Chapter Six #3
on the footboard, guiding her round in a wide arc. He saw Cai,
transferred the reins to one hand and raised the other in greeting.
“Come along, physician. I’ve just been warming her up for
you.”
Cai stumbled across the grass. He was
dreaming, surely. Fen trotted Eldra over to meet him and drew her
to a halt at his side. “Come on. Jump up.”
“No. God almighty, Fen—you
jump down. Quick, before somebody sees us.”
“Who? The
scarecrow?”
“Anyone, you idiot. I’ll be
killed for letting you do this.” Cai made to grab Eldra’s bridle,
but Fen edged her deftly out of his reach. “Besides, I have duties.
The infirmary, and…” He paused, listening, as a bell began to
clang. The tower was still in ruins, but Eyulf had learned how to
climb to the top of it and ring his refectory bell to summon the
brethren to prayer. “It’s time for terce.”
“Oh, more God-bothering… Do
you think he likes being woken up nine times a day by your
importunities? If they’re all in church, no one will see us
go.”
“Go where? I can’t just
leave. I can’t—”
Fen held out his hand. It was wide and
capable, and Cai knew the heat that coursed beneath its pale skin.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt that you’re needed here, even if you’ve started
to doubt it yourself. But you have to get away for now. Look at
you—hollows under your eyes, half the life drained out of you. A
gallop on the sands will set you right. And unlike you, I really
know how to drive this thing.”
Cai let Fen take his hand. He used it
for balance only, not wanting to pull at his patient’s healing
wound, and he leapt up onto the board. He took his position at the
rail next to Fen. “This is madness. I’ll be defrocked.”
“Defrocked…” Fen grinned
and gave the reins a shake so that Eldra trotted forwards out of
the paddock. “That would be a sight to see. Is that what happens
when you disgrace yourself beyond forgiveness?”
“Among other things. Fen,
you’d really better stop.”
“Once we’ve had a run. Did
you manage to console him—your friend with the ox?”
“Not much.”
“What ailed him? Why does
he think himself a worm and a sinner?”
Cai adjusted his grip on the rail. Fen
had the chariot going at a steady pace, as if they had all the time
in the world, covering the turf between the outer walls and the
long stretch of beach to the north. If this was madness, Cai
couldn’t deny that it was sweet to him—the sense of movement, the
rush of the salt wind. Of leaving everything behind. “Aelfric
preached us a sermon last night. About hellfire.”
“Hellfire? Ah, not that
again!”
Cai broke into laughter. He couldn’t
help himself—the fresh air, and Eldra’s lively shift from a trot to
a canter, shook his spirit loose. “What? Last night was the first I
ever heard of it. How does an infidel Viking raider
know?”
“That slave monk of
Sigurd’s. The one who taught me Latin… He used to rant about the
eternal torments of hell that awaited us infidels.”
“Well, I’m sure you gave
him good reason.”
“We thought at first he
meant our goddess Hel, or the Hel river to the underworld. When we
understood him at last, we laughed at him. As if any god—or even
your Christian devil—would spend all eternity spiking mere humans
with forks, or burning them on fires.”
“I suppose the arrangements
for your damned souls are far better.”
“Oh, we have our Underworld. It
is called Helheim—the house of Goddess Hel, and so you Christians
haven’t even come up with an original name for the place. I am not
sure that we have damned souls, though. Only those unfortunate
enough not to die a hero’s death in battle.” Fen snapped Eldra’s
reins, and she picked up speed, neatly rounding an outcrop of
rocks. “The rest of us gallop straight across Bifrost, the rainbow
bridge into Valhalla. So no fears of the afterlife trouble
our
hearts,
monk.”
“I should’ve let you talk
to Ben. I brought him little enough comfort.”
“Ah, half of it depends
upon the man. You heard the same sermon, and you are not on your
knees weeping over your sins. Are you?”
No. Cai was bolt upright, his spine
straight. He could see for miles, and he felt fine. “Maybe I ought
to be.”
“Nonsense. Die on the
battlefield—you seem fond enough of fighting—and you too might fly
to Valhalla. I’m sure Thor will overlook the skirt.”
Cai didn’t point out that two sets of
skirts would have to be overlooked at present. Fen was beaming,
thoroughly pleased with his joke and his spiritual prospects. Cai
let him get on with it. Somebody around here should be happy. And
Cai could see the virtues of the warrior’s way. It didn’t have to
be the same as Broc’s, low and dirty, though Broc had shown him
enough of it to give him the skills. Speaking of which… “Who says I
can’t drive this thing?”
“I didn’t. I just said I
would do it better.”
“And what makes you think
so?”
“I have to do it better
than a monk. You’re free to prove me wrong.”
