The Rood and the Torc Page 15

  “Keep it up. This will be good for us,” Willimond said softly in Kristinge’s ear. Despite his age, the older monk showed no sign of fatigue. Ashamed of his own weakness, Kristinge renewed his determination and kept going. Fortunately, though the way was tough, the guides were as skilled and knowledgeable as promised. On several occasions they found trails through thickets, or discovered shallow fords over rivers where Kristinge would have found nothing. In that alone, they earned the fee they had charged. They were also loose with their tongues, speaking freely and loudly of various happenings in Danemark. The monks soon learned which chieftains were gaining or losing power, which trade-routes had been profitable, and where they thought strife was due to break out. One of the first things they heard was that the Hoclinges no longer held much power. The battle of Finnsburg had cost them dearly, and though Hengest had won the day he had lost many warriors. He was unable to stand up to a challenge the following year, and fell in battle to a rival chieftain. His brother Fjorgest was now the chieftain of the Hoclinges, but he paid tribute to another more powerful Spear-Dane. What to make of this news, Kristinge did not know, but like all that he heard he locked it in his mind.

  The second day was a little easier than the first. The sky was overcast but it did not snow. The traders awoke at first light and started at once with a pace almost as swift as that of the previous day. By day’s end, Kristinge was exhausted. Nonetheless, on the second night he took up his harp and sang, hoping for a response like he had received among the Frisian traders. Whether due to his own impatient mood, or the disposition of the company to whom he sang, or the less familiar dialect, or simply the effect of cold dry air on his voice and harp, however, the Danish company was not as enthusiastic as Kristinge’s earlier audiences. Thus he did not sing for very long. On the third night there were no requests for his harp, nor did any of the traders ask if he was a bard. And after a hard day of hiking, he felt little like singing to an unappreciative audience.

  At noon of the fourth day, the company finally came to the first of the Hoclinges villages. It was small settlement. No more than a dozen huts dotted the side of a low hill, with nothing resembling a mead hall or chieftain’s home. Nonetheless, Kristinge’s excitement was mounting. He had been waiting for too long. He could barely contain himself as they passed the first huts. His eyes darted around from house to house searching for Hildeburh, however unlikely that might be. But the village was quiet and nearly empty, and the traders did not stop. They greeted a few villagers they saw and continued through, and Kristinge’s heart sank. A short time later they reached another small settlement, and again Kristinge’s hopes rose. And again, to his disappointment, they passed through without stopping. Doubts began to rise. He had given no thought to how he would find his mother once he arrived in Danemark. Would he even recognize her after so many years? Would she recognize him? He hadn’t even considered that there would be many Hoclinges villages. In which did she dwell? Perhaps he had passed her already. Even now, each step might be carrying him farther from her rather than closer. He felt like Orpheus of Virgil’s tale, not knowing whether each step brought him closer or farther from his beloved Eurydice. This was almost more than Kristinge could bear. Yet he kept moving, glad that the monks of Luxeuil had valued not only the Gospels but also the Greek myths.

  Still, even with Virgil’s hero in his mind, with each step his mixed sense of dread and anticipation grew. The late afternoon light faded quickly, but the company marched onward. The sky above was clear and the air sharp. The traders talked enthusiastically among themselves as they went. Kristinge could sense in their voices that they were almost home. But what would that mean for him?

  Evening was upon them and the sun barely above the horizon before they reached the next settlement. At first it did not look large, and Kristinge feared it was another small outlying village. His patience was nearly exhausted. As he walked past the first few houses and around a small knoll, he was relieved to see that it was larger than the previous two villages. Unlike the villages of Francia and Friesland where the dwellings radiating outward in circles around a central mead hall—with perhaps a small wall around the outermost dwellings—he found instead a long narrow strip of buildings scattered haphazardly for some distance along a central ox-road and so it wasn’t apparent just how big the village was. He also had to look more closely before he realized that the houses, too, were bigger than they had first appeared. With good timber rarer in Danemark and more likely to be used in ships than houses, most of the dwellings were of stone and turf, and had been built narrow and long to allow for shorter roof beams. After Kristinge had passed some fifteen such houses, and several more still stretched before him including a larger mead hall, he realized it was a sizable settlement, with near as many inhabitants as Hwitstan in its prime—perhaps sixty or more houses and half as many livestock pens and other small structures. This must be the main village of the Hoclinges clan, he thought. He would find his mother here, or not at all.

  By the time Kristinge had realized this, the first of the members of the small band to break away from his fellows turned in to one of the homes. A second later, another said a word of farewell to his companions and turned to another house. As if that were the spark setting a pile of dry wood a blaze, the whole band suddenly began dispersing. This was the end of the voyage. This time he was sure of it. His heart began to pound.

