She wishes Thorvald were here with them now. He’d know what to say, how to give them comfort, how to assure them that things would be all right. Of everyone at Heldeby, he’s the one she misses most. Kindly, patient, white-haired Thorvald, who hardly raised his voice nor uttered a harsh word nor spoke ill of anyone, who was always willing to give his time to listen and offer his wisdom and advice to anyone who asked it, even though, as he often said, his own time was growing short.
He’d never have consorted with robbers. The mere thought would have sickened him. He’d never have lied to and cheated humble country folk, full knowing what he was doing, for the sake of a few coins. He’d never have drunk so much that he couldn’t rise the next morning. Even at Christmas, when there was barrel upon barrel of mead and wine – enough for every cottar and slave to drink his fill – barely half a cup passed his lips. A delicate stomach was the reason, he said, though she always suspected it was more than that.
But then there are few in the world like Thorvald. And who is she to be passing judgement, anyway? It’s not like she is a model of virtue, given some of the things she has done. Things she would rather forget. Is she any better than Guthred, really? Will God see her any differently, when the time comes?
He’s supposed to be better than that, though. He’s supposed to be an example to others.
But he hasn’t finished yet, and she senses there’s worse to come.
*
Would it have made any difference if they’d come back with my ransom? Would I have changed my mind? Maybe. I don’t know.
But the fact is they didn’t. Was I surprised? Not really. I think my students were probably almost as glad to see the back of me as I was of them. Who knows what they told the dean and his canons when they arrived back at Rypum? Maybe they decided it would be easier to say we’d been ambushed and I’d been killed. Or maybe they told the dean exactly what happened, but he simply didn’t think my life was worth wasting any silver on.
Either way, it was clear they didn’t want me back. They didn’t care what happened to me. They would rather I was martyred than see my safe return. They’d washed their hands of me, and so I washed my hands of them in return. I burned my robes, broke the arms off my wooden cross and snapped the shaft in two and tossed the pieces in a river.
This one? Stolen. Like almost everything else, it doesn’t belong to me. But I’m coming to that.
God have mercy on me. I turned my back on him completely, renounced everything I’d ever been taught, everything I was supposed to uphold. It was like a madness had come over me, a thick fog that descended over my mind, darkening my thoughts and making it impossible to see the light.
It seems now like some terrible dream. I only wish it were.
Why they ever accepted me into their band, I’ll never know. I think Wulfnoth came to some agreement with them that, provided I dirtied my hands like everyone else, they’d tolerate me, but that if I ever caused any problems they’d get rid of me the first chance they got. That wouldn’t surprise me. My only ally at first was Wulfnoth himself; it wasn’t until a couple of weeks had passed that the others started speaking to me. Like you, they found it hard to believe that a churchman would abandon his faith so readily. They didn’t understand, and because they didn’t understand they didn’t trust me. Eventually they did, but it took some time.
We moved around a lot in those first few weeks, as winter set in. We had to, for there were other bands like us prowling the hills, most of them more numerous and better armed than us, Wulfnoth said, which meant we had to be always on our guard. The others, they all slept with one hand on their knife hilts, although I hardly ever saw them use their blades. They weren’t warriors, you understand, only wretched folk whom life had ill treated. There was Sihtric, whose lord had thrown him off his land when he lost his hand and could no longer work as hard. There was the she-wolf, Gytha, who had fled the beatings and worse delivered by her husband. There were the brothers Cudda and Cuffa, former slaves who had run away, and Halfdan, who was deaf and dumb and communicated with the others by way of complicated hand signals that I never did understand.