Fen offered him the reins with
exaggerated courtesy. Cai stepped into the place he’d conceded. The
leather was warm and smooth where Fen had held it, Eldra’s mouth a
willing, vigorous tug on the bit. Instinctively Cai adjusted his
grip so he wouldn’t restrict her. He leaned forwards over the rim.
“Go on, girl,” he called, paying her out a little more rein. “Go
on!”
Fen had left him with the easy part.
The rocks and the turf were behind them, the beach ahead. The tide
was out, the sand hard-packed and firm. Eldra stretched her pace
out to a battlefield gallop and took off.
It was a beautiful run. Eldra, sturdy
and tireless, flew across the strand. Cai straightened her out
along the water’s edge, so that her hooves sent up explosions of
spray. The chariot wheel hit a stone, jouncing the carriage, and
Fen yelled with laughter and slung an arm around Cai’s waist,
steadying himself, securing them both.
He didn’t take the arm away when they
were running smooth again. Cai didn’t question the continued
embrace. It felt right, to be pelting through the hoofbeat thunder
with a brother warrior’s hold on him. Doubts and tormented thoughts
dropped away from him. He drew deep breaths of the rich air. Spray
and sand stung his face, and he drove Eldra on, faster and faster.
He was pinned from the waist down between the chariot’s rail and
Fen’s warm, whipcord frame. The rhythmic jolting made his flesh
begin to ache, a yearning like music, like the relief of tears. He
was still alive, wasn’t he? No matter how hard he’d wished himself
buried under the hawthorns at Leof’s side, here he was. Energy
surged in him.
“Still think you can do
better, then?”
“I don’t want to try. I’ll
just watch you.”
Cai sent Eldra flying out along the
strand. Here, if he’d wished, he could have galloped for hours—the
sea margin ran flat and golden-white all the way to Berewic in the
north, a great, long, welcoming smile of a place, now at this pitch
of late spring nothing but wide, empty beauty, singing to him from
the sky. He wasn’t sure what impulse made him turn the horse’s head
a little inland, so that her hooves struck softer sand, the drag on
the wheels slowing the chariot up. The dunes were tall here. Their
crescents echoed the crescent of the great bay, music in shapes and
forms. When Eldra tore along their edges, following their curve,
she and Cai and Fen were part of the music too. This conviction
seeped into Cai’s blood, and he eased back on the reins to listen.
Oh, it was like the sea bells, only deeper,
overwhelming…
“Had enough,
monk?”
No. Cai was quite sure that he hadn’t
had enough—not of anything. He was young. He’d barely had a chance
to set his lips to life’s cup, and he was hungry and thirsty in a
hundred ways at once. Ignoring Fen’s laughter and tightening grip
round his waist, he drew Eldra to a trot, and then a sweaty,
snorting standstill. He hitched the reins to the rail. You never
left your horse loose, no matter what tides were rising inside you.
Beyond that, Cai’s thought systems failed him. His mind was a
dazzled blank when he turned, eyes closed, mouth opening like a
rose, into Fen’s arms.
Fen grunted, as if despite everything,
this had surprised him. It was only for a heartbeat. He seized Cai
hard. He closed his hand on Cai’s throat and jaw, tight enough to
send a splash of fear into Cai’s arousal, and stilled him with a
grip to the back of his skull. Their mouths met in hot, salt-rimed
impact. Cai groaned, pushing back at him, shoving off the chariot
rail to meet him. He wanted to kill him, devour him, pounce with
him into the sand, wolf to wolf. Violent images flashed through his
mind, cravings and needs he’d never come close to feeling when he’d
gone and lain down in the dunes with…
With Leof. Oh, God. Cai tore back, so
hard that Fen’s restraining grip on him almost cracked his ribs.
“Stop. Let me go.”
“What? You’re stiff as a
spear.”
“I know. But I
can’t—”
Fen released him. Cai was briefly
relieved—disappointed—but only long enough for Fen to leap down off
the board and hold up one imperious hand to him. “You can. Come
here, monk. Do as you’re bidden.”
Cai sprang down. “Do as
you’re bidden?” he echoed incredulously. He knocked aside Fen’s grasp
and seized the front of the raider’s cassock. “Who the devil do you
think you are?”
“A prince of the Torleik
Danes,” Fen informed him. “I honour you with my touch.” Cai tried
to punch him to show how honoured he felt, but Fen didn’t blink,
catching his fist in midair. “I am not like some of my kind, who
rape the Saxon peasants in their huts. I will lie only with my
equal.”
“Whether he likes it or
not?”
“A prince in his own land, and…”
For the first time Fen’s voice faltered. “And a fine man who has
healed me. Besides, he will like it.”
Cai crashed down with him into the
sand of the dunes. Only one sea-grass ridge shielded them, but no
one came out here. They were alone in the sight of God, a god Cai
knew from the marrow of his bones did not send men to hell for