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The Ghost of the
God-tree

Book II of the
Saga of Erling Skjalgsson

 

To my brother Bob—

One of the sworn men

 

CHAPTER I

"By what right do you bind and hang free men without trial or offer of ransom?" asked the Viking captain. He was a bold thief, I'll give him that—looking Erling fair in the face, trembling not a whisker, perhaps a touch pale, but all the Norse are pale. "I am the son of Brusi Arnfinsson, a hersir in More."

"Small credit to him," said Erling, still in his fighting gear—gilded helmet with nosepiece, and brynje—rubbing his sword down with a piece of sheep fleece to clean and oil it. "Norway is infested with the younger sons of landed men, sniffing along the borders like wolves, preying on the weak. You burned three farms, killed ten men and took the women and children for thralls before we caught you."

"And you've never gone a-viking and plundered?"

"Not in my own land I haven't. And that was your mistake, son of Brusi Arnfinsson. This is the west of Norway, and Erling Skjalgsson is the law in the west."

"And you're Erling's dog?"

"I am Erling."

The man said no more then, for there was naught to say. Everyone knew the name of Erling Skjalgsson, brother-in-law to King Olaf Trygvesson, and everyone knew he never changed his word. I found no Christians among the pirates to shrive, so Erling had them strung up without further fuss. There were trees here, unlike in Jaeder—a grove of oaks probably sacred to one of the old gods.

Erling went to comfort the liberated women and children, and I looked to our wounded, who were few. We'd made good use of surprise that morning.

Then I took a walk down to the sea, because I dislike the company of hanged men for some reason. Our two ships lay at anchor in a broad cove. A boat not of ours was there as well, a four-oared fisherman's craft. A woman and a boy were drawing it ashore, up to their calves in water. Men lay in the boat, I could tell, but I could not see them clearly.

When he saw me, the boy called, "Are you a Christian priest?"

"That I am," said I. I still felt surprised to be able to say it truthfully.

"And whose ships are these, can you tell me?"

"These are Erling Skjalgsson's of Sola. He's here keeping the peace."

"Then Thor has led us aright! We've come from Moster Island off Boml. We flee Thangbrand the priest."

I scratched my tonsure over that. "Erling is a Christian," I said. "He'll not welcome heathens gladly."

"But he'll not turn us away. All we ask is a place to live in peace. We've heard Erling compels no one to be baptized. We've left all our property except the silver we could carry. If we can buy a piece of land here and live our own way, it's all we ask."

"Is Thangbrand that hard then?"

"He's sworn to rid Moster of all heathens, by baptism or death."

I remembered Thangbrand, whom I'd met at Erling's wedding that past June. A big, broad-shouldered fellow with the tiny little tonsure you see on priests whose hearts are in this world, never seen in a robe except for divine services (but that wasn't uncommon. I myself had long since taken to wearing laymen's clothes, except for worship and the bishop's visits). He'd seemed a brainless, personable enough lout, more of a courtier than a clergyman, but this wasn't the first I'd heard that he took his missionary work very seriously indeed.

"Do you know any leechcraft?" the lad asked. "My father is badly hurt. We cut him from his bonds in Thangbrand's storehouse and carried him senseless to the boat. My uncle's there too, but he bled to death."

"I'm no great hand, but perhaps I can help. If we can get him to Sola, Erling's mother can look to him." I rolled up my trouser legs and waded into the water to look at the living man in the boat.

The moment my gaze fell on him, lying cheek by jowl with the white corpse as with a sleeping-bag mate, a kind of shroud passed over my eyes, and I nearly dropped in the salt water.

I knew this ugly face well. I could never forget it. A part of the nose was missing, running the left nostril halfway up its length.

He was one of the Vikings who'd stolen Maeve and me from Ireland. One of the gang who'd raped her and killed our family.

* * *

Had I thought about it, I shouldn't have been surprised to see him turn up here. There's no breeding ground for Vikings like West Norway, and Ireland is the Norwegians' staked ancestral hunting ground.

My duty was plain. I'd a knife in my belt, and it would be but a moment's work to open the wretch's throat and let him bleed out like his brother. No doubt his kin here would resist, but they were only a boy and a woman, and even if they should kill me, what of it? My kin would be avenged.

Yet I held back. A man, when it comes to it, must work at his trade, and my trade was forgiveness. I'd been a greedy sucker of mercy from Heaven's breast myself. I'd had no inkling, when I accepted God's gift, that He'd test my gratitude so cruelly so soon, but here I was, a servant with his debt forgiven. Would I be a merciful servant or not?

