and I was powerless to act. The entire event sprawled out before me like a bizarre dream, and I could do nothing and say nothing. I could barely move.

  I saw the first Vikings emerge from Brattahild with their cargo, an impossibly large man, lying cold and still upon that stretcher, his bright red hair and beard shining in the morning’s sun. His armor gleamed brightly, twinkling along with his prized sword lying across his chest. The sword, I noticed, had been cleaned of all bloodstains and was polished to an endless sheen. His helmet was perched at the top of the sword hilt. He looked, not like the fallen warrior in battle, but like a sleeping giant.

  Thordhild trailed after the procession, head bowed. The line of warriors wound in single file up and over the hills looking snakelike as they crawled toward the beach ever so slowly. Malyn was toward the front of the line, head looking straight ahead, and I saw no fear, but my mind was cloudy, and I ran toward the beach, knowing I would beat them all there. I could hear the low chanting of the Vikings singing praises to Odin on behalf of their leader, and the sound burned into my mind. Already I could smell the smoke from the torches the Vikings carried, and I could see the faint trails of smoke from the procession. I was determined not to be a disappointment.

  I reached the beach and stopped short. The two stacks of wood were there, as tall as two men stacked atop one another. They had not been set ablaze yet. The small boat was ready to take Eirik, flaming, out to sea. It was decorated with white flowers as it bobbed slightly against the rocks. But, much to my horror, I realized this was what my indifference had led to. A line of tents was set up there, six in all. There were other men there, too. They were Viking warriors who had traveled many days here to attend the funeral of Eirik the Red and pay honor to him. They were there, waiting, silent and somber, and I stood there on the beach as well. For all any of them knew, I was simply another Viking awaiting the arrival of my fallen leader. I spat in the sand as my heart began to dance in my chest.

  The tents were there to represent a different tribe of men who had settled here on Greenland. They didn’t settle with Eirik at Brattahild. Instead, they struck out for their own lands far to the west and east. At last, I discovered what had happened to the men on the fourteen ships that had sailed to Greenland with Eirik from Iceland. They were all here, and the leaders of these men stood, occasionally nodding at one another. Some heads were silently bent in prayer, and I knew mine should have been one of them, but I hesitated, then I saw the first figure come over the hills and down the path that led to the beach. The first man I saw was one of the torchbearers, whose fire was flickering brightly. Behind him, I saw Malyn.

  She didn’t look at me, didn’t acknowledge whether or not she saw me. Perhaps she assumed I had stayed behind in my church. It didn’t matter now, anyway. She was approaching her death, and now that I could see more of her face, I saw the fear there, traced in tiny lines. The tears that she had held back the entire walk from Brattahild to here now spilled over and darkened her gown. Behind her, the bearers of the corpse, and as I stared at that motionless body, I felt nothing but shame. Here was the product of my indifference. Should I have taken pleasure in the fact that the man was dead? I would watch him burn on the funeral pyre in a matter of minutes, and it had been the day I longed for, but it was a sinful thought, for I knew this man’s soul was gone to whatever Valhalla he had imagined for it, not to Heaven.

  Once the Vikings had assembled entirely on the beach, Malyn was placed before the stacks of wood while the others encircled her. The body of Eirik was placed on top of the larger stack, but no fire was applied to it. Not yet. That would come later. I noticed Thordhild had taken her place of honor near her husband’s pyre, and her head was down. One of the men, I assumed he was some sort of priest of Eirik’s religion, began shouting in a loud voice, which I took for some sort of blessing or prayer. The priest then took Malyn’s hand and started walking with her. The crowd parted for them and they came to the first tent.

  It is here I wish I had more exact notes of what exactly happened to that poor girl. But as I have told you before, I am relying on God to speak the truth through me. The chief of each tribe stepped up, one standing before each tent. There they stood and waited, looking at Malyn, whose face was frozen. This was one part of the ritual Malyn had failed to tell me about. The priest led her into the first tent and the first tribal chief went in after her. The priest emerged, closing the cloth door behind him. The crowd stood deathly silent, watching the tent. I noticed Thordhild’s head tilted slightly, and a small smirk was on her face.

  I took a hesitant step forward. I didn’t know what was going on, but then I heard the muffled screams coming from the first tent, and I realized
what was happening, and my very soul burst into pain. The crowd stood and listened, and the priest seemed to be praying in front of the tent. The muffled screams had turned into barely audible moans, and my feet froze in the sand. The product of my indifference and my selfishness was lying in that first tent. Soon, all was quiet and the chief emerged from the tent adjusting his belt as he stepped out. He nodded to the priest, who then entered the tent and emerged with Malyn. He held her tightly by the hand, and I could see the tear trails that had streaked down her face. I noticed a spot of red on her gown.

  I wanted to call out to her, but the priest had already led her into the second tent, where the next chief waited. The priest stood and prayed and offered his blessings. I kept looking over at Thordhild, whose eyes were riveted on the second tent. Was she enjoying what was happening to poor Malyn? It would appear she did.

  The brutal ritual was repeated four more times. Each time Malyn was led into the next tent, and each time the chief from the next tribe would follow her. By the fourth tent, there were no sounds coming from the tent, as if Malyn had quite given up her struggle. By the sixth tent, when she came out, I saw she was gone. The carnal ritual of these six tribal chiefs had ripped the very soul out of her, and the bloodstain on her gown had spread.

  “Malyn,” I called, but one of the Vikings shoved me, and I fell into silence. I was disgraced. Even now, I was standing by, unable to take action as Malyn was led to her funeral pyre. She looked ready to die, especially after what she had just been subjected to, and I thought about Leif’s ship. I still think about it to this day.

  The torchbearer stepped up, and the priest murmured something over the flame.

  I moved away from my vantage point and began making my way over to Thordhild. Maybe she would listen now. Maybe since she saw what they had done to Malyn, she would put a stop to the remainder of the funeral ritual. I reached her just as the flame was applied to the bottom of Eirik’s wood. They had coated the sticks with some sort of oil, for the fire touched the first stick and a beautiful bloom of light rippled across the bottom of the wood.