The Snow on the Cross by Brian Fitts

would kill me every day I was there.  At night he would
play bizarre tricks on me, such as rattling against my windows to awaken me, or
throwing stones at my door.  Once I returned to my church to find the wooden
cross that had been hanging down from the rafters flipped over and around, so
that the top was pointing down.  Although I never saw Eirik do these things, I
knew he was responsible.   I scratched every detail onto my page, and the sound
of the quill soothed me and reminded me of Le Mans .

Chapter Six
    The Hunt
     
    Malyn began visiting me often in my
church.  I think I reminded her of her homeland, and she felt a kinship with
me.  I welcomed her company, for I was growing tired of my solitude.  For the
first month of my stay in Greenland , she
was the only person who seemed to desire any contact with me.  The men, Eirik
included, left me in peace, for which I was thankful to God.  I would watch
them coming to and from Brattahild, sometimes carrying large sacks, sometimes
wheeling large carts back and forth.  The carts held goods the traders had left
along the docks, and the men would always trek up the hills to show Eirik their
wares.  Sometimes, the carts were rolled down to where the other homes were and
the spoils were divided out among the men there.
    This was fairly uninteresting
activity, but I recorded it as I watched.  The simple act of recording things I
saw gave me a familiar feeling of my old life, and Malyn would sometimes sit
and look at my pages and pages of marks.  She admired my strong handwriting,
and sometimes I would read to her what I had written that day.  Since I had
arrived here, I had lost track of the days, so the pages were simply numbered. 
This is what I read to Malyn one day after Eirik had left his home and she had
come down to see me and bring me breakfast.
    “ Midday . 
Today four carts were brought into the fenced area of Brattahild.  Five men,
whom I had not recognized, began taking the large sacks off the carts and
throwing the seed on the ground.  I believe it was corn they were pouring out,
for the beasts who lumbered in the fields ambled towards them, snorting and
huffing.”
    I wrote many pages of these
observations that are best not to be repeated here among this writing.  I tell
this now only to show the mundane that occupied my day.  It was an accurate
record of events, and God allows me to write the truth then as now.  Malyn
seemed more interested when I read to her than reading it herself.  I was
reminded of a child who delights in stories before bedtime to fill them with
fantastical dreams.
    “Eirik is going to the north,” Malyn
told me one day as I sat and wrote.  She was sitting by the fire and casually
throwing bits of twigs into the flame.  “He is taking fifteen men with him.  He
told me he wants you to go with him as well.”
    I was surprised, for, as I have said,
Eirik seemed to have no interest in me, except perhaps leading me into the
wastelands and using me as bait for his prey.
    “Hmmm,” I murmured, trying not to
seem interested.  I simply sat and wrote, “Today Eirik the Red invited me to go
with him to the North.”
    I stopped writing.  “Why?”
    “The herds are beginning their
migrations,” Malyn explained.  “Eirik always plans a hunt to store meat for the
colder seasons.  This is the time the herds are the fattest.  When the snows
come, they will scatter, and their food will be scarce.”
    “Interesting,” I told her.  I wrote
down the tale of the beasts’ migratory patterns, and my quill began a rhythmic
scratching as I did so.
    “Will you go?” she asked. 
    I avoided answering her for the
moment and instead asked, “What do you call these herds?  Are they deer?”
    “Eirik calls them hreinndyr,” she
told me.   “Will you go?”
    I wrote the word down on my
parchment, but my spelling was probably incorrect.  I ended up writing the word
down as it sounded to me: reindeer.
    “No,” I finally