The Rood and the Torc Read online

  “It is finished,” Petrica said. “May God grant you rich blessings for your generosity.”

  “The Lord be kind to you also, Father,” Charlethax replied. He was still grinning. “Now come and share the mead cup with my family. We has brought enough for all!”

  “My thanks,” Petrica said. “I will gladly join you.”

  “Father,” Willimond interrupted hesitantly.

  “Ah,” Petrica said. Kristinge thought he saw a shadow pass over Petrica’s face as he turned toward him. “Kristinge.”

  “Yes, Father?”

  “You have done well. You are released from your duties this day. Return now with Willimond.”

  “Thank you,” Kristinge answered. After checking that the ink was dry, he carefully rolled up the scroll and handed it to Petrica, along with the pen. Then he turned to join Willimond who at once set off with good speed in the direction of the Monastery. When they were far enough away from the gathering, Kristinge could contain himself no longer. “What is it?” he asked, ignoring the rule of silence.

  “Ulestan,” Willimond answered. “He is dying.”

  In its first incarnation, the monastery of St. Peter had been built by Columbanus among the ruins of Annegray, an old stone fort remaining from Roman times before Gaul had fallen to Clovis and the invading Frankish hordes and become the Merovingian-ruled Francia. Perhaps at one time Annegray had been an important outpost on the frontier of the great Roman empire. But when the empire had expanded far to the north, it had lost its usefulness; in later years it served as a way post from which a small battalion might guard against the numerous outlaws in the mountains. Eventually the fort was abandoned altogether, and it had long since fallen into disrepair; the once strong walls crumbled inward, and only a few of the stone buildings remained standing through the decades turning into centuries before Columbanus received the land from King Childebert for the founding of a new monastery. Yet despite the condition of the buildings, the site of the old fort was ideal for Columbanus’ vision. It was the folk of these rough mountains to whom he had come: the Suevian tribes who, after their defeat by Caesar five centuries earlier, had settled here in this out-of-the-way place where they could continue to resist Romanization. Nestled in a green hollow in the foothills of the Vosges mountains, with fresh springs, clear rivers, deep forests, inaccessible defiles, and stern mountainous surroundings, Annegray was thus at once austere and idyllic.

  For a time, Columbanus and his followers lived on wild seeds, nuts, and even bark. But within a handful of years, the land surrounding the fort began to show the results of the discipline, toughness and organization of that small band of monks. The ground was cleared and planted, cultivated grain and vegetables sprung from the soil, apple and pear trees were planted, and the old walls and buildings took a new form: that of a monastic village rather than a hostile fort. Then the local peasant populace began to stream into the monastery, not to rob its unarmed occupants as they had done during that first winter, but for food, healing, and the preaching of the monks. As its reputation spread throughout Frankish Gaul, the monastery built by Columbanus and dedicated to St. Peter grew. Soon even the sons of nobles, lured by the Irish monks who were both practical and devout, were coming to join the peasant farmers. Only a few years passed before Columbanus’ monastery had outgrown Annegray. So the king gave him another abandoned castle, eight miles away in a more spacious vale lower in the foothills. Luxovium, the Romans had called it. Luxeuil it was to the Gauls who did not speak Latin. It had long ago been overrun by pine trees, but Columbanus and his hardworking followers had cleared the land and rebuilt the forest, and his monastery expanded.

  And still more followers came, seeking something both physical and spiritual in the teachings and lives of the monks. Columbanus needed more space. Three miles away they built Fontaines, a third site in the growing monastic community. Yet the original site at Annegray had not been abandoned. Quieter and more secluded than the larger new settlements, Annegray was a place of deep contemplation, of intense study, and of difficult work. It was there that the most serious of the monks went, Willimond and Kristinge among them. There, too, Ulestan had come.

  Through those gates built centuries ago by Roman architects and soldiers, and later raised again by Columbanus himself, Kristinge entered at Willimond’s side. Now, however, as he strode briskly across the grounds of Annegray, his gaze fixed upon a small building set against the base of the wall on the other side of the monastery. He could feel his heart pounding, not from the exertion of the walk, but from fear of what awaited him: fear that Willimond had spoken the truth, and their friend was dying.