  “Be careful,” Willimond warned him. At the sound of the voice, Kristinge jumped. He was as tense as a bowstring. Willimond’s hand was on his shoulder. Speaking in a low tone and in Latin to be doubly safe, the older monk went on. “It would be an odd sight were a stranger with Frisian blood and Frankish accent to come out of nowhere and embrace Hildeburh. Remember that she is of a chieftain’s blood. And though your resemblance to Finn is not as great as was Finnlaf’s, if there are any here who knew your father you could well be recognized.” He paused and looked more closely at Kristinge as if seeing him for the first time. “For that matter, you look startling like your mother. I know not if any blood-feud yet remains, or if they consider the weregild paid with the death of Finn and Finnlaf, but do not forget that the Danes believe your brother killed their former chieftain, Hnaef.”

  Kristinge nodded, trying to take to heart Willimond’s warning and to conceal his excitement. But how was he not to show affection for a long-lost mother? A mother whom he had never known—never known and always known. Many months of tension and longing were compressed into this moment. Kristinge was a wave that had rolled in from far out to sea, and was now on the verge of cresting.

  Yet the wave only kept building, towering ever higher. It did not break. There was no shore. For there was no sight of Hildeburh. Why would there be? Had he expected to see her standing out in the village waiting for him? On they marched through the village, with the band of traders disappearing around them, making their way to various houses where they were greeted by family, until by the time they reached the far end of the settlement only the two of them remained. Then, for the first time, Kristinge really understood the possibility that his mother no longer lived—a possibility that until that moment had been but meaningless words in the mouths of strangers, but was now threatening to be a reality. He had given no thought to how he would actually find her once they arrived in Danemark.

  “What do we do now?” Willimond asked, when they had come to a stop at the far end of the settlement.

  Kristinge almost burst at the question. I die. But he held his tongue, blinked the tears back in his eyes, and forced himself to think. There was no sign of Hildeburh. Yet that meant nothing, he told himself. There were a thousand places she might be, and still be alive. He looked around. The village looked nearly empty now. It was almost dark. Only a few peasants were still working around the fringes of the settlement. Back in the center of the village, a handful of warriors gathered in the twilight around the door of a large hall. Kristinge’s eyes were drawn there. The only large building in the village, it had to be the h
all of the chieftain—the mead hall. Could there be a better place to find his mother?

  “I do not know what to do,” Kristinge admitted with a sigh, finally answering Willimond’s question. “I confess I had given little thought to how we would find her once we made it this far. My thoughts had only been to find this village. I suppose it would not be wise to ask for her.” He knew before it was spoken what Willimond’s response would be, but he had run out of ideas.

  “No,” Willimond answered abruptly, putting the suggestion out of the question. “Not wise at all. And yet, we can hardly remain inconspicuous for long. They cannot help but to have noticed two strangers walking through the village.” He too was staring back toward the village in the direction of the hall as he continued his thought. “Even now the chieftain is questioning the traders about who we are, and they are telling him first what they know, and then what they have guessed.” He did not pause long before he made the suggestion Kristinge knew would be coming. “Perhaps you would be well-advised to take up again the role of bard.”

  “Ha,” Kristinge said, though there was little laughter in his mood. “After my performance among that band I doubt such a claim would be taken seriously.” But in his mind he was pondering the more serious problem: despite several weeks of travel with his harp, he had not yet acquired the true bard’s repertoire. How long until he ran out of songs? Would he be able to compose new ones fast enough?

  Willimond smiled. “Even the best bards fall short at times. Be glad it happened when it did. There are heathen kings and chieftains who would kill a bard for displeasing them.”

  Kristinge did not return the smile. He was still thinking about how poorly received his songs were among the Danish traders. “I do not know what it is best to sing among the pagans,” he admitted. “Am I truly a bard, as you have begun to call me? Or an apostle—an evangelist?”

  Willimond was silent for a time. When he spoke, his voice was low and tentative. “Maybe we have been speaking the church’s Latin for too long.”

  Kristinge raised a curious brow. Was the older monk speaking metaphorically? Or literally? Or both?

  “At Luxeuil we spoke of the evangelium: the good message,” Willimond explained. “But in the native tongues of our Saxon and Frisian kin—and your Danish kin, too, I would guess—we would speak instead of the gód spel”

  Kristinge did not need an explanation. “The good story,” he said. He had never before considered the difference between the two words, for in his mind they both refered to the same thing. But there was a difference, and he knew his native tongue well enough to know it.

  “Yes, the good story. It is a message, that is true. And a good one. Both true and joyful. Death has been conquered. What greater message could there be? And what a delight to be the messengers. But the heart of that message is more than an idea. It is a story. So the translation from Latin to these Germanic tongues—for the ‘good message’ to the ‘good story’—is appropriate. We tell the good story.”

  Kristinge nodded. “Yes, it is a story.” He paused. “But what makes a story good?”

