and observe the Easter celebration. Harald, always ready for a feast, readily agreed, and we proceeded into the hall where they were offered cups of mead in welcome.
The abbot determined to show the Danes around the abbey and explain each and every detail of monastic life, including the Holy Mass which would mark the beginning of our Eastertide feastday observance. Thus, it fell to me to interpret the abb's instructions. Harald proclaimed himself interested in everything, and it fair exhausted me translating between the two of them. We examined the chapel and oratory, the tower and its bell, the monks' cells, the guest lodge, and even the interiors of the storehouses. Of all the places they saw, the Danes liked the scriptorium best.
'Look here!' cried Harald, seizing a new-copied vellum leaf. 'It is like the book Aeddan had.'
The Sea Wolves proceeded to examine the work of all the monks, making much over the cunning designs and beautiful colours of the leaves upon which the scribes toiled. Fraoch insisted on showing them how the pigments were ground and made into ink, how the gold was painstakingly applied, and how the various skins were assembled to make a book. The Danes exclaimed like children, gaining their first glimmering of understanding.
Owing to this lengthy distraction, it was not until after our evening meal that I found another chance to speak to Gunnar alone. 'This is a very good place,' he said approvingly. 'We shall build such a place in Skania, I think.'
'By all means,' I agreed. 'But I-'
'Karin would have liked this,' he said. 'Helmuth, too.'
'It is too bad they could not come with you,' I replied. 'But, Gunnar, I cannot-' The look of sadness on Gunnar's broad face halted me.
'They died while I was a-viking,' he sighed. 'Ylva said it was a bad winter, and the fever got them and they died. First Helmuth and then Karin. Many others died as well-it was very bad, I think.'
'Gunnar, I am sorry to hear it,' I told him.
'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