I made fists of my two hands and turned back to shore. I pointed and said, "Erling's camp lies near that grove. See him." Then I all but ran toward the hills inland.

Lord God! Do you ever tire of testing the sons of men? In all my life there was but one sore spot, one unhealed wound, and that was my sister. That I lived a free man, friend and priest to Erling Skjalgsson, only shamed and unmanned me when I thought of her fate.

I walked where my feet took me, cold all of a sudden on a warm August day, pulling my cloak tight around me. After a time I found myself in a low dale with a peat bog at the bottom, the water standing in the diggings. Any Irishman feels at home with peat. I kicked my way through low brush, getting sticking things on my clothing, and sat on a large, lichen-covered boulder by the bog edge, looking away east toward the mountains inland.

I sat, too tired to pray, too tired to think. I settled into a passionless watching, like a beast. There was nothing to see but the birds in the marsh and the flying insects which I swatted unthinking.

I fell into a state halfway between waking and sleeping, and it was thus that I saw the procession.

They came riding eastward through the dale, their beasts treading as lightly on the mud as on a king's highway. Their clothing was bright, their hair shining and golden, but their faces pale as death. Their chief must have been ten feet tall when he stood, and he was dressed all in blue, and he rode a horse without a head.

I've been inside the mountain, and I am a priest of the One God, so I felt within my rights to call out, "Who are you, and where do you ride?"

"We are the old lords of the land, and we move house today, for we're evicted," said the giant in blue. His voice was deeper than an earthquake.

"Evicted? Who put you out?"

"You."

"You may stay for me," said I. "If you harm not my flock, as your underground woman did, I care not where you live."

He reached with his arm, and it seemed to span twenty feet to hover, pointing, in front of the carved wooden crucifix on my chest.

"We cannot live with that thing," he said. "That thing is a bridge between this and the Other World. It puts the High God's print on the fields of men. Our seemings and visions cannot abide alongside that thing."

"I'm an Irishman," said I. "Ireland grows crosses like shamrocks, yet the fair folk dwell in every dell and hillock."

"The small powers can live in Christian lands," said the giant. "Sprites and little old men who sour milk and pinch sleeping servant maids. Such beings have no honor to preserve. They'll live on whatever scraps you throw them. But even in Ireland the Daoine Sidhe are a passed race. They fled but yesterday in our reckoning, and now we too must go."

"I do not wish this."

"Your wishes weigh as little with us as your faith," said he, and they rode on, fading as they went, gorgeous as the summers of childhood.

I unstrung the crucifix from my neck and sat and studied it for the hundredth time. It had been carved by my friend Enda, an Irish thrall lad who'd been hanged for stealing the knife he carved with. His gift had stood me in good stead the day I went into the mountain, for it had revealed the world of the underground folk as a cheapshow seeming, without weight to balance the Lord's flesh-taking, death and resurrection.

Yet I was not blind to the beauty of the fair folk, and I'd have lived in peace with them if I could. There are those who say the undergrounders have no souls and cannot be saved. I do not know. They never let me close enough to learn.

I shook my gloom off at last and trudged back up to the Hangman's Grove. Angry voices grew louder as I approached. I came into the encampment to see Erling's bullyboys binding the woman and the boy, and the boy was shouting, "Foul! Your priest gave us peace!"

When I asked what went on, Erling turned to me with red spots on his cheeks. "Did you tell these heathens I'd shelter them from the king's law?"

I paused before I answered. I suppose I was growing wiser, for I'd not have done so a year before. I said, "May I speak to you under four eyes, my lord?"

It would profit nothing to squabble before the men. We went beyond the grove, out of sight, and Erling said, "Well, what are you about?"

"My lord, 'tis a Christian's duty to take in the helpless and homeless, be they believing or heathen."

"Yes, but if they go back to Father Thangbrand he'll make them Christians. That's God's will, surely?"

"That they'll become Christians I hope; that Father Thangbrand will do it I doubt very much."

"Father Thangbrand is carrying out the king's command. Do you question the king's law?"

"Aye, when the king sets himself to do the Holy Spirit's work by the devil's means. How is Thangbrand's labor on Moster different from what you and I did to Soti, to our shame?"

Erling fumed silently for a moment at that.

