The Snow on the Cross

by Brian Fitts

  I stepped outside into the dim light, for I gathered it was supposed to be night based on the position of the sun: it squatted, an orange ball, just atop the hills. The sky was bright and clear, and no snow drifted over me. There was no smoke coming from Eirik’s chimney, which worried me a bit. It was unlikely they would let their fires go out, even if it was almost summer here. I took a few more steps toward Eirik’s home. No signs of life came from within. No indication anyone was home.

  I thought I heard voices cascading over the hills. Perhaps there was a gathering at the seashore I was not aware of. I looked back at Eirik’s house. If there was no one home, would it have been a sin to enter his abode and take what I needed? I had long advocated that stealing, if you could call it that, was appropriate if one was starving. God understands these things, I am sure. God would not want His children and His holy men to starve while they are doing the Lord’s good work, would He? This argument gelled in my mind, and I decided since Eirik had most of his wealth because he took it from defenseless peasants and monks, it would be justified to take some of it back.

  But first, I would see if Malyn was there. If she was there, she would help me. I crossed Eirik’s stone fence and went up to his door, listening all the while. I waited for the faintest sound, a creak of a chair, a clink of a cup or bowl, even the sound of breathing itself. There was nothing, even as I pressed my ear against the door. I looked around the pasture. The cattle were still there, always grazing. They would not report me to Eirik. I quietly knocked on the door and waited. No footsteps. No sounds at all.

  I pushed on the door, letting it open a little. The room was cool, but not entirely cold. There had not been anyone here for a few days. I pushed the door open more and went inside.

  Surprisingly, the main room looked much like it had the first time I saw it, save there was no fires burning.

  “Malyn?” I called out. There was no answer. If Eirik came back and found me in his house, what would he have done to me? Killed me as a thief? I would just get a little food and then I would leave. I hurried through the house, looking for dried meat or breads. I found a pitcher of mead, sitting in a pool of cool water that had once been ice. I opened one of the chests near the wall. The pungent scent of dried venison wrapped in cloth permeated the room. My mouth began to water at the sight. I helped myself, taking more than I knew I could possibly eat. I wrapped my bundles up in the rags I found and began to walk back to the door.

  As I walked back, something shining in the fireplace caught my attention. As I looked closer I saw my gold cross the monks at Bayeux had given me still there, twinkling brightly amid the warm ashes. It had not melted entirely, as apparently it had fallen into a pocket of fire that had not burned as hotly as the rest. I picked it up, and the blackness flaked off.

  So, Eirik had not been able to destroy the icon of my God. If I took this to be a sign, then I knew God had led me here to find my cross again. I clutched the cross tightly, and hurried out of Eirik’s home.

  As I darted out of the house, I saw Malyn in the distance. Although she was far away, it was obvious she was calling to me and running toward Eirik’s house. I stood there in the pasture, trying to listen to what the girl was shouting at me. She kept running, and I began to be worried for the poor girl, for she looked like she was in distress. I dropped my venison (but kept the cross) and raced to meet the girl halfway.

  When I met her at the crest of one of the larger hills, she was gasping, as if trying to clutch the air with her lungs. She looked panicked, and I tried to calm her as she struggled to wheeze her words to me. As she tried to compose herself, I looked to the south and saw the sea in the distance, endless, shimmering water stretching out and reflecting the eternal sun. But it was not the beauty of the sea that captured my attention mostly. It was the fleet of ships I saw out there.

  “Malyn, what’s going on? Where’s Eirik?”

  Malyn shook her head, still trying to gain enough air to speak. I gripped my cross and felt it sting my hand. Were we under attack? Were Eirik and the others assembled on the beaches to prepare to fight? I looked again at the ships. Small and lithe, they were pointed like arrows cutting through the water, and the sails were square and full. North Men.

  Malyn pointed to the sea; she had gained enough breath to speak now.

  “Who is coming?” I asked her.

  She took one more deep breath, and looked at me directly. “Leif is coming.”