  He followed Willimond past the chapel to the guest house where Ulestan had been a permanent “guest” since the day of their arrival. Only Kristinge’s discipline, implanted in him through those six years of monastic life, kept him from sprinting across the grounds ahead of Willimond. He took a deep breath as he ducked through the low door and tried to steel himself against what he would find inside.

  Ulestan’s room was a small stone chamber, with a single shelf for a candle plus two hooks on which to hang his belongings. In the winter, a vent in the wall provided heat from a central fireplace. It did not have the warmth of the great wooden hall of Finnsburg. No poet ever sang in this room. Yet Ulestan had been content. Kristinge stepped into the room ahead of Willimond to find the old warrior half-sitting, half-lying on the straw mattress in the corner. A young novice sat with him trying to offer him some wine, but Ulestan was coughing too much to drink. At the sight of Willimond and Kristinge, he motioned for the novice to leave.

  The novice looked to the monks for confirmation. Kristinge could not find his voice, but Willimond responded with a nod and said in Latin. “We will take care of him now.” The novice placed the wine cup into the older monk’s hand and disappeared from the room.

  Willimond sat down at the foot of the bed, while Kristinge rushed over to Ulestan’s side and knelt beside him. “What is wrong?” he asked, speaking in Frisian. Though it was his native tongue, after years of speaking Latin the Frisian dialect sounded harsh in his ears and on his lips. It had been so long since he had spoken it regularly.

  “My time has come,” Ulestan replied.

  “No!” Kristinge protested.

  “Ah, my friends,” Ulestan smiled deeply. His smile was interrupted by a long coughing fit. “My young friend,” he continued a minute later. “Do not grieve, nor seek to prolong my departure. I have made my peace with the Father, thanks to Willimond.”

  “Thanks be to God, not me, my friend,” Willimond gently corrected him.

  “Yes,” Ulestan agreed. “Thanks be to God.” His voice was soft now with fatigue—not the fatigue of an afternoon’s exertion, or even of a long battle, but the fatigue of a life filled with its share of suffering. “Soon I will be home,” the old warrior said.

  “No,” Kristinge started to protest again, but Willimond put his hand on him and silenced him so that Ulestan could continue.

  “My young friend.” Ulestan was now looking Kristinge in the eye. “There is but one final duty I must carry out, though I confess I have no joy in it.”

  “Can it not wait?” Kristinge asked, not caring what the duty was.

  “It cannot,” Ulestan answered.

  Beside him, Willimond winced as if struck by some unseen rod, but he said nothing.

  “May I not then perform this duty in your place?” Kristinge suggested in all sincerity.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps it is indeed a duty I am passing to you.”

  Confused, Kristinge turned to Willimond, but Willimond’s eyes never left Ulestan. He turned back to look at the old warrior. “Speak to me, then. I will do whatever I can.”

  “Yes, I must,” Ulestan said, as if to himself. He took a slow breath, but it did little to clear his old lungs. “I was charged by Finn himself, and I agreed. I gave my word.” He coughed again and paused.

  Kristinge was confused. Finn? Old memories began to well
up, brought back by the sound of the Frisian tongue and by the mention of Finn, a name Kristinge had not heard in many years. “What is it?”

  Ulestan did not answer directly. “Kristinge, do you know who your father is?”

  “Willimond has always been a father to me.” Kristinge replied at once. It was true. Though he knew Willimond was not his blood father, he was the only father Kristinge had ever known. He was as true of a father as Kristinge could have had.

  With a feeble gesture of his right hand, Ulestan brushed Kristinge’s answer aside. He stared at the ceiling for a moment as if staring into heaven, gathering strength. Then the thane who had served two kings and one God began the fulfillment of his final duty.

  “There was once a great king,” he began. “His name was Finn.”

  Tears in his eyes, Kristinge sat still and listened. In Ulestan’s tired voice, he heard an echo of the old poet Daelga, and a hundred memories of his youth in Friesland—memories he had not relived in a long time—began to rush up within him.

