“Help me, Gunnulf,” begged Kristin. She was white to the very edge of her lips. “I don’t know my own will.”
“Then say: Thy will be done,” replied the priest softly. “You know you must open your heart to His love. Then you must love Him once more with all the power of your soul.”
Kristin abruptly turned to face her brother-in-law.
“You can’t know how much I loved Erlend. And my children!”
“Dear sister—all other love is merely a reflection of the heavens in the puddles of a muddy road. You will become sullied too if you allow yourself to sink into it. But if you always remember that it’s a reflection of the light from that other home, then you will rejoice at its beauty and take good care that you do not destroy it by churning up the mire at the bottom.”
“Yes, but as a priest, Gunnulf, you have promised God that you would shun these . . . difficulties.”
“As you have too, Kristin—when you promised to forsake the Devil and his work. The Devil’s work is what begins in sweet desire and ends with two people becoming like the snake and the toad, snapping at each other. That’s what Eve learned, when she tried to give her husband and her descendants what belonged to God. She brought them nothing but banishment and the shame of blood and death, which entered the world when brother killed brother in that first small field, where thorns and thistles grew among the heaps of stones around the patches of land.”
“Yes, but you’re a priest,” she said in the same tone of voice. “You’re not subjected to the daily trial of trying to agree patiently with the will of another.” And she broke into tears.
The priest said with a little smile, “About that matter there is disagreement between body and soul in every mother’s child. That’s why marriage and the wedding mass were created—so that man and woman would be given help in their lives: married folk and parents and children and house servants as loyal and helpful companions on the journey toward the house of peace.”
Kristin said quietly, “It seems to me that it would be easier to watch over and pray for those who are asleep out in the world than to struggle with one’s own sins.”
“That may be,” said the priest sharply. “But you mustn’t believe, Kristin, that there has ever been a priest who has not had to guard himself against the Fiend at the same time as he tried to protect the lambs from the wolf.”
Kristin said in a quiet and timid voice, “I thought that those who live among the holy shrines and possess all the prayers and powerful words . . .”
Gunnulf leaned forward, tended to the fire, and then sat with his elbows on his knees.
“It was almost exactly six years ago that we arrived in Rome, Eiliv and I, along with two Scottish priests whom we had met in Avignon. We journeyed the whole way on foot.
We arrived in the city just before Lent. That’s when people in the southern countries hold great celebrations and feasts—they call it carnevale. The wine, both red and white, flows in rivers from the taverns, and people dance late into the night, and there are torches and bonfires in the open marketplaces. It is springtime in Italy then, and the flowers are blooming in the meadows and gardens. The women adorn themselves with blossoms and toss roses and violets down to the people strolling along the streets. They sit up in the windows, with silk and satin tapestries hanging from the ledge over the stone walls. All buildings are made from stone down there, and the knights have their castles and strongholds in the middle of town. There are apparently no town statutes or laws about keeping the peace in the city—the knights and their men fight in the streets, making the blood run.
“There was such a castle on the street where we were staying, and the knight who ruled it was named Ermes Malavolti. Its shadow stretched over the entire narrow lane where our hostel stood, and our room was as dark and cold as the dungeon in a stone fortress. When we went out we often had to press ourselves up against the wall as he rode past with silver bells on his clothing and a whole troop of armed men. Muck and filth would splash up from the horses’ hooves, because in that country people simply throw all their slops and offal outdoors. The streets are cold and dark and narrow like clefts in a mountain—quite unlike the green lanes of our towns. In the streets during carnevale they hold races—they let the wild Arabian horses race against each other.”
The priest sat in silence for a moment, then he continued.
“This Sir Ermes had a kinswoman living at his house. Isota was her name, and she might have been Isolde the Fair One herself. Her complexion and hair were as light as honey, but her eyes were no doubt black. I saw her several times at a window. . . .
“But outside the city the land is more desolate than the most desolate heaths in this country, and nothing lives there but deer and wolves; and the eagles scream. And yet there are towns and castles in the mountains all around, and out on the green plains you can see traces everywhere that people once lived in this world. Great flocks of sheep graze there now, along with herds of white oxen. Herdsmen with long spears follow them on horseback; they are dangerous folk for wayfarers to meet, for they will kill and rob them and throw their bodies into pits in the ground.
“But out on these green plains are the pilgrim churches.”
Master Gunnulf paused for a moment.
“Perhaps this land seems so inexpressibly desolate because the city is nearby—the one that was the queen of the entire heathen world and then became Christ’s betrothed. The guards have abandoned the city, which in the teeming din of the feasting seems like an abandoned woman. The revelers have settled into the castle where the husband is absent, and they have lured the mistress into joining their carousing, with their merriment and spilling of blood and strife.
“But underground there are splendors that are more precious than all the splendors on which the sun shines. That’s where the graves of the holy martyrs are, dug into the very rock, and there are so many that the thought of them can make you dizzy. When you remember how numerous they are—the tortured witnesses who have suffered death for the sake of Christ—then it seems as if every speck of dust that is whirled up by the hooves of the revelers’ horses must be holy and worthy of worship.”
The priest pulled out a thin chain from under his robe and opened the little silver cross hanging from it. Inside was something black that looked like tinder-moss, and a tiny green bone.
“One day we were down in those catacombs all day long, and we said our prayers in caves and oratories where the first disciples of Saint Peter and Saint Paul once gathered for mass. Then the monks who owned the church into which we had descended gave us these sacred relics. This is a piece of the sponge which the pious maidens used to wipe up the martyr blood so that it would not be lost, and this is a knuckle from the finger of a holy man—but only God knows his name. Then all four of us vowed that every day we would invoke this holy man, whose honor is unknown to any human. And we chose this nameless martyr as a witness so that we might never forget how completely unworthy we are of God’s reward or the honors of men, and always remember that nothing in this world is worthy of desire except His mercy.”
Kristin kissed the cross with deference and handed it to Orm, who did the same.
Then Gunnulf said suddenly, “I want to give you this relic, kinsman.”
Orm sank down on one knee and kissed his uncle’s hand. Gunnulf hung the cross around the boy’s neck.
“Wouldn’t you have a mind to see these places, Orm?”
The boy’s face lit up with a smile. “Yes, I now know that someday I will go there.”
“Have you ever had a mind to become a priest?” asked his uncle.