  “Who?” I had not heard this name before.

  “It’s Leif,” Malyn repeated. “Eirik’s son.”

  ***

  I had not known Eirik even had a son, and I wondered if he was cut from the same cloth as his father. Leif was tall, and he bore a striking resemblance to Eirik. Leif’s hair and beard were not quite as red, more of an auburn color that set off his dark face, tanned from many months at sea, well. He was young, perhaps only in his teens. I never quite found out more about him, except in the absence of Thordhild, he would be a strong ally in faith to me, for he had just returned from Norway, where he had been converted to the one true faith.

  It was obvious this new event did not sit well with Eirik, for as I walked down to the hills that overlooked the beaches, I could see him standing out from the crowd of others, pacing restlessly to the waves and back as he watched Leif’s fleet approaching. Malyn stood by my side as she watched with me.

  “Eirik will kill him,” Malyn whispered to me. “He will not accept Leif’s faith.”

  If Eirik was a strong man, he was at a moment of severe weakness. First his wife, now his son, had turned against his faith and converted to Christianity. Eirik had his axe drawn, and he impatiently cut the air with it, almost as if signaling the ships approaching to turn back and leave his island. My heart began to flip over, and I thought about returning to my church, but the cool touch of Malyn on my arm kept me steady. I would see how this event played out.

  Leif’s ship, the largest of the small fleet, hit the shore first, and I saw the youth standing at the bow of the ship looking noble. The other Vikings assembled on the beach had backed away, leaving Eirik isolated where he stood. As soon as Leif’s ship ground against the rocks, the boy leapt out, splashing through the water. He was in seemingly no hurry to reach the shore, as most men would after such a long trip on the sea. I remembered how I had fallen to the ground and clutched it upon my first arrival.

  Father and son stood staring at one another as Leif reached the bank. There was no joyful reunion. No embracing or tears of welcome. There was merely the cold silence, broken by the faint hiss of the waves as they bumped against the shore. Leif was Eirik’s equal in height, but he was not as broad across the shoulders. His beard was not as long as his father’s, but it framed a face that held the same look of anger. I saw Eirik’s hand tighten on his axe, and I waited for the first strike.

  Leif said something, but I couldn’t understand the words. I asked Malyn to translate for me, but she waved me to silence, apparently intent on hearing it for herself first.

  Whatever it was Leif said, it was met with more silence. The other ships began to line up against the beach, but Leif’s men hesitated before jumping out. All eyes were on the two men standing face to face there on the shores of Greenland, and all eyes were waiting.

  Leif then did something that surprised me. He pulled from around his neck a cross, one that looked remarkably like my own, and held it out to his father.

  “Look,” whispered Malyn. “He’s telling Eirik it’s a gift from King Olaf.”

  Ah, yes. King Olaf. The king Robert the Pious was trying to desperately to form an alliance with. The reason I was standing there in a green land that wasn’t green.

  Eirik reached out and took the cross from his son. He stared at it for a moment, then stared at Leif, then threw the cross down on the sand and spat on it.

  Leif’s face showed no anger, no outrage at his father’s blasphemy. Instead, Leif picked up the cross and touched it to one of the waves sweeping by, washing it of
f. He held it up again and offered it back to his father. Eirik began shouting at his son, pointing back to the sea. Leif did not move.

  “Eirik is disowning his son,” Malyn told me as she watched. “He is putting him out to sea in exile. Greenland will no longer be Leif’s home.”

  “Then I have to stop him,” I said, surprised at my own words. It was indeed if God was pushing me to action. How long would I stand by and let Eirik abuse me and my faith in such a manner? It was time. The cross in my hand was a comfort, and as I tightened my grasp around it, I found myself walking down the hill toward the beach as if in a dream state. This must have been what Christ felt emerging from his wanderings in the wilderness after he had been tempted by Satan himself.

