Fenrir

8

The monk said nothing, though he was sure that the Norseman was about to break his ribs. He was being carried over the shoulder of what he could tell was a huge man who was running hard. The Viking’s shoulder hammered into the confessor, driving the air from him, but the monk would not give in to complaint. The confessor sensed when they were outside the city — the temperature dropped when they were through the gate, the heat of the burning buildings shielded by the walls.

‘Coming through, coming through!’ shouted the man.

Jehan could hear other footsteps behind him, the warriors who had been in the church, he guessed. The man carrying him had been called Fatty by the others, but he didn’t seem slow or to have any difficulty sustaining a good pace, despite his burden, although he panted heavily and cursed as he ran.

‘How are we going to get him over this rampart?’

Jehan knew the bridge had been blockaded at both ends to deny the raiders access. The Franks shouted insults at them as they ran through their ranks but no one lifted a weapon against them. They honoured Eudes’ command.

‘Shove him over. Heave him up.’

The rampart was not a wall, just a collection of broken carts, rubbish and rubble.

The confessor felt himself hurled up into the air, to land with a thump. It was agonising but he had no time to recover. Rough hands were on him again and he was swung up further, coming down hard on the rubble again with a bigger crash. He cried out, his twisted and useless joints forced into movement by the repeated battering.

‘Throw him down. I’ll catch him.’

‘No!’ The word escaped Jehan’s lips, but he was falling to land with a fearful jolt in someone’s arms. He thought he would pass out with the pain but his will kept him conscious.

‘Safe!’ said a voice.

‘Thank Thor for that!’

The confessor felt himself simply dropped to the ground. He tried not to groan but couldn’t restrain himself.

‘Shut up, you. You’re lucky I didn’t chuck you over at one go.’

‘Where to now?’

‘Drag this god or whatever he is up to Sigfrid and see what reward he offers for him. He’s a giver of rings, that king, and I don’t think we’ll be disappointed.’

‘Best wait for the others, though, so we all get something.’

‘Come on, let’s get into the main camp. That work’s given me a thirst.’

Jehan gagged with the pain and cursed his body for its weakness. He was ready for whatever fate the Norsemen planned for him but he was behaving like a quivering child.

He was picked up again, this time between two of them, grabbing an arm each. He could almost hear his joints squealing as they lifted him, but he was master of himself again and made no complaint. He sensed that he was carried up a hill, and gradually he came into noise — rough singing, the crackling of fires, the braying of animals, conversation and shouts.

He was dumped on the ground once more. He heard the Norsemen making a fire, collecting pots, pissing and laughing. One of the berserkers said he was going in search of a ‘proper’ healer to tend his arm. Again, Jehan thanked God for his trials. Other men, more able men, had the illusion of taking a hand in their fate. He could have run, if his legs would have carried him, fought, if his arms had held a weapon. The outcome would have been the same — whatever God willed. In his condition there was no lying to himself or misreading his place in the cosmos. He was a cork bobbing on the tides of God’s mind, as all men were. God had just granted him the affliction that let him see it more clearly.

Then there were voices nearby.

‘Ofaeti, why are you so fat?’

‘Because every time I fuck your wife she gives me a hazelnut.’

‘That’s as good as a password!’

‘It’s good to see you alive, my friend!’

There was laughter, backslapping and questions about what had happened to who; who had died and who lived.

‘We walked in there with twelve of us and came out with twelve. We should tell the rest of this army to go home; we can take this city ourselves, I reckon.’

‘Did you get the girl?’

‘Oh yes, I just didn’t mention it.’

‘That’s a no, then.’

‘It’s a no.’

‘But we did get this kind merchant and his stack of wine. Merchant, introduce yourself.’

‘Leshii, servant of your kinsman Helgi the Prophet, friend to King Sigfrid and to all who serve him.’

‘Very nice, where’s the wine?’

‘Boy, a couple of bottles for our friends,’ said Leshii with a note of forced jollity in his voice. ‘I will take the advice of these fine warriors and allow you to see where I keep them but know that, should any go missing I will give you the best justice — the Viking kind!’

