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CHAPTER XVIII

The winter that begat the Year of Our Lord 1000 was an itchy one for us at Sola. The king spent much of it just at our shoulder, across the water at Agvaldsness. His reach cramped by the loss of the Trondelag, he paid greater attention to us. In the same way the bishop and his counselors paid more attention to me. I felt like a fat man on thin ice. The baptism issue was settled, of course—all who lived were either Christians (in name at least) or in hiding. Except for Lemming, who had been in bed through the whole thing, and had for some reason been let alone.

On the other hand it was a profitable winter. As promised, Leif Eriksson sent a Greenland knarr, and Erling had walrus ivory and white bearskins, and even a white falcon or two, to sell at his new market—the word spread quickly, and Stavanger began to be known, even that first year, as a rival to Kaupang—or even Hedeby in some respects. Thorbjorg Lambisdatter was there, but Erling kept downwind of her. He and Astrid seemed better friends since the Thing, though I thought they were not yet lovers.

Olaf took blessed voyages up near Stad, where he kept ships patrolling, collecting passage tolls and effectively blocking trade meant for the Tronders. Several Trond ships were seized; a few fights were fought. There was profit in it, and it seemed to ease Olaf's spleen.

"I've begged Erling not to go with Olaf to Wendland," Astrid told me, walking with her spindle in the yard one mild, sunny winter afternoon. "He says things are bitter enough between the two of them, without him giving another offense. And of course he's right. Olaf chafes over those turncoats in the north."

"I suppose you've tried to talk Olaf over."

"Of course I've tried. Mad as he may be, my brother cannot say his sister hasn't striven to set him right. It does no good. He thinks he has a mission. Anyone who opposes it is a tool of Satan."

"Deacon Ketil might as well be bishop. Sigurd does nothing but pray and do penances."

"I think he blames himself for being too kindhearted, and so failing the king. Saints and angels! There are a hundred heresies and a thousand disputed points in the faith, and no doubt they all matter. But I'd think we could at least agree that it's right to love our neighbors."

I stopped in my tracks. "I've thought the same every day since I came to Norway. I believed I was the only one."

"We're fellow laborers, you and I," she said, smiling. "God sent us here to watch over Erling."

I looked her in the eye as I answered. "You sound almost reconciled to your marriage, and to this place."

She answered as plainly as I'd spoken. "I've long been reconciled to my marriage," she said. "No woman could ask for a better husband than Erling, were she Empress of Constantinople. And Sola is become a seat of power in Norway. But there are other . . . things to which I am not reconciled."

"You're very like your brother, you know," I said.

"What cause have I given you for insults?"

" 'Tis no insult. Olaf is a great man. He's taken a wrong turn, but he's a true king. At his best, I love him like Ireland."

Astrid turned away. "Let us speak of love," she said. "Did you love your heathen woman—what was her name—Asa?"

"Am I so easy to read?"

"You keep wandering out to Big Melhaug, the place where the god-tree's ghost used to be."

" 'Tis gone forever. And so is she."

"You'd have wed her then?"

"I think I might have, God help me. 'Twould have been unfitting for a priest, of course."

"Priests marry. Some even keep lemans. But you're Irish, aren't you? No warmth in the night for the holy men of Eire. You live on dew and air, and you've no need to sneeze or spit."

"I think I might have bent at last. Especially to save her life, had it come to that. She said she'd be christened to wed me."

"That was a great gift."

I choked back something in my throat. "A very great gift," I said. "But she's gone. 'Tis true, you see. God wills that priests should live alone."

"Withal you seem to do rather well for a celibate."

* * *

A foreigner came to Stavanger one rainy day that winter, off a knarr out of Kaupang.

I thought, There's a foreigner, the moment before I knew him by the stitching on his cloak as an Irishman.

Saint Bridget! I thought. Have I come to think of the sons of Eire as an outland breed? Am I no longer Irish? If not, what am I? God knows I'm no Norseman. 

The moment he saw my crucifix and tonsure he made a line for me.

"A priest!" he cried. "Thank the saints! I heard there was an Irish priest at Stavanger, and I prayed 'twas true! 'Tis harrowing to walk through a market full of Norseman, calling out offers to pay for translation and hoping they don't just rob me—not that I'll not make a contribution to the church, Father."

