The treasure box was opened and a square object wrapped in cloth lifted out, and placed in the king's hands. Harald took the cloth-wrapped bundle into his lap and began unwrapping the long binding strips. I caught a glint of silver as one by one the strips of cloth fell away. Then the king was holding the thing and beckoning me forward.
I do not know what I expected to see. But the sight that met my eyes made my heart leap into my throat. I gasped at the sight of it, and stared in heart-sick astonishment at the object in his hands. For there, almost within my very grasp, lay the cumtach of Colum Cille.
Not the whole book, no-that would have held no interest to a marauding Sea Wolf-but the great book's gem-crusted silver cover was more than pleasing to their greedy eyes.
Kyrie eleison, I breathed. Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy!
King Harald opened the cover and I saw that a few leaves yet remained-three or perhaps four, not many; likely, they had come away in the haste of pillage. To my holy horror, the king took one of these pages and cut it from the others with his knife. It was all I could do to keep from crying out. The Book of Colum Cille was desecrated.
"Speak it," said the king, offering the sacred page to me.
But I could not speak. With trembling fingers I lifted the fragment to my eyes-one of the initial pages of the Gospel known as Matthew's Book-and looked once more upon the richly glowing colours and the impossibly intricate braiding of the knotwork cross, the spirals and keys and triscs-all the while thinking: Great Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
"Speak it!" commanded the king again, more sternly this time.
Mastering my distress, I forced myself to calmness under the king's gaze. It would not do, I thought, to allow him to see that I held any knowledge of the book. Even then, my very heart breaking, I reckoned my best hope of remaining close to the treasure was to betray no attachment.
Turning the page in my hands, I scanned the lines-the page was one of those written in our own abbey. I opened my mouth and read out the passage-I do not know what I read. The words swam before my eyes, and it was all I could to do keep my hand steady. One line, and then another-my voice ringing hollow in my ears: "Now when Jesu was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of Herod the King, behold, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem-"
"Enough!" roared Harald, as if the sound hurt his ears. He stared at me for a moment, silence coiling at his feet like a length of rope. The hall grew hushed; everyone waited to see what he would do.
I stood uncertainly under his gaze, trying to determine if I had betrayed my knowledge of the book. Though he regarded me closely, I think it was not myself the king heeded. Rather, it seemed that some other matter now preyed on his mind. My reading was perhaps part of his preoccupation, but not the larger portion.
At last, he lifted a hand abstractedly and gestured me away. Willing strength to my legs, I turned to leave the hall, but had not walked more than three paces when he called me back.
"Shaven One!" he shouted suddenly, as if in afterthought. "You will come with me to Miklagard."
The wind was high and the day fair as we rounded the dark brooding headland of the Geats and sailed onto a grey, windscoured sea. I did not know where we were, less yet where we were bound. I had no idea at all where Miklagard might be, nor did I care. I might have been sailing into hell with the devil himself on my back-and it would have made not the whisker of a difference to me.
I stood on the deck of King Harald's ship as a man determined. Having pondered long over it, I had decided that I could not stand aside and allow the sacred cumtach to be defiled by the barbarians. Come what may, I would risk all to preserve the treasure for which my brothers had given their lives.
Alas and woe! Preserving the holy object meant abetting the wickedness of King Harald. Christ have mercy!
Still, man can only do what is given him; this had been given me and this I could do. Harald, I decided, would receive my help so long as it meant I could keep the sacred cumtach within reach. And if by helping him I furthered his hateful schemes, so be it. I would pay for my sins as all men must, but though I forfeit my soul's eternal peace and endure the flames of torment everlasting, I would save the silver cover of Colum Cille's book.
Sadly, the priceless book itself was gone-evil the waste of that fair creation!-but the cumtach remained. What is more, it remained close at hand: Harald had brought the silver book cover with him; he kept it in the peaked box in his shipboard dwelling along with two other caskets full of gold and silver he thought the journey would require.
I cared nothing for the caskets and their treasures, but I meant to watch over that peaked box with the very eyes of an avenging eagle.