"I suppose I'll have to back down this time," he said uneasily. Erling backed down rarely. A lord who changed his mind lost a measure of his warriors' respect, and was liable to lose their loyalty when matters came to a pinch.

"I've another way," I said. "Talk with me as we walk back in sight of the men."

Erling raised his eyebrows but came along. "I never know what to expect from you, Father Aillil," he told me as we walked. "Sometimes I think you're mad, and sometimes I think you're holy, and sometimes I think you're just another kind of beast altogether, like my hounds or one of the underground folk."

"This is far enough," said I. We'd come in view of the men; a hundred eyes turned curiously toward us. "I'm going to shout at you," I said. "Then you strike me down. Afterwards you can give me these heathens' freedom as mulct for striking a priest."

"You want me to strike you? In earnest?"

"Your men are no fools. They'd know if we were playacting."

"A blow from me is no slight thing."

"I know that. I accept it."

"You love these heathen so much?"

"I love them not at all, and one of them I hate more than the devil. But I'll pay any price to keep such blood off my soul as I have of Soti's." I raised my voice. "I SPEAK THE WORDS OF THE LORD! YOU MUST SUBMIT, OR BY GOD I'LL FORBID YOU THE SACRAMENT!"

I remember no more before I woke on the ground, in the grass. The entire side of my face was feelingless, as if it had been snatched off.

A woman was cradling my head in her lap, and I looked up into blue eyes and white hair. There's no sight so lovely as a fair face when you're coming to your senses, and I've been lucky enough to see a couple such in my time. I recognized the heathen woman from Moster.

"I've never seen such a thing in my life," she said. "You risked your lord's displeasure to protect us, who are not even of your faith. Can you move your jaw?"

I tried and wasn't sure whether I'd succeeded, so numb was I, but she smiled as if satisfied. She was a delicate, slender woman, her nose perhaps a trifle long, but very womanly for that, and womanliness is a quality I value (in women). Her eyes were very large.

Then I recalled that lying in a woman's lap, admiring her beauty, was not what the best counselors advised for priests, so I sat up, with only a moment of nausea, and let her help me to my feet.

"I beg pardon for the blow," said Erling (such an apology did his honor no harm, once he'd shown his strength). "As mulct for the respect due you, I give these folk into your protection. But mark this—you'll answer for their conduct."

"Have no fear on that score," said the boy, who stood nearby. "We'll see you don't regret taking us in. I am Arnor Ulfsson. This is my uncle's wife Asa. The men in the boat are my father Ulf, living, and my uncle Thorstein, dead. We're no beggars—we have some wealth. And if you have horses, I'm no worthless man to have about."

"You're a breeder?" asked Erling

"My father was."

"Come talk with me," said Erling, and they went apart together, friends of a sudden.

That left me with the woman.

"I thought you a shade young to be his mother," I told Asa.

She smiled, a little sadly, and said, "Can you come and look at Ulf's wounds? I fear for his life."

I looked away from her. "I'll see if there's someone here who can help."

"Can you not?"

"No," said I. No need to say why just now.

* * *

The heathens' boat in tow, we sailed Fishhawk south along the coast back to Hafrsfjord.

I love the sight of the entrance to Hafrsfjord. I love it because it means the journey is over, for I hate the sea and all boats. They keep telling me I've only to get my sea legs, but I think I left mine back in Ireland, so little time I had to pack.

We needs must row down the broad fjord against a contrary wind (I mean the men rowed—I row only at great need, and poorly) to Erling's boathouses and pier. They'd seen us coming, of course. Two parties awaited us at the landing—a large procession of women and servants led by Erling's wife Astrid, and a smaller group led by his mother, Ragna.

I clambered gratefully onto the stone pier after Erling, feeling a little better the moment I got it under me. We trooped down (I, as priest, was second) and were greeted by the two groups. Erling took the welcome horn from his tall, fair wife's hand and drank deeply after her greeting speech. I moved quietly over to Ragna's side.

"And how have things jumped since we've been gone?" I asked her.

"Astrid plays the queen as always," said Ragna. "She sneers, she puts on airs; nothing at Sola is good enough for her. God forgive me that I ever wished my son wed to that shrew."

I knew not what to say to her. Ragna had been ready, nay eager, to worship the king's sister when she'd come to Sola two months since, but they'd soon grown unfriends. Astrid thought Erling a match beneath her. In her heart she felt herself a hawk caged with crows, and had no mind to let us forget it.