‘Just two? Seems a bit skinny. Boy, get more.’ That was a Norseman.

‘He doesn’t understand your tongue, friend.’ The exotic voice again. An easterner, Jehan thought.

‘Then translate.’

‘Lady, the bag on the rear mule contains the best wine for these fellows. Take out a skin of that, would you?’

Had Jehan heard right? ‘Lady’? The merchant hadn’t said domina, which even non-Latin speakers would recognise. He’d said era, which was mildly less respectful but probably wouldn’t be known to the Norsemen. So there was a woman there, a disguised woman.

The merchant spoke in Norse: ‘Serve the wine, boy; don’t stand there staring at the monk. Haven’t you ever seen a god before? You’ll be seeing another soon enough if you don’t hurry up.’ More laughter. Then the exotic voice in Latin: ‘Take heart, lady. This is the easiest way to make them see what we want them to see.’

‘The lad’s crying again!’

‘The monk’s a cripple, boy, like you can see on any roadside. By Thor’s bulging bollocks they don’t breed ’em very tough in Miklagard, do they? Maybe we should try our luck there. If they don’t like deformity we could just show ’em Ofaeti’s bollocks and they’d open the gates to us. That’s more like it, get another. Let’s drink this lot dry and think about seeing the king later. We deserve a little reward after our labours, don’t we, lads?’

It couldn’t be her, could it?

‘Give me that.’ It was a cold, hard Norse voice, close by.

Under his breath, more felt than spoken, he said the word: ‘ Domina.’

The confessor felt fingers brush his face, a gesture of tenderness. He had the strangest sensation, the only way he could have described it was to say that it felt like her, but he had never touched her, nor any woman that he could remember. Still, the touch seemed to carry her signature, the note of her, like a distinctive perfume, almost. The pain and the indignities had not daunted him. This did. No one had touched him but to lift or bathe him since he had been seven years old. A chill went through him, a delicious cold tingle from his forehead to his knees. He had warned people about the pleasures of the flesh since he had been old enough to speak in church but to him such pleasures had been only dry things, spectres raised from the Bible by the readings of his brother monks. He had despised them without knowing them. One touch, though, and he had understood. Who had done that? Was it her? For the first time in years he hated his blindness. He needed to see, to know.

The men settled down to drinking and the confessor felt the cold of night deepen.

He calmed himself by focusing on preparing to face Sigfrid. He would not beg or bargain for his life, he was determined. The monk knew that the longer he stayed in the camp, the more likely the Emperor Charles was to come and rescue him. A living saint could not be allowed in the hands of heathens. Jehan made himself forget the strange feelings that the touch had raised in him and tried to reason. What would he do if he was Sigfrid? The Viking was no fool and he must see that holding the monk was dangerous for him. Would he ransom him? Jehan doubted it. Why bother? The city would fall soon enough and then he’d have whatever was in it for free. No, while he lived, the confessor realised he was only a unifying force for Sigfrid’s enemies. The Viking king would kill him, he felt sure.

He turned his mind to prayer but could only think of the touch that had set his skin singing. Jehan was in some ways a humorous man, and it did strike him as ironic that he had discovered the sin of carnal pleasure just in time for it to admit him to hell. He made himself pray: ‘Heart of Jesus, once in agony, receive my sinner’s soul.’ In the morning, thought Jehan, he would see Christ’s face and, he hoped, be taken into his peace. He knew his fate among the Normans was God’s way of chastising him for his pride. It was Lucifer’s sin, and Jehan’s old weakness, to think yourself better than others. He had let them call him a saint, a living saint. Well saints suffered and died, so God had granted that he would do the same. The Norsemen had crushed three churchmen at Reims with great stones. He put it from his mind. He was going on a journey. The conveyance did not matter.

There was the sound of shouting and the men all around him got to their feet.

‘Who are you?’

‘King’s man Arnulf. Sigfrid wants to see you straight away. You have something of his.’

‘That will be me,’ said the eastern voice.

‘The Christian holy man, the flesh eater, he wants him.’

Perhaps, thought Jehan, he would be seeing the face of Jesus sooner than he had anticipated.