"Heya," he sighed, shaking his head sadly. We sat together in silence for a moment-but only for a moment, for he suddenly smiled, and said, "But I have a daughter now-born in the spring after I left. She is just like her mother, and I have named her Karin."
His smile grew wistful. "Ylva is my wife now, so it is not so bad. Ah, but I miss Karin, Aeddan. She was good to me, and I miss her." He paused, remembering his good wife, then added, "But everyone dies, and I will see her again in heaven, heya?"
Despair cast its dark cloak over me, and I said, "You see how unreliable this God is, and yet you still want to build a church? Truly, Gunnar, you are better off without it."
Gunnar regarded me in disbelief. "How can you speak so, Aeddan-especially after all we have seen?"
"It is because of all we have seen that I speak as I do," I retorted. "God cares nothing for us. Pray if it makes you feel better; do good if it pleases you, but God remains unmoved and unconcerned either way."
Gunnar was quiet for a moment, gazing at the little stone chapel. "The people of Skania pray to many gods who neither hear nor care," Gunnar said. "But I remember the day you told me about Jesu who came to live among the fisherfolk, and was nailed to a tree by the skalds and Romans and hung up to die. And I remember thinking, this Hanging God is unlike any of the others; this god suffers, too, just like his people.
"I remember also that you told me he was a god of love and not revenge, so that anyone who calls on his name can join him in his great feasting hall. I ask you now, does Odin do this for those who worship him? Does Thor suffer with us?"
"This is the great glory of our faith," I murmured, thinking of Ruadh's words to me-but changing them to reflect Gunnar's sentiment, "that Christ suffers with us and, through his suffering, draws us near to himself."
"Just so!" agreed Gunnar eagerly. "You are a wise man, Aeddan. I knew you would understand. This is most important, I think."
"You find this comforting?"
"Heya," he said. "Do you remember when the mine overseer was going to kill us? There we were, our bodies were broken, our skin blackened by the sun-how hot it was! Remember?"
"Sure, it is not a thing a man easily forgets."
"Well, I was thinking this very thing. I was thinking: I am going to die today, but Jesu also died, so he knows how it is with me. And I was thinking, would he know me when I came to him? Yes! Sitting in his hall, he will see me sail into the bay, and he will run down to meet me on the shore; he will wade into the sea and pull my boat onto the sand and welcome me as his wayfaring brother. Why will he do this? Because he too has suffered, and he knows, Aeddan, he knows." Beaming, Gunnar concluded, "Is that not good news?"
I agreed that it was, and Gunnar was so full of joy at this thought that I did not have the heart to tell him I could not come and be his priest. Later that night, after our guests had been made as comfortable as possible in the guest lodge, I lay down to sleep and instead found myself thinking how strange it was that Gunnar should come to faith this way.
Sure, I myself had told him most of what he knew. But he had endured the same hardships, and suffered all that I had suffered, and more-at least, I had not lost wife and friends to fever while a slave in foreign lands-yet Gunnar's travails created in him a kinship with Christ, while mine produced only separation. This seemed very strange to me. Stranger still, I fell asleep wondering not what was wrong with Gunnar, but what was wrong with me?
The thought dogged me into the next day. It was Passion Day, the commemoration of Christ's death, and the beginning of the Eastertide celebrations. The monks do no work on this day, and so we had leisure to entertain our guests. Abbot Fraoch, never one to miss an opportunity of spreading the faith, called me to him and asked me to assemble the Danes so that he could address them. This I did, and he extended to them the invitation to be baptized.
"Do you think this wise?" I asked, while Harald and the others considered the offer. "They know nothing of Christianity. They have had no instruction."
"I merely open the door," the abb told me. "Let the Good Lord bring in whoever he will." Lifting a hand to where the Danes conferred, he said, "Look at them, Aidan. They have come here to get a priest and build a church. This is the favourable Day of the Lord! Let them seal their faith-now while the spirit is moving. There will be plenty of time for instruction later."
Harald spoke up then, saying, "We have held council over this matter, and it is decided that Gunnar is willing. Therefore, he should be baptized now."
I relayed the answer to the abbot, who professed himself well pleased, and at once led the whole body of monks and Danes out from the monastery and down the path to the stream where we often bathed. There, Fraoch put off his robe and strode into the water in his mantle; in order to act as translator for the proceedings, I was required to join him. He called Gunnar into the water, saying, "Let him who would rise with Christ also die with him."
Putting off his clothes, Gunnar stepped into the stream and waded to where we stood. The abbot asked him the three needful questions: Do you renounce evil? Do you embrace Christ? Will you remain his faithful servant until the end of your life?
To each of these Gunnar answered a resounding HEYA! Whereupon we took him by the arms and laid him down in the water and raised him up again into the new life of faith. The abbot took his vial of holy oil and made the sign of the cross on Gunnar's forehead, saying, "I sign you with the cross of Christ, now and henceforth your lord, redeemer and friend. Go forth, Gunnar Warhammer, and live to God's glory by the light that is in you."
Gunnar embraced me and the abbot both, thanked us, and went up out of the stream rejoicing. He was then given a new white mantle to wear and welcomed by the monks of the abbey as a brother in Christ; then, taken with the wonder of the moment, the brothers began singing to him the baptism blessing:
Pour down upon him thy grace, Everliving;
Give to him virtue and growth,
Give to him strength and guidance,
Give to him faith and loving kindness,
That he may stand in thy presence happy
for ever and ever and three times for ever.
Amen!
The entire ritual so impressed the watching Sea Wolves that they all threw off their clothes and clambered into the water to be baptized, too. Harald demanded to be next, and was accorded this honour by the abbot, who summoned Ruadh and Cellach, and some of the others to help. The ceremony occupied us well into the day, and when we gathered at twilight for the Passion Day vespers, it was with the addition of thirty new converts. I translated the words of the prayers and the psalms for them, and they professed to find it all very pleasant, even enjoyable.
Throughout the evening meal, and the whole of the next day I was made to explain what it all meant as the neophyte Christians wanted to know if they would be invincible in battle now, and forever lucky in all their dealings.
"No," I told them. "Indeed, it is the other way entirely. If my life is any example, then you will be supremely unlucky and forever vulnerable to every harm under heaven."
The thought sat ill with me, I believe, for I found it hard to sleep and could get no rest for thrashing about on my bed. Some little while before dawn I woke, rose, and left my cell to find that the abbey had vanished in the night. All around me I could see a featureless expanse stretching in every direction flat to the horizon, without feature, without colour, with neither hill, nor rock, nor tree-a desert place of howling wind and bone-aching emptiness.
What has happened to the abbey? I wondered. Where has everyone gone?
Even as I struggled to comprehend the enormity of this disaster, I heard high above me the sound of an eagle crying as it flew. I raised my eyes and saw, soaring alone in the empty sky, the great bird, wings outstretched, keen eyes searching for a place to rest.