And there was one thing more. Something only I beside Erling and Astrid knew, but I thought Ragna guessed.

Every night when they retired, Erling made himself a nest of furs in a corner of the loft they shared, and Astrid lay alone like an abbess.

You'd never have guessed this, of course, from her treatment of him before the people. While never what you'd call affectionate, she always treated her husband with exacting, even exaggerated, respect. To us who knew the truth it was only another kind of gibe.

"We have a guest, my lord," Astrid was saying to Erling. "May I present Eyvind Ragnvaldsson, a wise man and a great traveler?"

A man stepped forward whom I hadn't marked before, though he was remarkable enough. He was passing tall, almost as tall as Erling, and the palest man I'd ever seen in this pale land (I keep saying that when describing Norsemen, but I was forever meeting men who were paler than the last impossibly pale man). His skin was near albino, though his eyes were blue. His hair was white. He was thin but not weak-looking, and the only man I'd seen in the north, outside of priests and monks, who wore no beard. He was also very old—but one only saw his age after studying his face. At first glance he looked no more than two score or so years old. His movements were those of a youth.

"Greetings in Christ's name," said Erling. "The traveler is always welcome at Sola, and the farther he's come the happier the meeting."

"I've heard Erling Skjalgsson named farther out in the world than most men, and am honored to meet you at last," said the guest.

I felt a tug at my sleeve. The heathen woman Asa was there, and she whispered to me, "There are no trees here!" Behind her was the boy Arnor, white-faced as a corpse.

I said, "No. This is Jaeder. Treeless from shoreline to mountain slopes. Doesn't everyone know that in Norway?"

"You never told us!" the boy blustered. "Who ever heard of a place without trees?"

"One gets used to it," said I.

"You don't understand!" cried Asa. "Sacrifices must be made! They must be hung from the tree limbs, and ale must be poured over the roots, so that Yggdrasil is preserved!"

"Yggdrasil? The tree of your myths?"

"It holds up the nine worlds and the heavens! Without the sacrifices, all may collapse!"

I took them aside so that no one would hear.

"Listen," I said. "Are you the only folk in Norway who make such sacrifices?"

"No," said the boy. "Everyone makes them back home, except the Christians."

"Well even if all this was true, which it isn't, you folks have been making your tree sacrifices for ages, and the people in Jaeder haven't, because they couldn't. And the sky hasn't fallen yet. What makes you think your moving here will change things? Let your friends back home keep the sky up."

"But we can't be sure!"

"We could go barefoot," said Asa.

"That's true," said Arnor. "And we could make sure never to look at a smith."

"Tell me this is a joke," said I.

Arnor said, "What kind of priest are you? Don't you know anything?"

I felt another hand on my arm and turned to see bad-nosed Ulf staring at me.

"Father came to his senses," said Arnor.

I looked into that hated face and felt the blood drain from my own.

"I know you," he said slowly.

"Oh yes, that you do," said I. I braced myself, ready to strike him down for whatever cruelty he spoke.

Instead he gave me a smile, the smile of a five-year-old child, the sweetest baby smile you could imagine from a face so ungodly ugly. Drool ran down into his beard.

"Well, he came to his senses after a manner of speaking," said Arnor.

I turned my back to them suddenly, my chest tight, and mounted the pony that had been brought for me (we great folk all rode). We trooped southwest up the road to Sola, which was a bit of a trek. Sola stands atop a low hill (there is no other kind there) at the north end of a great crescent of low swampy land, hills and farms. The hilltop meadow was ringed with a wall of piled stones to protect the home-field, and a walled way led up to the steading. Near the gate stood my church, raised in stone where the old heathen shrine had stood. We'd burned it and hauled its stones away and brought stones of our own back to build God's house with. I'd sprinkled the place with holy water and prayed the devil out of it before the bishop came to consecrate it.

Then up the lane and into the steading—I swear, the cleanest, brightest steading in Norway (granted, that's not saying much). Astrid kept the thralls at it all day long, and Erling had spent richly on paint and carving and gilding to make it worthy of a princess. Not that she cared.

Then into the hall, a long, massive timbered and raftered building, hump-backed and boat-shaped like most Norse halls, with benches built up along the walls and a hearth-way down the middle where the longfires burned. This was the "old hall," which stood end-to-end with the longer "new hall" Erling had raised since the wedding, for the large-scale entertaining expected of a man of his rank. Erling and Astrid still slept in the loft of the old hall, and we used it for ordinary meals like tonight, when half of Norway hadn't come to dine. It was big enough, even with the household increased to ninety men at all times of the year. We drank while we waited for the food. A lot of drinking got done at Sola those days.

