Byzantium

I relayed the answer to the abbot, who professed himself well pleased, and at once led the whole body of monks and Danes out from the monastery and down the path to the stream where we often bathed. There, Fraoch put off his robe and strode into the water in his mantle; in order to act as translator for the proceedings, I was required to join him. He called Gunnar into the water, saying, "Let him who would rise with Christ also die with him."

Putting off his clothes, Gunnar stepped into the stream and waded to where we stood. The abbot asked him the three needful questions: Do you renounce evil? Do you embrace Christ? Will you remain his faithful servant until the end of your life?

To each of these Gunnar answered a resounding HEYA! Whereupon we took him by the arms and laid him down in the water and raised him up again into the new life of faith. The abbot took his vial of holy oil and made the sign of the cross on Gunnar's forehead, saying, "I sign you with the cross of Christ, now and henceforth your lord, redeemer and friend. Go forth, Gunnar Warhammer, and live to God's glory by the light that is in you."

Gunnar embraced me and the abbot both, thanked us, and went up out of the stream rejoicing. He was then given a new white mantle to wear and welcomed by the monks of the abbey as a brother in Christ; then, taken with the wonder of the moment, the brothers began singing to him the baptism blessing:

Pour down upon him thy grace, Everliving;

Give to him virtue and growth,

Give to him strength and guidance,

Give to him faith and loving kindness,

That he may stand in thy presence happy

for ever and ever and three times for ever.

Amen!

The entire ritual so impressed the watching Sea Wolves that they all threw off their clothes and clambered into the water to be baptized, too. Harald demanded to be next, and was accorded this honour by the abbot, who summoned Ruadh and Cellach, and some of the others to help. The ceremony occupied us well into the day, and when we gathered at twilight for the Passion Day vespers, it was with the addition of thirty new converts. I translated the words of the prayers and the psalms for them, and they professed to find it all very pleasant, even enjoyable.

Throughout the evening meal, and the whole of the next day I was made to explain what it all meant as the neophyte Christians wanted to know if they would be invincible in battle now, and forever lucky in all their dealings.

"No," I told them. "Indeed, it is the other way entirely. If my life is any example, then you will be supremely unlucky and forever vulnerable to every harm under heaven."

The thought sat ill with me, I believe, for I found it hard to sleep and could get no rest for thrashing about on my bed. Some little while before dawn I woke, rose, and left my cell to find that the abbey had vanished in the night. All around me I could see a featureless expanse stretching in every direction flat to the horizon, without feature, without colour, with neither hill, nor rock, nor tree-a desert place of howling wind and bone-aching emptiness.

What has happened to the abbey? I wondered. Where has everyone gone?

Even as I struggled to comprehend the enormity of this disaster, I heard high above me the sound of an eagle crying as it flew. I raised my eyes and saw, soaring alone in the empty sky, the great bird, wings outstretched, keen eyes searching for a place to rest.

Suddenly, I was with that eagle, looking, longing for a place to rest. On and on, searching and searching, but never finding; over wilderness and wasteland the bird soared with only the sound of the wind's dull whine through wide-spread feathertips for company. I felt the bone-aching weariness dragging on those broad wings as they swept the empty sky, but still that wonderful bird flew on, vistas of emptiness on every side, and never a resting place to be found.

Then, even as those great, good wings faltered, I glimpsed, far away to the east, the faint ruddy glow of the sun rising above the world-cloaking mist. Higher and higher rose the sun, growing gradually brighter, shining like red-gold in the fireglow of heaven's forge.

My eyes were dazzled by the radiance of the sun; I could not bear the sight and had to look away. When I looked back, however, wonder of wonders! It was no longer the sun rising up, but an enormous, gleaming city, arrayed on seven hills: Constantinople-but as I had never seen it, alive with a brilliance of wonders: towers, domes, basilicas, bridges, triumphal arches, churches, and palaces-all of them glittering and gleaming. Each hilltop glowed with perfect splendour, radiant with the light of its own beauty, illumined by the twin fires of faith and holiness: Byzantium, the City of Gold, sparkling like a treasure of unsurpassed magnificence.