  The Vikings saw me descending from the hill, and they looked shocked at my approach. It was almost as if they were watching me float down perched atop a cloud. Eirik turned to look in my direction, and I saw the rage storm across his face. I knew then I was marked for death in Eirik’s eyes and I would probably die there on the beach. But I had not died yet, even with all I had been through, and I saw no reason to die there and then, so I had no fear, and the confidence I had was my strength.

  I stopped just before I reached Eirik, but I was aware that I was well out of reach of his axe swing.

  “Stop!” I said in the Viking tongue. Eirik looked amazed, then even angrier at my interruption.

  He said something to me, and although my grasp of his language was crude, I assume he told me to go away, for I distinctly heard the word “go.”

  Malyn was still on the hill, and I looked back at her, but she would not dare come down to where I was. I was on my own.

  Leif was looking at me in wonder, and he held up his cross. I held mine up in reply. Leif nodded and came over to me, embracing me and almost squeezing the breath out of me. I coughed and pushed him away so I could breathe. Eirik seemed incensed by this display. He stepped over to me and pushed me aside, knocking me back down onto the cold, wet sand. He then turned to his son, the son who had betrayed him, and said in a harsh voice, “you are no son of mine.” At least that is what Malyn told me later after I had fled to the refuge of my church.

  Leif seemed unphased by his father’s agitation. I had gotten to my feet by this time and, still grasping the cross, approached the two men. Although Eirik hadn’t noticed my cross before, now he saw it and recognized it. I saw it in his eyes that he knew it was the cross he had taken from me, and the only way I could have gotten it was to have gone into his home.

  Eirik barked something at his men, and two impossibly large Vikings came to me and grabbed me, wrenching my hands up behind me and securing them with rope. They then shoved me back down to the ground. One of them raised an axe, waiting for the signal from Eirik to end my life. The rough sand burned cold against me, but I still knew no fear. I was ready, seasoned for my passage into God’s good kingdom. Perhaps I was cut out to be a martyr after all.

  Eirik looked at Leif, daring him to try to stop the order that would cut me off from this world and send me reeling into the next. Leif said nothing, did nothing. He was as calm as I had ever seen a man under such conditions. I glanced over at Malyn who I noticed had tears dripping down her face. Sad, poor girl, I remember thinking. You shall also die at the hands of this monster who stands before me. But do not worry; he will earn his punishment in the fires of hell.

  Eirik whistled, and the Viking brought the axe down.

  God was determined to make me live.

  Something pushed me aside at the critical moment, some unseen force perhaps, some angel sent from Heaven. Malyn told me later that she saw nothing out of the ordinary, just that I decided to roll over at just the right time. Perhaps it was God working through me and sending me an angel internally. Whatever it was, the axe did not find a home in me that day on the beach. It crashed down into the sand near my head and sprayed fine grains into my face. My eyes were scratched and burning from the sand, but it was certainly better than my head rolling away on its own.

  Eirik saw the axe had missed and, growling, shoved the incompetent Viking aside, seizing his own axe and looking determined to finish the job himself. In the meantime, the last ship of Leif’s fleet had moored itself down the beach a bit. Leif stepped up and grabbed his father’s arm, holding him back from swinging the axe. Eirik winced as if burned by his son’s touch, and I am convinced Leif would have taken his place by my side there on the sand waiting for the next axe strike, if he hadn’t shouted something directly in his father’s ear. Something that was loud enough to make Eirik drop the axe and glare frightfully down the beach to where the last ship had docked.

  Leif said a name. It was one I recognized.

  “Thordhild.”

  I think I passed out there in the cold sand, and I could faintly hear Malyn’s weeping over the hush of the waves. Someone doused me with icy seawater that made me jump awake, and I was left sputtering and spitting saltwater out of my mouth as it pooled around my head. I struggled against the ropes binding my hand, and like a turtle flipped over onto his back, I wiggled there on the sand, trying to get up. I could raise my head enough to see the Vikings moving as one down the beach toward the last ship. Leif was left standing alone near me as Eirik and his men walked away from us toward the last ship on the beach. Leif’s men had since disembarked from their ships and were securing them so they would not drift away again.