  At this Willimond smiled. “That is a question. A story, I think, like a message, can be good because it is true. Indeed, there are ancient poets who say that truth can only be found in story. Does not God himself speaks to us in story? And a story can be good because—well, because it has a joyful ending; because it gives reason to turn our weeping into dancing. But I think a story can be good in other ways too. It can be good because it is beautiful.” He paused, and Kristinge could see his eyes staring off into the distance as though seeing something far away or remembering something long past. “The monks at Lindisfarne had a vision. They wanted to make copies of the ancient texts—even God’s own word; especially God’s word—that were beautiful just to look at. So that there would be beauty in the colors and the shapes and the images, as well as in the words. For all beauty, at its deepest, is goodness. It is truth. And I think God is pleased in that beauty and goodness.”

  Though the idea was not new to him, something about the moment, about the past few days and weeks, or simply about the way Willimond was speaking reached Kristinge perhaps for the first time. “So a beautiful story is a good story.” He didn’t wait for Willimond to answer. “There is, I think, a certain beauty in the old pagan lays. It is a cold harsh northern beauty, full of the lies and false myths of their gods, but it is a beauty nonetheless and one that reflects truth. That much, if nothing else, I learned from Daelga. Could not the evangelium itself—the gód spel—be captured in these tales, and brought to life in a new way?”

  He began to turn the idea over in his mind. He did not know yet the fruit it might later bear, but if nothing else, it was good to put his mind on concerns other than finding his mother. “You know, when I told the tale of Daniel before Clovis’ throne, I felt as though I was almost there. However angry he was, something about that tale moved him. Had it not, he would have killed me. Could the tale have been made more…” he paused. “More Germanic? More Frankish? Or, for the Danes, more Norse? And yet still be the same tale?”

  “That is a difficult question,” Willimond replied after a moment’s thought. “It is thought to be one of the greatest sins to change the Word of God—to add or remove even the smallest word. And yet did not Jesus himself bring his preaching to the people with a language and stories they could understand? Can the stories change and yet remain the same? I do not know. Saint Paul found truth even in the myths and poems and prophecies of the Greeks. He used those tales to speak the truth in Athens. If you succeeded at such a task here among the Danes, you would have a lifetime of songs. I wish Walbert were with us.”

  Now Kristinge did laugh. “What a scene we are, standing in the desolate wastes of Danemark discussing difficult questions of Christian teaching that nobody within a five days journey could care about. Could any doubt that we are monks? Come. Let us return to the hall. Let us meet this chieftain Fjorgest. I will take up the harp and see what the Lord will provide for us.”

  Now it was Willimond who stood staring at Kristinge. “My friend and son, you speak in a voice and with a tone I have never before heard from you. Could it be you have grown so much in just a few days?”

  “Grown? Certainly not. The only thing I have grown is cold and hungry, standing at the edge of the village. My thoughts have turned to fire and food. If I can earn us these things with my harp and voice, praise God. If not, better to find out soon while we still have a few coins left.”

  Together, they turned back toward the village and began walking in the direction of the chieftain’s hall. But there was something else on Kristinge’s mind—something he hadn’t told Willimond. Truly he desired more than anything else to find his mother. Yet if Willimond was right, it would not be safe for him to seek her. What else could he do, then, except make himself as visible as possible as soon as possible? And how better to do this than as a bard? If he couldn’t find Hildeburh, let her find him.

  If she was still alive.

  It didn’t take long for Kristinge and Willimond to find the Hoclinges’ chieftain Fjorgest, though at first they did not know they had found him. He was standing near the entrance of his hall, talking and laughing with a dozen other men, all warriors. They were dressed in heavy wool tunics and trousers. A few had fur cloaks thrown over their shoulders. Save for the gold necklace and gold armbands, Fjorgest did not stand out. He was about the same height as the others, and median in age. And when Kristinge asked for him, he did not at first identify himself.

  “Who are you?” he said gruffly and in a thick Danish accent that Kristinge had to work to understand.

  “A traveling bard,” Kristinge answered. “We have journeyed from Francia.”

  Fjorgest’s eyes narrowed and Kristinge guessed from his expression what he was thinking. A Frankish bard showing up in a northern Danish village made for a strange and implausible story. “And you?” the chieftain asked Willimond.

  “I was his tutor once.”<
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  Fjorgest snorted contemptuously. “You are far from your home. That much I hear in your voices.”

  “I have spent my life traveling,” Willimond replied. “Danemark is no further from the western coast of Britain than southern Francia is.”

  “A Saxon?”

  “Irish and Celt,” Willimond replied, repeating the answer he had given to the traders four days earlier.

  The chieftain, Kristinge guessed, had already learned as much from the chief trader. Still, he turned to Kristinge. “And you, bard?”

  “I am told I have some Danish blood.”

  “That may be,” the chieftain replied, looking him over. He still had not identified himself. “If you are a good enough bard, I will not care what kind of blood you have. But if you are not, we will examine your blood by spilling it. I am not a patient chieftain.”

  At that, several of his thanes laughed. Kristinge, however, was concentrating on understanding the heavy dialect, and he missed the veiled threat. He had noticed the gold necklaces and armbands around the chieftain’s neck. “You are Fjorgest?”

  “I am.”

  “And you are seeking the service of a bard?”