Read Part 1 of Vikings here.

The story continues...

*

Deorwine stands looking to the east at the longboat sailing slowly toward the island of Lindisfarne. Inside, I’m screaming, Run, run! But imprisoned inside his body, looking out through his eyes, I can only observe the events unfolding before me.

Absently, part of me thinks that this isn’t how I'd imagined it would be. Not the invasion itself—that is panning out exactly as I’d envisaged it. But experiencing it is a whole other matter. I’d thought it would be like watching it on TV—I am a fan of bloodthirsty historical movies and have sat and chomped my way through bags of popcorn while watching armies massacre each other on the screen. But of course these aren’t actors, and I’m not just watching, I’m in the thick of the action, and I can feel the way Deorwine’s heart has begun to pound, how his breathing has quickened.

I open my eyes. My heart is thudding at twice its normal speed. Half of me expects to see the white room, the panel of buttons at my fingertips, to feel the padded leather chair beneath me, and I prepare myself for the rush of disappointment I’m certain will follow.

Instead, I find myself seated on a low wooden bench at a large table. It’s quiet, surprisingly so considering there are about thirty other people in the room. They are all men, although some have mere fluff on their cheeks, and cannot be more than fourteen or fifteen years old. They are all dressed in long woollen tunics, dyed a patchy brown, and all of the older men have tonsures. The only person speaking is one man standing at the end of the room, reading from a book on a lectern. I would have recognized the Latin, even if the shell in my head hadn’t translated it—it’s from the Gospel of St. Mark.

“Et erat in deserto quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus et temptabatur a Satana eratque cum bestiis et angeli ministrabant illi.”

“And he was in the desert forty days and forty nights, and was tempted by Satan. And he was with beasts: and the angels ministered to him.”

I know monasticism owes its origins to Christ’s followers wishing to replicate His time alone in the desert. Clearly, the monk is reminding them why they have dedicated their lives to vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.