And there was Erling Skjalgsson in his high seat, in the middle of the north bench, between the two great carved pillars, with his tow head and red beard, tall and strong and handsome and honored and rich, a man they made songs about, and all he wanted was to drink himself stupid.

At the women's table, crosswise at the east end, sat Astrid Trygvesdatter, fair as a thousand sunrises with her golden hair and great blue eyes and short upper lip, wanting God knew what—probably just to get away. And on her right Ragna, Erling's mother, much aged and wanting her wishes unwished.

And on Erling's right me, God's priest, feeling duty-bound to find a solution to all this, and clean out of ideas. Not eating much either, because my swollen jaw still ached from my lord's punch.

Our feasts had long since become mummery. As Erling and Astrid pretended to be husband and wife, we all pretended to be the happy household of the second man in Norway.

We drank, we ate, Steinulf roared out a poem about "Ottar's ransom" and "the horse of Aegir's meadow." (Who comes up with these things?)

And Erling asked if the guest had a tale to tell, and Eyvind Ragnvaldsson stood. It's always murky in a hall, and in the gloom Eyvind seemed to glow like a fata morgana. He said:

"King Harald Finehair celebrated Jul in Uppland one year. As he sat at the table, he got word that a Lapp named Svasi was at the door and wished to see him. The king knew Svasi of old, and he accepted his invitation to come out and take meat with him in his tent.

"When he came there he found a woman inside, Snaefrid, Svasi's daughter. She was beautiful, uncommonly tall for a Lapp, with raven hair and flashing black eyes. She bade him sit and gave him a cup of mead to drink. Their hands touched as he took it, and from that moment Harald could think of nothing but taking her to bed.

"But Svasi had learned to bargain hard, as every Lapp must. He would not grant Harald to have his will without a lawful contract of lemanship. And so Harald gave Svasi rich gifts, and took Snaefrid to himself in law.

"Before she died she gave him four fine sons—Sigurd, Halvdan, Gudrod and Ragnvald, who was called `Straight-leg.'

"Of him I've heard," said Erling.

"He was a great soul," said Eyvind. "He was ruler of Hadaland under his father, and much respected.

"But he fell out with his brother Erik Bloodaxe, and Erik was ever Harald's favorite. So when Erik burned Ragnvald in his own hall, it weighed little with the king, by then in his dotage. And that his grandchildren were driven out into exile, scattered to the fence-corners of the world, meant nothing at all to him.

"Ragnvald had a son called Eyvind, a promising young man. He made his way to Sweden and joined a Viking crew, taking the river way to Constantinople. In that great city he talked with men of many races, and heard of far-off lands where there was wisdom unknown even among the Greeks. He befriended a man of the east, who took him morningward across the deserts, and everywhere he spoke to the wisest men, and learned new tongues that he might make friends to take him ever farther. And at last he reached a distant land of which no man from the north had ever heard. There he saw wonderful things, and learned to see the truth at last."

"And what truth did he see?" asked Erling Skjalgsson.

"Our ancestors guessed at it," said Eyvind, "when they said that the soul of one who dies is reborn in a child named for him. The truth is that every living thing, from a man to a horse to the fish in the sea and the louse in your beard, is a soul. According as they live well or ill, they are reborn after death into higher or lower beasts. Thus there is no injustice in the world. If you see a beast or a child suffering, and there seems no reason why they should suffer, you may be sure they did evil in an earlier life, and are paying for it now. In time, after countless circles of rebirth, all will achieve perfection and become gods."

"What of the One God?" I asked.

"Those who have true light say that there is one god indeed, because all souls, and indeed all things that are, are a part of god. And when at last we finish our rings of rebirth we will be united with him."

I'd never met a pantheist before. I'd heard of them, in the monastery, but only as a curiosity out of the past.

"You say that all things are part of God, and returning to God," said I. "But how can that be true of things that do not live? Rocks and water—how can they be reborn to godhood?"

"Things without life do not exist at all, my friend," said Eyvind. "They are shadows. They have being only in our thoughts. That is why those truly enlightened can command their bodies and the world around them. They can suffer pain without concern, and travel great distances in a moment, and appear and disappear at will."

