The Snow on the Cross by Brian Fitts Page B

me.  He had been
good about it so far, other than my shoulder.
    One of them had a sack over his
shoulder of which the bottom looked very wet.  I assumed it was from their
hunt, and I also assumed they had dressed some reindeer here on the ice, like
Eirik and his men had done, for the ground was quite saturated with it upon
closer inspection.  I waited to see if they were going to attack me.  They did
not, or I would not be telling you this now.  They stood looking at me with
their dark and wild eyes, waiting for me to do something.
    I mumbled a small prayer perhaps
hoping God would let me ascend into Heaven as he had Elijah, but I stayed
firmly on the ground with these strange men looking at me like I had just
crawled out of a fissure that had opened in the earth.
    The man with the sack said something
to the others, and one of the others nodded.  The man with the sack then took
it from around his shoulder at threw it at me.  I flinched and stepped back
because I was not expecting it.  More reindeer meat, I assumed.  Perhaps they
were taking pity on me and were giving me food for the journey home.
    To my horror, the sack burst open at
my feet, spilling its contents.  Several heads rolled out, chopped neatly off
at the neck, staring endlessly at me with those dead eyes.  I recognized them. 
Some of them, anyway.  I can tell you this now because enough time has passed
since the occurrence that my sanity has healed itself.  One of those heads was
Bjarni’s.
    It would do me no good to try to
explain what happened that night on the ice plain as I slept.  These men are
born of a senseless and brutal culture, and their lifestyle is such that such
barbarism is commonplace.  It is the act of a man who can spear a bishop while
he is screaming prayers and hang him on the spires of his cathedral with his
only worry being how much ale he will consume that evening.  It is the act of
these men who stood before me.  These men who, during the night, apparently
came across our sleeping party and slaughtered them for no reason other than
the fact they were there.  I was spared from the slaughter, but now I faced the
killers of my companions.  Bjarni’s face, I noticed sadly, had the great purple
bruise on his cheek where Eirik had struck him.  The bruise had followed him
into death. 
    Eirik’s head was not among those in
the sack.  He had escaped because he had left the fire the night before.  I
scanned the ice plains for a sign, but there was no indication of him.  He was
probably back at Brattahild, sitting by his fire and drinking from his favorite
silver cup.  One of the Vikings, the one with an unusually long spear, poked at
me with the tip.  It scratched my arm, and sent pain charging up my shoulder.
    One of them said something to me, but
I merely shook my head.  They knew I was no Viking, which was probably why they
did not kill me immediately.  I kept glancing down, wishing Bjarni would quit
staring at me.  I resisted an urge to kick the head away with my boot.
    “Brothers,” I said in as calm a voice
as I could.  “I am Bishop Arnald of Le Mans , a missionary sent here to Greenland by King Robert II the Pious.  I am not a warrior, and I am not a
Viking.  I am a man of God.”
    Whether or not they understood my
words was irrelevant.  I had made my statement as clearly as I could, and now I
simply left the rest up to God and His divine will.  I knew I could not run,
for an old man like myself would be too easy to capture.  I was patient as I
waited to see what the men would do.  Would they kill me?  If they were like
Eirik and his men, being a man of God would make no difference, and my head
would be carried in a sack.  I tried not to worry too much about that, but the
thought was always there.
    One of them pushed me down, and I
sank to my knees in the bloody snow.  Here would be the end.  In a moment I
would feel the whistle of the blade come down upon my neck and I would meet my
creator.  I