  “The king had a son who was strong and handsome and very much like the king himself. His name was Finnlaf.” Somehow, the speaking of this tale strengthened Ulestan. He went on. “But upon a time, the son became sick—sick unto death. And all the kingdom grieved for him, but none more than Finn his father and Hildeburh his mother.”

  Images of the chieftain-king Finn, and of his Danish queen Hildeburh, flashed briefly across Kristinge’s mind. Years ago Ulestan had been Finn’s friend and his champion. But Ulestan had been sent away. And rumor had eventually come even as far south as Luxeuil that Finn had been killed in battle by the Danes, his own wife’s people. What had that story to do with them now?

  Ulestan paused briefly, as though giving Kristinge’s memories a chance to wrap around these old names. Then he continued. “It also happened about that time that a great Man of God had come to Friesland to dwell in the village of the king. His name was Willimond.”

  Kristinge’s heart began to beat faster, though he was not sure why. He turned again and looked over at the older monk, but Willimond’s face was set in stone. Ulestan continued now without pause, his eyes staring at the ceiling above him as if he saw the story unfolding there even as he spoke. And perhaps he did. “This Man of God was called before the king to pray for the king’s son, that he might be healed. And when the Man of God prayed all night, God heard the prayer and answered it, showing His mercy both to the king and to His servant Willimond. Finnlaf was healed and his life was spared.”

  “I remember Finnlaf,” Kristinge said softly. He remembered the young prince’s proud but kind face, as he walked around the village at his father’s side. And often at Ulestan’s side. On rare occasions Finnlaf shared with Kristinge a lesson from the bard Daelga.

  Kristinge remembered also Finnlaf’s pale face, laying in the boat upon the funeral pyre after he had been slain in the horrible fight that precipitated the later battle at which Finn himself fell.

  “Thus it was,” Ulestan continued, “that Finn in his gratitude—or perhaps in his own crafty wisdom—gave as payment to the Man of God an unasked-for gift.”

  A third time Kristinge looked at Willimond, trying to guess the outcome of this story that had taken place in a time before his memory. But the older monk still said nothing. And alone Kristinge could not so quickly solve the riddle. He could think only that Ulestan was dying.

  “The present was a baby child,” Ulestan continued. He turned his gaze back upon Kristinge, and studied him as he continued. “Given to Willimond was a child, the offspring of Finn and Hildeburh, the newborn brother of the one whose life had just been spared. The king gave to Willimond his own son, and told him to raise the child well, but with one additional charge: none should know the child’s identity. Thus the child would be safe not only from the king’s enemies but also from a rivalry with his brother for the torc of his father.”

  “I do not understand—” Kristinge started to say.

  Ulestan finished. “Willimond took the child from Finn, and he named him Kristinge, and from that day forth he raised him as his own, Kristinge, the son of Finn.”

  For a brief second Kristinge’s thoughts hung poised, like an hawk hovering, preparing to dive for a field mouse. Then the implications of what Ulestan had told him struck, and he felt himself plunging downward. “It cannot be!” He turned to Willimond half expecting the older monk to contradict Ulestan’s story.

  Willimond looked back in Kristinge’s eyes, and after a brief pause gave a single silent nod.

  “But,” Kristinge objected. “Finn? My father? Why—?”

  He didn’t have time to ask any of the innumerable questions that rushed into his head like the incoming tide. Ulestan still had more to say. “There is more,” he went on. “Much of Finn’s story you have heard, but not all. All who knew your identity were sworn to secrecy, and though there must have been many more who guessed, it was never spoken of. When Finn saw his own end coming, he sent us away from Friesland to protect you. It was Finn who sent us here to Luxeuil.”

  “Luxeuil? To protect me? Sent us away? Why? I do not understand.”

  But Ulestan was beginning to reach the final point of his own exhaustion. That story had cost him. His head drooped back upon his bed-mat and his eyes fell shut. “Because you were his only remaining son, the heir of his torc,” he whispered.

  “The heir—?”

  “Finnlaf had been killed. In the fight.”

  “In the fight with the Danes,” Kristinge mumbled, closing his eyes as he dredged the history from his memories. Yes. He knew. But the heir—?

