Chapter Five
The evening light was sweet. Now that
June was here, the scurvy grass was in full flower, masses of it
carpeting the rocks and turf along the shoreline. Scattered sea
thrift broke its fragrant snowdrifts with taller pink blossoms that
danced in the wind. The combined scents, blowing in on a warm
sunset breeze, washed over Cai where he sat on a bench outside the
armoury. Cai set down the axe he had been polishing and leaned
back.
He could pretend, here in the last
light, that all was well. The armoury was just a barn. Its
sandstone blocks had soaked up a day’s worth of heat, radiating out
now against Cai’s spine. The tide was low, the spur of sand that
led to the islets exposed. There, beyond the bright green
mermaid’s-hair kelp and the stones that sometimes yielded tiny,
intriguing beads Theo had called sea-lily stems, the first monks of
Fara had made their homes. Traces were still to be seen of their
cells, not rooms in a dormitory hall but individual huts made out
of stone, each one shaped like a beehive. Cai had thought his own
life at the monastery tough, after the relative riches of his
father’s court, but these first comers—holy men from Hibernia and
the far west of Scotia—must have existed on little more than
seaweed and blind faith.
No, perhaps not blind. There was a
peace and sense of purpose on this shore. The Hibernian saints had
come here of their own free will, without an abbot or a settled
Church to guide them, and here they had lived out their lives,
listening to God’s word on the wind and the water. A hermit’s cave
remained there still, marked by a poignant, plain wooden cross.
Theo, too lively and sociable a creature to withstand a hermit’s
life, had spoken with a kind of longing admiration of these men
even while he prepared his brethren’s next lesson in astronomy or
physics.
Music joined the flower scents and
skeined itself through them on the breeze. Cai closed his eyes. In
this world where all was well, his brothers were singing. The
church walls were finished, new timbers arching over the space they
enclosed. The work of thatching would take longer, so the voices
rose unfettered, a rich chant for vespers. Laban, Aelfric’s
grim-faced deputy, concealed a pure tenor inside his scrawny chest
and an unexpected gift for teaching the ragbag voices of Fara to
join in harmoniously with it. The labours of the fields were
disrupted, brethren running everywhere in their attempts to keep up
with the new routine of Hours, but in spring it could almost be
done, and Cai had to admit the music was lovely. Leof would have
delighted in it.
He allowed himself to drift, imagining
he could pick out Leof’s clear note from the mingled voices. He had
been up since dawn. The infirmary was clear of all but the most
serious cases from the battle a fortnight before, but John required
constant attendance, and the Viking, after his wild declarations of
princedom and intended murder, had lapsed into a strange,
half-waking passivity, watching Cai’s movements about the
quarantine cell with dull, hooded eyes, accepting from him
spoonfuls of broth before turning his head aside. He hadn’t spoken
again, in Latin or his own language. Cai was beginning to think
he’d dreamed their exchange after that night of fever and
blood.
He tipped his head back against the
stone. As well as doctoring, he’d put in his duty shift as
shepherd, helped with the silage crop and carried out his daily
drill with the warrior brethren of Fara. At least this last was
getting easier. Now that they’d won a fight, his unlikely soldiers
trained with confidence as well as hope. They slashed and parried
in the ruined hall, and sang like angels for Laban. Wondering at
the strangeness of the world, Cai let go, weary nature having her
way with him.
He awoke in darkness. No one had
come looking for him, but no one would, not now. A figure coalesced
out of the gloom—Demetrios, collecting the fresh leaves of the
scurvy grass by light of the thin new moon, a trick Danan had
taught for capturing their freshness. Cai drew breath to greet him,
then changed his mind. Demetrios was pretending with great
sincerity not to have seen him. The Greek had been devoted to Theo.
So had Benedict and Oslaf. There wasn’t a soul within the whole of
Fara’s bounds who didn’t have cause to detest the
vikingr—and equal reason to mistrust the man who had brought one
into their midst, healed him and harboured him there. They took
their fighting orders from Cai, did as he bade them on the training
ground, and left him afterwards without a word.
Cai didn’t blame them. Sometimes he
thought back to the night of Theo’s feast, the lights and the
chatter and the smallpipe music, and a slow ache of loneliness
would drag through him. Everything had changed since then. He lived
in a world of hard work and readiness to fight, not companionship
and learning. Even Aelfric was leaving him alone, just as he’d
asked, not harrying him over his haircut or his failure to turn up
nine times a day for prayers.