  There was a woman standing there on the ship, and although she was a great distance away, the form was distinctly feminine, and the Vikings approached her ship with a sort of reverence. Eirik led them, and he was the one I saw step out into the water and extend a hand to the woman there.

  Leif knelt down beside me, and I felt me hands go free. He patted me on the shoulder like a prized pet and helped me to stand. I brushed the sand off my robes and noticed Malyn had wandered down to the bottom of the hill, still not knowing if she should dare come out onto the sand where Leif and I were standing. I motioned her over, but she shook her head. Leif saw what I was doing, then looked at the girl, noticing her for the first time. He smiled, as if to tell her it was okay, that he would protect her, and it was only then did she come out to us.

  I saw the look Leif had given to Malyn, and although I was a man of God I felt something jab at me. Was it jealousy? Resentment? He kept looking at her, and I kept looking at her reaction to the way he was looking at her. He said something to her, and her only reply was a shy smile. I then realized what was happening. I did feel some anger toward Leif, but I shouldn’t have. I had taken vows. I was married to the church and up to that point, I had not thought of Malyn as anything more than a daughter. I was an old man, after all, and thoughts of love and the jealousy that came with it was forbidden to me. Still, my mind began to burn despite my best intentions. I was only human, full of imperfections and faults. I turned away from them, unable to bear seeing them anymore.

  Instead, I looked down the beach at Eirik and his men. The woman he had lifted off the boat, he now carried through the water and over the sand, never once letting her feet touch the ground. I suppose it was noble gesture, and her arrival might have well saved my life, but I told myself I had saved Eirik’s life during our reindeer hunt, and that he should remember that as well.

  Thordhild was a small woman, very slight and fragile-looking. Her skin was very brown and made a nice contrast to her almost-white hair. Her eyes were very dark, and I do not think she had any color to them at all. Just a deep inky blackness that was endless. Eirik’s eyes were just the opposite. They betrayed every emotion that thought about emerging upon his face, and Thordhild’s eyes were nothing. Her eyes reminded me of sleep, and they haunted me. Thordhild did not even come to Eirik’s shoulder, but there was a way she carried herself that was within the realm of a queen. If she was ever made the queen of the Viking homeland, I think she would have made a very competent one.

  I watched as Eirik left the beach with her, heading back toward Brattahild. The incident with Leif was a
ll but forgotten in Eirik’s rush to take Thordhild back to their home. The others did not follow. I looked back at Malyn, worried now. She and Leif were talking quietly in Leif’s language. If Eirik returned home and found the fires out and the house cold, would it be Malyn who would bear the Viking’s temper? I felt I should warn the girl that if she ran now, she might beat Eirik back to Brattahild to make preparation for Thordhild’s homecoming.

  “Malyn,” I said. She stopped speaking with Leif and looked at me. I could tell she was falling into the pit of sin with this seducer, and if nothing else, I had to stop that as well. “Eirik is returning home. I noticed your fires were out. Will he be upset if he goes home and finds it?”

  Malyn’s eyes widened in total panic. She sprinted across the sand and up and over the hill and was gone. Leif and I were left watching her as she vanished.

  “You speak my language?” Leif asked me.

  “Some,” I replied. “Malyn taught me some of your tongue, but I fear I have not mastered it.”

  Leif nodded. “There will be no feasts tonight with my father.” He sounded a bit sad at the thought. “But my men and I will celebrate our homecoming and our safe passage across the sea. I would be honored if you would join us.”

  An invitation to dine with Leif and his men was a blessing. I felt deeply touched and honored, for this was not an arbitrary invitation, this was a genuine offer of fellowship, and I accepted with great humbleness.

  “I know you are staying in the church my father built,” said Leif. “After we have made preparations, I will send for you, and you can join us.”

  I nodded, and tears of gratitude began to well up. I brushed them away before Leif could see them. I excused myself from Leif’s company and started walking back to the church.