  “It was a lie,” Ulestan went on. The passing years had done little to lessen the pain for him. It was legible upon his brow.

  “A lie? What lie? Why?” Kristinge had not been at the battle, but he knew the stories. The Danish king Hnaef had come to Finnsburg to see his sister Hildeburh before the onset of winter. With him were three warships, loaded with booty from successful raids along the Frankish and Saxon coasts. He had even brought gifts to Finn and Hildeburh. But something had happened. Something had caused a fight between their peoples. A tragic fight. Both Finnlaf and Hnaef had been killed that day. Some of the Danes had claimed it was Finnlaf who had killed their king, and Finnlaf, lying dead, could not dispute his accusers. Seeking the weregild, the powerful Danes had come back the following spring and killed Finn. Finnlaf and Hnaef? His brother and uncle? And Finn his father? Those past events suddenly became more important to him. More real.

  “Lies,” Ulestan said again. “Finnlaf did not strike Hnaef. He never did. It was Hunlaf the Jute who killed Hnaef. And it was Hunlaf’s brother who struck down Finnlaf. He struck down Finnlaf while I…” his lips trembled.

  Willimond placed a comforting hand on the old warrior’s leg. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “Nothing,” Ulestan repeated, eyes still closed.

  But now Kristinge’s mind was racing. “How do you know?” he asked. He had barely even known his brother. “Who saw?”

  It took a moment before Ulestan could answer. “Though I did not see, I knew. I knew Finnlaf. He was like a son to me, even as you were to Willimond. I knew Finnlaf, and I saw his love for his uncle. And I knew also that he would not have struck any man from behind—not an enemy, and certainly not his kin. Even though I did not see, I knew.”

  Kristinge was still shaking his head in disbelief. “My brother?”

  “But there was one who did see,” Ulestan went on. “One who saw it all.”

  “Who?” Kristinge demanded, his eyes snapping back on Ulestan. “Why did the lies persist?”

  “Daelga saw,” Ulestan answered, as he found the strength to open his eyes once again and look upon Kristinge’s face.

  “The poet?” The question came from Willimond. Until that point, the older monk had been silently listening to a tale that he knew too well, but at this news his voice registered his surprise. “Daelga saw? Why did he not tell?”

  “Daelga saw. F
rom the back of the hall, he watched everything. But he was afraid. Afraid of the Jutes. Afraid of the Danes. Perhaps afraid even of Finn. And he was a poet, not a warrior. He fled the battle. Fled and was ashamed.”

  “But how—?” Willimond started.

  “He told me… later. Weeks later, perhaps. I do not remember.”

  “And why did you not tell?” For a moment, Willimond’s voice sounded accusatory, almost harsh. Then he asked again in a more gentle voice. “Why did you not tell?”

  “Why?” Ulestan answered, his eyes closing once again. “Because it would not have mattered. Because Finn knew already without being told—knew as well as I did that Finnlaf would never have killed his uncle. Because his anger and hatred were hot enough already and he almost destroyed himself. Because I wished for peace.”

  “Why did I not tell?” Ulestan said, repeating the question. “I have asked myself that question many times. I do not know. Perhaps I, too, was afraid. And then I was gone.”

  “Does anybody else—?”

  “No. Nobody. Or perhaps Hildeburh. Daelga may have told—” Ulestan coughed loudly. This time, he could not stop. A flu had settled too deeply in his old lungs. The spasm sent Kristinge to his feet, and he started out the room to get help, but Willimond called him back sharply.

  A moment later, the coughing stopped.

  Willimond reached over and put his hand over Ulestan’s mouth. His breathing had stopped too. Gently, Willimond pushed the old warrior’s jaw shut. Then he put his head down and wept.

  CHAPTER 2:

  A King’s Son

  An important stirring brought the young traveler’s thoughts back to the present. The audience was growing restless waiting for him to sing. How long had he been daydreaming? Frotha, the chieftain, was glaring at him as though ready to toss him out of the mead hall. Kristinge looked down at his feet. He was still without a song. Why had his memory failed him on this night of all nights? He thought once more of the young woman seated across the hearth, though he dared not look at her now. Perhaps for a king…