"This is heathendom, surely," said Erling, glancing at me.

"It's like a catalog of heresies," said I.

"We serve the Lord Christ here," said Erling. "You have the hospitality of my house, so I'll not put you out. But I warn you, do not speak of these things here again."

"There are fences round your thinking, Lord Erling," said Eyvind. "You huddle in fear behind them, afraid of thoughts that might disturb your peace. But your peace will be disturbed. The peace of all in Norway will be disturbed."

"You are grandson to Harald," said Erling. "As such you are a threat to my lord, Olaf Trygvesson. As a teacher of falsehoods you are a threat to the souls of my people. I will lay no hand on you for hospitality's sake, but you must speak no more."

"The day has not dawned when a rightful king of Harald's house need mind a hersir out of Horda-Kari. Your kin were always cowardly, and liars."

"You pass the bounds!" cried Erling. All the men were roaring from the benches.

"It is as I said; you fear the truth."

"NO MORE!" Erling rose from his seat. "Be silent, or you break hospitality!"

"I need no hospitality from Rogalanders."

Someone from the opposite bench—I don't know who—lost his temper and threw an eating knife at Eyvind.

We all saw it fly at him, and he saw it too. But he did not regard it. He showed no reaction when it struck him, and I wondered at his self-control. Then I saw that the knife had not struck him after all. Had it missed? No—I'd seen it flying straight at him. And then—I could see this because I was on the same bench, on the other side from Erling—I saw the knife shivering in the wall behind him.

Directly behind him.

If he'd shifted to avoid the weapon, he'd moved so swiftly I'd not seen it at all.

If it had passed through him, then he must be—

"A ghost! You're no man, you're a ghost!" I cried.

"You've all seen me eat," said Eyvind. "I am no ghost."

"You've deceived our eyes in some way!" I said.

"Not at all. I use my knowledge. I've done nothing you couldn't do, if you only embraced the light."

"Begone, thing of Satan!" I cried, my hand on Enda's crucifix.

And he was gone. As if he'd never been there.

"What have we seen here?" asked Erling.

"God knows," said I. "I pray I never do."

Erling said, "Olaf must be told of this."

* * *

Erling set the heathens up in a little house hard by the horse byre, near the northeast corner of the steading. He made Arnor his stableman, giving him the place of old Thorvald, whose joints had gone stiff on him after a lifetime of broken bones. The boy commended himself to Erling the first day after his arrival by gentling Ravn.

Ravn was a tall, black horse of foreign blood, probably of mixed breed, but still he towered over the short, stocky, light-coated horses the Norwegians grow. Erling had set his heart on riding a tall horse like an English lord. I'd asked him what was the point, since there were hardly any roads in Jaeder and he went everywhere by boat. Erling had replied that he planned some road-building.

In any case, Ravn had thwarted him thus far by refusing to be ridden. Erling had bought him full-grown, and just between us he'd been skinned in the deal. The beast laid his ears back and bared his yellow teeth at the approach of any man.

But Arnor worked a miracle. He walked out into the pen with a bridle in his hand, and approached the horse somewhat sideways, his head turned, staring off across the fields.

Ravn skipped shy as usual for a start, quivering and snorting, but the boy's strange behavior seemed to soothe him, and he allowed himself to be approached. Arnor began to sing a song, a lilting, repetitive thing such as Lapps sing, and the beast only looked bemused as Arnor slipped the bridle over his head. Then he ran his hands along Ravn's neck, back and withers, and when he was calm, mounted him bareback.

Ravn simply stood in place, and when Arnor shook the reins and spoke, allowed himself to be directed.

Everyone broke into cheers then, and Ravn panicked, and the boy had all he could do to keep from being thrown.

Afterwards Erling declared him a magician. Arnor said, "You only need to think like a horse. A horse is a quarry beast, an animal preyed upon, like an elk or a hare. All he needs to know is that you don't mean to eat him."

"Then he ought to love Christians, for we never eat horses," said Erling.

I'd been watching and listening as they talked, and when they were done I turned to go and was startled to see bad-nosed Ulf, my enemy, standing up against me, smiling.

"Jesus loves me," he said with that childish smile.

"Yes, I suppose He does," said I.

He pointed to his head. "Water? Jesus water?"

I said, "No," and turned away.

He showed up in church the next morning, and never missed a mass thereafter, though I made him stand outside with the excommunicants and the new mothers.

 

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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