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.

Oh, my determination had grown fierce in the harsh certainty of my predicament. All else-my life before, and, yes, ever after-was as nothing beside the hard grit of my new-found fortitude. If the decrees of happenchance required firmness, I would be a rock, a very fortress of resolve.

On the day the four longships sailed from Bjorvika, I hardened my heart to my new vocation: advisor to a marauding Sea Wolf whose gold-lust would consume the lives of many. Harald Bull-Roar meant to seize all he could set hand to, and his grasp was great indeed.

Whether King Harald's plan was madness itself, or pure cunning, could not, with any lasting satisfaction, be decided. Opinion swung all too readily both ways, and often vacillated from one extreme to the other depending on the day and the direction of the wind. When the wind howled cold and raw from the north, everyone grumbled that it was insane to leave the warmth and safety of the hearth so late in the season. When the sun shone fair and the breeze blew brisk from the west or south, they all agreed that no one would expect a raid so late in the season and that this fact alone would win them much plunder from the unsuspecting inhabitants of Miklagard.

Rain or sun, it was all the same to me. I maintained my place in the king's company, anticipating his next command, but keeping my distance. I did my duty, performing my service as a slave, but extending myself no further. If Harald's evil ambition was to be restrained, it would have to be by God's hand, not mine. I was that vessel made for destruction-that jar of promise, perfect from the master potter's hand, but marred in the kiln, and now deserving only to be crushed beneath his heel and cast away.

But God is good. He took pity on me and sent me friends to comfort me. Gunnar and Tolar, anxious to be forgiven five years' tribute, had decided to go to Miklagard after all; as their own lord, Ragnar Yellow Hair, refused to support the king's raiding scheme with either men or ships, they were given places aboard Harald's. This cheered me immensely, for I had missed them more than I knew. And since I was no longer Gunnar's slave, they treated me as one of their own.

We were but two days at sea and I was sitting near the stern with my back to the rail, soaking up a brief ray of sunshine near the end of a rain-riven day, when I heard a voice say, "You are looking sad, Aeddan."

"Am I?" I opened my eyes to see Gunnar, Tolar and another man standing before me. The stranger was tall and fair-haired, his ruddy face well-creased and his pale eyes cast into a permanent squint from gazing at the horizon in every kind of weather.

"You look as if you have lost your only friend," Gunnar said, pursuing his observation.

"I suppose it is because I am missing my nice dry bed in your barn. It is difficult to sleep on the bare board of a bouncing ship."