Crispin_ At the Edge of the World - Avi [61]
Eyes closed, Bear was broken and battered, with more than one bleeding wound. Rope-burn marks scored his neck. We tried to clean his face of blood and filth, but we had no water.
We did not talk. All we could do was stay close, both Troth and I holding Bear’s hands.
The clamor of the battle dwindled until we could hear no more. No one came to look for us. We remained alone.
Once—before it was completely dark—Bear opened his eyes. He looked at us, eyes full of tears. He tried to speak, but couldn’t.
“Don’t die, Bear,” I whispered. “In Jesus’s name, we need you.
And Troth said, “In Nerthus’s name, you must live.”
But sometime in the night—neither Troth nor I knew exactly when—Bear did die. At dawn, when we found him so, we wept.
We had only our hands to dig his grave into the red earth. He never seemed smaller in body than he was then. As for the grave, it was far too shallow, but it was the best we could do.
I made the best Christian prayer I could.
Troth lay her sprig of hawthorn over his heart.
Then we covered him with earth.
As I sat by his grave, I refused to think of him as dead, tried not to think that I had lost my real father. Instead, I made myself see him in my thoughts as he was that time after we had fled with Troth, when Bear and I danced and played in that wretched little town.
How fine it was to see Bear perform again! I could hardly keep from grinning even as I played. In truth, never were Bear and I more together than when I piped and he danced. Here was this great and powerful man, a giant to most, his beard aflame, his fleshy face ripe with life, his small eyes as bright as any lofty star, gamboling as if he were some two-day kid sprung new upon a dewy world. How light he was upon his feet, his arms beating the air like angel wings aflutter!
Though no man was ever more earthbound than my Bear, none seemed to leap more heavenward. In truth, Bear’s dance that time did not have the exuberance he had had before, and that lessening was sore poignant to my heart. But I had no doubt that God Himself, looking down, would not hold back His sweet smile at the sight of His cavorting, unchained Bear.
Oh, dear, great Bear in ragged tunic, whose soul fairly burst with the sheer joy of living, a breathing blessing to all who saw him, who bore a heart of loving grace, whose great hands would have gentled all the world if they but could—how I did adore him!
And since no mortal man can forgive sins, I took him as he was for all and all and ever would be.
Amen.
* * *
It was late of the morning, when Troth and I finally left Bear’s grave—unmarked save for our tears.
We did not look back.
I do not know how long we wandered, save we went aimlessly about the countryside, avoiding all dwellings, people, and towns, finding food as we might. We did not speak to another soul and hardly to one another. Sometimes there was rain. Sometimes there was sun. Day and night rolled their endless wheel. It was all one to me.
It was Troth, in time, who said, “Crispin, we must decide where to go.”
“Why?”
“We can’t wander forever.”
“Troth,” I cried, “I don’t know where to go.”
Then she said, “Do you remember that place Bear spoke of, that land where there are no armies, no governments, no wars?”
“The land of ice?”
She nodded. “Perhaps we should go there.”
“Troth, it may not even exist.”
“Aude would say—that’s why we should go.”
Perhaps I had wandered enough. Perhaps I could no longer be weary. Something in what Troth said had stirred me. I heard myself speak: “I know what Bear would say to such a notion.”
“What?”
“He’d laugh and then cry out, ‘Crispin, if that place doesn’t exist, we must make it so. Let it be as it may be!
And so it was that Troth and I, though weighted down by all that had happened, were guided by what Bear had told us: that freedom is not merely to be, but to choose. We chose to go to toward the edge of the world.
Wherever that might be.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While the story of Crispin; At the Edge of the World is fictional, it is