Blue Eyes in the Darkness
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I remember still the day Ragnar took me, the day my world changed. Before Ragnar, before the black raven banners, before the Vikings, I knew peace. My world was only prayer and books and quiet contemplation, chores and more prayer, in service to God and the Abbot of my order. Until they came. Thunder rumbled across the waters and the wind was so fierce that some of my brother monks believed that the End of Days was upon us. And in a way it was.
His eyes were feverish bright, a haunting illumination shining out of his Heathen face. There was a cleverness in those blue eyes, a calculating quickness, and also a strange warmth behind the fierceness.
He could've have kill me. He did hold a dagger to my throat as he demanded to know how I spoke their language, and why of all the treasures in our temple I choose to save a book.
"Because without the word of God, there is only darkness."
He was a Pagan, a Heathen, and he lived in darkness. And yet from the moment I saw those bright eyes lit with blue fire, I yearned to see what lay in that darkness.
And so I was taken across the vast sea, to this strange land with strange customs and stranger Gods. I was no longer a free man, I was a thrall, a slave. Property. When the Earl allowed Ragnar's crew to choose one thing each from the spoils of the raid on my monastery, I was relieved when Ragnar choose me. If I was to be merely property, I did not wish to belong to anyone else. I had glimpsed mercy in Ragnar's eyes, but not in his brother's.
And so he brought me home to met his family. Lagertha was unlike any woman I had ever met. Shieldmaiden, farmer, wife. Warrior, mother. Far fiercer than a Saxon woman and strong as any man I have ever known. I came to love my new master's children, Björn and Gyda, as if they were my own. I never had a family, besides the other monks. I should have felt alone here, in this foreign land where I was enslaved like the Jews in Egypt. Yet somehow, Ragnar, Lagertha and their children became my family.
I had to dispose of my cowl and robe my first winter here, as the weather is colder and far crueler than on the shores of England. The cold comes sooner and bites deeper than in Northumbria. The first time I changed into old woolen clothes of Ragnar's – clothes which carried his smell still – Lagertha stole my priest's robe and burnt it. Years passed and my hair grew, so that I no longer was marked out as a monk in service to the One True God. The cross I wore under my tunic became the last reminder of my past life. Torstein called me "Priest" affectionately until the day he died, even after he had accepted me as Viking. Floki still calls me the same, although from his mouth it has the flavor of insult.
Yet it was not only the people of this savage land that I have come to love, for I have offered my worship to both Jesus Christ and to Odin the Allfather. I have seen the Pagan Gods of these lands with my own eyes, I have heard Thor in the sky and seen the sparks fly from His hammer. I have eaten of the food of the Gods and danced naked around the fires. I remember with perfect clarity when Leif offered himself in my place on the altar at Uppsala, when his sacrificial blood redeemed my imperfect faith. Before I worshiped the blood of the Lamb of God, and all good Christians acknowledge Jesus as the sacrifice in our place. Is it so different to see that sacrifice enacted, when willing Pagan men and women offer themselves up to please their Gods, willingly spilling their lifeblood on the altar? Perhaps it takes a greater faith than that of a Christian's, to offer yourself up as the sacrifice of the Lamb. I have seen the faith of the Heathens, and I cannot name it as impure.
The day that Ragnar gave me an arm ring was the proudest day of my life. When I went with him back to England, I did not hesitate when battle came. I did not see the Saxon soldiers as my brothers anymore. I saw only threats to Ragnar. When the battle raged around around me, I felt alive as I never had before. On the threshold of life and death, I met myself in battle, and I made my choice. I choose him.
Ragnar had to return to Kattegat, when news reached us that Jarl Borg had taken his home and hunted his wife and children. I stayed behind with King Horik in an attempt to negotiate a peace with the English, my former countrymen. When I watched Ragnar sail away, I felt my heart go with him. But I felt the need to prove myself useful as a free man, as a Viking, to these people who now meant so much to me, to Ragnar's people.
Ecbert treacherously attacked us under a flag of peace and slaughtered all of my comrades. It was un-Viking of me to surrender. I know this. If I were truly one of the Heathens, I would have died in battle, ax in hand, and trusted that Odin would take me to Valhalla. Yet I could not find it in myself to do so. I wanted to live, at any cost. I wanted to see Ragnar again.
So I assimilated again, going through the motions, behaving in ways familiar and yet foreign to me after so long. In Kattegat I had been a stranger, and here in Wessex I was a stranger again. I was too Christian for the Pagans, but now I was too Pagan for the Christians. It seems there is nowhere that I truly belong. I lived at the court of King Ecbert until the Northmen returned to Wessex's shores, and I was overjoyed. When I was given the choice, I choose to go home with Ragnar. I will always choose Ragnar.
As the returning warriors streamed into the longhouse, Aslaug flitted about, greeting them, playing the good hostess. "Good to see you, my friends. Welcome home, all of you, and thank the Gods." When she spotted me, a note of surprise entered her voice. "And you, you came back!" I merely nodded, smiling warmly. "I did. I came back because you and Ragnar, all of you, are my family."
I am not of this place, and yet somehow I have become one of it's sons. I am neither truly Pagan nor truly Christian. I do not truly know what I am anymore. I only know that it is two brilliant blue eyes that illuminate my way through the darkness.
I am a free man now. But I will always be Ragnar's.