"Believe it, boy; it is the truth," he spat, flaring suddenly. "God abandoned me here and left me to die. But I did not die. I lived, and while I live, I am my own man and I serve no one but myself alone."
"Then tell me, if nothing prevents you, how do you know Latin?"
Scop turned and began hobbling away. I fell into step a pace behind him. "Please," I insisted, "I would know how it is that you speak the cleric's tongue."
I thought he would not answer, for he limped on without heed. But after a dozen or so paces, he stopped abruptly and turned. "How think you I came by it?" he demanded. "Think you I found it at the bottom of my mead bowl? Or perhaps you imagined I went a-viking with the Sea Wolves and plundered it from some poor defenceless priest?"
"I thought no ill, brother," I soothed. "But it seems a very mystery to me, that is all."
"A mystery?" he wondered, rubbing his blackened neck with a dirty hand. "Dost speak to me of mysteries, Irish?" He glared at me. "Ah, mayhap you think your own speech mysterious."
"Nothing could be less so," I answered. "I am a priest. I was taught in the abbey."
"Well, I likewise learned my tongue that way."
"Indeed?" I could not keep the surprise out of my voice.
"Why amazed?" he countered defiantly. "Is that so unchancy? Do you find it beyond your narrow ability to believe?"
"I find it," I confessed, "most unlikely."
"Then tell me," he challenged, "which is the more unlikely: that you should find yourself a slave of the Danes, or that I should be sent out a priest among them?"
So saying, he gathered himself in his rags and stumped off, tatters flapping like the bedraggled feathers of a great, ungainly bird.
I did not see him again for, after more eating and drinking, and sport-the throwing of hammers and axes and, heaven forbid it! even pigs, which they caught and hefted into the air to the loud acclamation of their fellows-Gunnar took his leave of his lord, bade farewell to all his kinsmen, gathered his weapons and plunder in a leather bag, and departed the settlement, taking me with him-tied to him by a long rope around my waist.
We walked through close-grown forest all the day, moving exceedingly slow, for Gunnar's head hurt him and he stopped often to lie down. During one such rest, I made a meal from the fragments of bread and meat he had in his bag. My master could stomach no food, but raised no objection when I ate. Thus, I broke my long fast on hard bread and rancid meat-poor fare, but welcome nonetheless. After my meal, I untied myself and searched among the forest plants and found some ffa'r gos, which I crushed and mixed with clear-running water from a nearby stream. Upon straining out the pulp I gave it to Gunnar to drink-which he did, but not before I drank some first. He slept again and upon waking seemed in much better spirit.
At night we camped on the trail; Gunnar made a fire and we slept on either side of it, moving on again when the birds woke us at dawn. Once the bread and meat were gone, we had nothing to eat; still, we stopped often to drink from the sweet streams that abounded in that land. I looked for berries, and found some, but they were unripe.
We walked by day, Gunnar striding ahead, the bag on his shoulder, and myself trailing after. Though the bag was weighty, Gunnar would not allow me to touch it, preferring to tote it himself. We must have made an unusual sight, I reflected: master labouring under his load while the slave sauntered along empty-handed behind. But he would have it no other way.
As my master did not deign to speak to me-not that I would have understood him if he had-I had ample time to think. Mostly, I thought about my brother monks, and wondered if any had survived, and if so, what had become of them. Would they return to the abbey? Would they continue on to Constantinople? Since the blessed book had not turned up with the plunder, I reckoned some of the brothers may have escaped, and that our treasure had not been discovered.
I felt secure in this belief, reasoning that if the book had been found, it would certainly have been taken; and if it had been taken, I would have seen it shared out among the barbarians as payment for their hateful deeds. I had not seen it, so I considered it had not been stolen. This gave me hope that perhaps the pilgrimage would proceed-without me, it is true, but it would continue.
I made this my prayer, as I walked along, that however many of our company yet survived, be they many or few, would yet journey on and reach Byzantium with the emperor's gift. This produced in me a peculiar feeling: a curious mingling of remorse and relief: remorse for the lives so suddenly required in the Red Martyrdom of this pilgrimage, and relief that I would not now have to join them.