"Let's get under a roof, my son, and listen to your tale in the dry."

We went to the hall where Erling kept open house, got ourselves something to drink, sat on the bench apart from the rest, and faced each other across the table.

"My name is Cullan Mal Munnu," he said. He had the look of a once-fleshy man who'd missed a lot of meals. His skin sagged and the wrinkles had sunk inward to make great valleys in the flesh under his jaw. He was pale and blue-eyed and his gray hair thin, and his hand shook, making little wavelets in the ale in his beaker.

"I am a man of Cashel. I'd hate to have it known among these foreigners, but I've a bit of the good stuff—land and cattle and slaves.

"My wife died a year since. On her last bed, she spoke of a thing we'd kept locked in our hearts for a horse's life. She begged me to do one thing for love of her, and I do it now. I may be at it for all the time the Lord pleases to give me this side of the great sleep."

He drank deeply, and swallowed as if he had to remember how.

"We had a daughter, you see. In truth we had many children, but some grew up and some died young and we can tell you where each of them is. But we fostered one of our daughters to a nunnery, and the White Foreigners attacked it and took her away with them.

"We scarcely spoke of her for years, my wife and I. I thought it best so, but perhaps 'twould have been better to bring it out into the light, rather than bury it yet living, so to speak. But I feared to open the wound in my woman's heart.

"At last as she died she begged me to sail out in the world and find our girl. I swore I would.

"I'm so afraid, Father—I'd say this to none but a priest. I know how slaves live. I know how I treat my own—especially the women. As often as not I think 'twould be better to leave her as she is, to never know and never force her to face me with it. Perhaps you think me hard."

"Not at all, my son," said I. "Believe me, I know well how you feel."

"I took one of my slaves with me to translate, a Norse lad, promising to free him when the job was done. But he slipped me in Kaupang. And here I am alone, among these foreign thieves, and I suppose one of these days I'll find my silver missing, and that will be the end of my errand."

"I'd not worry overmuch for that," said I. "Rare is the Norseman who'd simply lift your purse. He'd think that a shameful thing. He'd kill you first, then rob you."

"If I lose my purse I'd as well be dead. I could not free my daughter, should I find her, nor get home either, unless I found a kindly merchant headed for Ireland who'd take me on trust . . . I couldn't do that, though. I vowed a vow. I'll not go home without the lass. If I find her and have naught else to buy her with, I'll see if I can trade my own freedom for hers."

"Never think it. Wherever you may be in the north, if you need help, speak the name of Erling Skjalgsson, and word will come here. I'll see you helped, if I live."

"My thanks for that, and a blessing on you, Father. But for now I have my purse, and you to change words for me. To whom should we go first, do you think, to ask about a slave girl named Deirdre?"

My heart leaped at the words. Of course Deirdre is a common enough name among Irishwomen . . .

"This Deirdre, your daughter," I asked, "What color hair had she? What color eyes?"

"She was like her mother, God rest her. Hair like ripe flax, eyes blue as Lough Derg on a fair day."

"I know such a lass, and her name is Deirdre," I said carefully. "She's about twenty years old—she's not certain exactly."

His eyes stared wide, with white all around the blue. "Does she speak of her home?" he asked. "Does she remember places, or names?"

"No. She was taken young, and has but scattered memories."

Tears welled in the eyes. "Please Jesu, it could be her. She's here, a slave in this place?"

"Not a slave, or not anymore. She married a man—a good man and Irish, who was slain, and my lord Erling gave her her freedom, and her babe's, as payment for blood."

"A babe? My grandchild? A boy, is it, or a girl?"

"A girl, and a fair child. Deirdre is to be wed again, I should tell you."

"To another Irishman?"

"No, a Norseman. A man of respect hereabouts, and part Cornish, he tells me, if that softens the blow any."

"Well, we'll see about that. First I must look on this lass. Perhaps 'tis not she after all. I dare not hope too much."

I called for ponies then and there, and we set out in the rain southwest for Sola. Where Eystein was, there would Deirdre be too, and it was Eystein's duty, as always, to look to the defense of Sola, and keep the watches on the coast.

It was evening when we arrived, and I said, " 'Tis suppertime now, and Deirdre will be in the old hall."