He watched Demetrios fade into the
dusk, his basket of herbs balanced on one hip. It was time he went
back in too. Oslaf took shifts in the ward, but he wouldn’t feed or
tend Fenrir. Cai had no idea why he did it himself.
Something clattered in the barn. Cai
bolted off the bench and stood rigid, staring into the darkness
beyond the open door. He’d thought nothing could scare him after
two Viking raids, but like most of his brethren he jumped like a
cat at sudden noises. Probably a sword had come down off its
makeshift rack. Gathering his robes so he could move in silence, he
eased into the barn.
There was just enough light, once his
eyes had adjusted. Quickly he worked his way along the racks and
shelves, checking that everything was in place. He kept the armoury
as orderly as his ward cabinets now, restlessly tidying and
cleaning after each drill. He needed to know he could run here and
lay hands on any weapon he chose, dole them out in proper order to
his fighting men. Nothing was on the floor. Hands outstretched, Cai
made a fingertip count of dagger hafts, shields,
longstaffs…
And came up one short on the swords.
He froze, listening intently. The barn had ventilation windows on
its landward side, high up in the wall but large enough to let a
man climb through. A tall, determined one, anyway. Blindly Cai
counted his broadsword handles again. Broc’s were all there, round
and crude from the hillfort’s smithy. So were the better ones the
monks had stripped from the bodies of the Vikings they’d killed.
The only one missing had a wolf’s-head bronze casting on its
hilt.
Cai ran. He didn’t try to follow the
intruder through the windows. A dash down the overgrown track that
edged the barn was quicker, if you didn’t mind nettle stings and
scratches from the brambles. Lamps were still burning in the
refectory. By their golden light, Cai made out a trail of crushed
vegetation leading straight up to the main hall’s southern
door.
The refectory was echoingly empty.
No—there was Eyulf, sieving flour for the morning’s bread, his face
as usual covered with white dust.
“Eyulf,” Cai called softly. “Have
you seen...” He remembered who he was talking to and shook his
head. “Never mind. Just go to the dormitory barn and make sure the
door is barred after you.”
He was turning away when Eyulf banged
on the table with his spoon. He got up from the bench, stood on his
tiptoes to make himself taller, drew down his brows in a terrible
scowl and took a couple of prowling steps forwards. Then he pointed
to the stairs.
At any other time, Cai would have
laughed. “Thank you. Leave your bread for now, all right? I’ll find
him.”
He should have rung the warning bell.
He could have had a dozen fighting men at his side in a minute,
helping him track down the rogue. Instead he padded softly down the
torchlit corridor that led to Aelfric’s office and the rooms where
the Canterbury men had established their base. No chance of those
high dignitaries bunking down with the brethren in the barn. Maybe
this was the night they would learn to regret their splendid
isolation. Maybe they had already learned. Aelfric allowed only one
torch to burn in each corridor, and only until the lights had
exhausted themselves and burned out. It was a good economy.
Cressets and lamp oil were lasting much longer at Fara these days,
and darkness shut down all reading and study at sunset, as
Aelfric’s God intended.
Cai slipped past Theo’s study, where
lights used to blaze in improvident splendour halfway through the
night. He rounded the corner into the narrow passageway beyond.
Empty, and the doors to the clerics’ cells intact, as far as he
could see…
Firelit shadows patched themselves
into the shape of a man. The Viking, naked but for a blanket he’d
hitched round his waist like a kilt, was leaning in a corner, his
back pressed to the wall. His sword was clutched in both hands. His
face was gaunt with pain, and Cai could count the hollows between
each rib. “Fenrir!”
The Viking’s head jerked up. He swung
to face Cai, raising the sword in a movement of practised,
murderous beauty. “This isn’t your business, physician,” he hissed.
“Go back to your ward.”
Cai strode to meet him, disregarding
the blade. The Viking was about to drop it anyway. He was ready to
fall. “You shouldn’t be out of your bed. What in God’s name are you
doing here?”
“I have come to slay the
scarecrow. My honour demands it. So should yours, but you are soft
and puny. I shall do it for us both.”
Cai grabbed him. He took the sword
from his hands before it could clatter onto the flags and wake the
whole corridor, got a steadying grip round his waist. “I’ll show
you how soft and puny I am in a minute, you stupid bastard.
Nobody’s going to do any slaying here tonight. Come with
me.”
“No. My flesh remembers his