‘What are you doing here, then? What makes you so special, that your god should spare you when so many others have died?’
‘I don’t know,’ Guthred admits. ‘I don’t pretend to understand his plan. If I were to guess, though, I’d say that he’s offering me one last chance to atone. To make things right, as best as I can.’
‘Atone how, and for what?’ asks Merewyn impatiently.
‘It’s a long story. A long, long story.’
‘Well, we have time, don’t we? We’re not going to be travelling any further tonight.’
Beorn fixes Guthred with a hard look. ‘What did you do?’
The priest swallows. ‘May I show you something?’
Without waiting for an answer he stands, stiffly, and ventures inside the barn, where he fumbles amid his bundled blankets and returns moments later carrying what looks like a pilgrim’s scrip.
‘This is the reason I mentioned Lindisfarena,’ he says. ‘That’s where I’m trying to get to, if I can. Everything in here belongs rightfully to the Church. I can’t take it back to the place it came from because the Normans have overrun the land, so I thought to take it north instead, beyond their reach.’
He sits back down, cross-legged, by the fire. From the scrip he draws a cloth bag the size of Tova’s two fists placed together, which makes a clinking sound as he sets it down in front of him; there must be coins inside. Next comes a pair of silver candlesticks, followed by a jewelled cross, larger than the one he wears around his neck, which looks like it belongs on an altar; then an ivory ?stel for pointing out passages when reading, like the one Thorvald uses on account of his failing eyesight, only much more elaborate. Its handle is gold, in the shape of a bird’s head, with tiny shining jewels for eyes.
‘Where did all this come from, exactly?’ Oslac asks.
‘From the minster at Rypum. Most of it, anyway. Look, there’s more.’
He draws out a bundle the length nearly of his forearm and as thick as his fist, wrapped in linen. Whatever it is, it’s heavy, for he cradles it in both hands, handling it with the same care he might give a small child. Slowly he unwinds the cloth, revealing glistening panels of sun-bright gold, in between which are set garnets and other precious stones, mounted on the front of a rectangular object.
A book.
Tova has seen books before, but never one like this. Thorvald had one – a psalter, he called it – which he kept in a locked box in his house. Skalpi used to own one too, until he sold it to pay for new helmets shortly before he went to fight the Normans. He couldn’t read, as far as she knows, so how he came by it and why he kept it she isn’t sure. She only glimpsed it a few times, when he brought it out to show to his guests. She always thought it was a thing of beauty, small though it was. This, though, is something else.
She shrugs off her blankets and kneels down beside the priest, peering over his shoulder as with light fingers he opens the cover. A figure that she guesses must be Christ stares back at her from the page, enrobed in flowing garments with a halo of gold behind his head. And there are letters, row upon row of thick ink curls. She has no idea what they mean, but there are lots of them: little ones in long rows, and larger ones too, intertwined with vines and whorls and flowers in bright colours. Reds, like splashes of blood. Greens, as dark as the leaves of the yew outside the church at home. Blues, thick and murky, like the sky just before dawn.
‘What does it say?’ she asks.
‘Well, this part here is only the dedication and the preface. The rest of it, though, is Scripture: the first six books of the Holy Bible. They tell of the world’s beginning and the law that God laid down for his people, and of the journey to the Promised Land.’
He turns the leaves slowly, each one filled with writing, neatly laid out, with even spaces between each line, like the ridges and furrows in a field. She can’t imagine how long it must have taken for a scribe to copy out all those letters. There are pages and pages of them: a stack, thicker than her fist, of crinkled, yellowed vellum.
Merewyn asks, ‘How much is it worth?’
‘Oh, more than you could imagine.’
‘So,’ Beorn says, ‘you stole it and now you feel remorse. Is that it?’
‘Beorn!’ Merewyn scolds. ‘How can you accuse him of such a thing? He’s a man of God.’
‘What does that have to do with it?’
Guthred says, ‘How it came into my possession is a shameful tale.’
‘So you admit it. You’re a thief.’
‘No, I’m not. Well, I was, but all that’s behind me now. It’s complicated.’
‘Which is it? Yes or no?’
‘Look,’ the priest says angrily, almost in tears. ‘I saved it. I, Guthred. If it weren’t for me, this book and everything else would be in the hands of soulless fiends, enemies of God. I couldn’t let them have it, I couldn’t.’
Hurriedly he closes the covers and sets about wrapping the tome back inside the linen sheet.