"Serving food, I suppose," said Cullan darkly.

"Not at all, she'll be sitting with Eystein. They're very devoted, Eystein and Deirdre."

I led him inside, through the entryway and into the dimness and smoke. I took his hand (it trembled like a bride's) and brought him to the place, to the left of Erling's high seat, where Eystein sat. He and Deirdre had their heads together, both holding a single ale-horn, and they laughed.

"Deirdre!" came the voice of my companion.

I turned to look at him, and then back at Deirdre. Looking in those mirrored eyes, there could be no question of the thing at all.

"F-father?" said Deirdre. The white of her eyes had bled out to paint her face.

She fairly leaped over the table and into her father's arms.

* * *

There are too few times like that in this world. I think we can get no closer glimpse of Heaven this side of the River than in such reunions, unless we're great saints indeed. And yet even then we have the world too much with us, as the issue well showed.

Cullan's first misstep was to bid Eystein money. Somehow he'd the idea in his head, and could not alter it, that Eystein was Deirdre's owner; and that a Norseman would sell anything for the right price. You don't talk that way to free men in Norway.

I tried my best to soften it as I translated between them, but there was no way to soften the scorn in Cullan's face, or the insult at the heart of his offer.

If Deirdre and I hadn't stepped between them, the tale might have ended there and then, with an Irish funeral.

Cullan then turned to Deirdre. "My daughter," he said, in Irish that Eystein could not follow, "it wrings my heart to know you've lived your years a despised slave among these heathen. You were not born for such. We've a fine farm at home, and horses and cattle and swine and slaves. I've dresses of fine linen and wool for you, and jewelry of silver and gold and amber. At home you'll not be ordered about by unbelievers—you will give orders, and they will be obeyed. And you will have the honor and love of kinfolk who care for you. Turn your back on this pigsty, and this dark-faced barbarian, and come with me back to your own people."

Deirdre covered her face with her hands and fell to her knees, sobbing.

Cullan's face softened. "Perhaps I say too much, sweeting. I've had a picture in my head all these years of you living as a slave. 'Tis strange to me to find you otherwise, and I find the idea harder to hold than water in one hand.

"You must have time to think about all this. 'Tis hard to change all your life in a day. Take the time you need. I'll go nowhere without you."

He reached out a tender, shaking hand to touch her hair, the long hair of a free woman.

"No need to wait," said Deirdre, with a hiccup in her voice.

"What do mean?" asked Cullan.

"I cannot go with you, Father."

"Surely these years cannot have driven you mad? Is she mad, Father?" he asked, turning to me.

"Let her speak," said I.

"What would you do with a daughter who lost her virginity very young?" she asked, still on her knees, looking up, her face wet, smoke ash making streaks under her eyes.

"I—I'd have the rapist killed and I'd find a good nunnery for the girl."

"That girl is I, Father. And the man who raped me is long dead. There'd be no honor and home life for me, Papa. Only the nunnery, and for one who has no call to it, that might as well be slavery."

"But you'd be with your people at least!"

"Eystein is my people—and my child, and the children I shall bear him hereafter. I'd be a shamed outsider in Cashel, Father. Here I'll be the wife of Erling's chief warden, and if I lack honor as a freedwoman, I'd at least have his love, which is no small thing. Such love I'd never find in Ireland."

"I came far for you, my daughter!"

"And the saints bless you for it, Father, and Mother for sending you! 'Tis more than gold to me to know you'd do so much for my sake.

"But life is what it is, not what we'd wish it to be. The life that was taken from me slipped past my reach long since. I've found another now. I'll not break my word to Eystein and turn my back on it."

Cullan shook his head, as if he had water in his ears. "Very sudden this is," he said. "I must give you time to think."

"Time I thank you for, that we may know each other and that you may know your grandchild. But for the rest there can be no question.

"I love Eystein, Father. I love him even more than I loved my Patrick, and I thought there'd never been such love since the Age of Heroes. You've no coin in your purse to outbid love, Papa."

And it was as she said.

 

 

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Framed


Title: The Year of the Warrior
Author: Lars Walker
ISBN: 0-671-57861-8
Copyright: © 2000 by Lars Walker
Publisher: Baen Books