Chapter Ten
Full moon, midsummer—the Feast of St.
John, and a sweet, sultry darkness had come down at last. The sea
stirred restively, little white horses whispering to painless
destruction on the warm sands. Bronze wands of hypericum nodded in
shifts of night air too lazy to be called a breeze, the tiny glands
in their leaves glistening with oil. Great trumpets of bindweed
gaped their silent music, and silvery seedpods of honesty, their
skins already shrivelled after a fortnight of heat, gave the moon
back her light. In the spectral, shifting radiance, the so-called
abbot of Fara crouched by a stream, washing streaks of afterbirth
from his hands.
A lantern appeared briefly in a gap
between the dunes. Brother Hengist’s broad face shone beneath it,
grinning. On his hip he bore the grain sack for the night’s baking,
ten good loaves that would rise in the dark hours and be thrust, as
if into the fires of dawn, into the monastery oven at first light.
“Is all well, Abbot Cai?”
Cai plucked a water-lily root from the
streambed and lobbed it at him accurately, muddy end first. “Yes,
all’s well. Once there was one ox and now there are
three.”
“Nature is bountiful. Good
night, Abbot Cai.”
Another lily root, this time bouncing
harmlessly off the baker’s broad rump. Alone, Cai finished washing
his hands, then splashed water into his face for good measure.
“Abbot?” he said to the moon, who seemed to be expecting
conversation, her weary face attentive. “I’m not sure an abbot has
to doctor beasts as well as men. Or spend his day up to the hips in
mud before that, helping dig ditches and drains.”
“But you looked so fetching
while you were about it.”
Cai jumped. He tried to smooth the
reflex away but knew he failed. He didn’t look up—plunged his hands
into the stream again and watched smilingly as the water wove
patterns through his fingers. “How would you know? You were off
with Wilfrid.”
“The view is good from
those hills. A handsome soldier with his cassock hitched up and a
spade in his hand… A much finer sight than the goats.”
“I should hope so. But I
notice they fascinate you, whenever there’s work involving mud,
blood or innards to be done.”
“Abbot Cai, you’re a
false-tongued excuse for a Christian.”
A shadow fell over the water. Still
Cai didn’t look. It had become a complex pleasure to deny himself
the sight of his lover until the last instant. He didn’t want to
see too soon. He didn’t want Fen to know the changes seeing wrought
in him each time—the heat, the helpless flush. And Fen was right—he
was a liar. There wasn’t a single task the Viking had evaded since
their return from the sea. He had built walls, helped unblock the
channels that ran from the latrine, turned his hand to the dozens
of jobs where his strength and persistence had been
needed.
Fara was coming to life again. All the
daily work that had fallen into abeyance after the raids, set aside
through grief or lack of manpower… It wasn’t so hard, Cai had
discovered, to see where men should go and send them there. With
Fen at his side, he had even been able to do it, overcoming the
shame of giving orders to his friends. He had told
Aelfric—dispassionately, standing in the abbot’s study while the
old man looked at him like a snake—that the monks of Fara would
come to prayer when they could. That prayer in a field or a ditch
was as good as—better than, maybe—prayer in a church, under God’s
clear skies.
Aelfric had conceded. The brethren had
gone willingly to their work, their new leader amongst them, as
embroiled as they were in the labour and mud. Cai didn’t know how
Fen’s presence had made these things possible, but he felt the
Viking’s power like his own, like sunlight. They had seldom worked
together over the last two weeks. Fen could administrate a task as
well as carry it out, and had gone without Cai’s request to the
field where the new dormitory hall was rising, or tumbled drystone
walls being repaired. To Cai, their separation had been essential,
and Fen hadn’t questioned it. They were leading by example, and Cai
knew—as Leof had known, as even broadminded Theo had taught—that to
live as a monk in this church of Christ, a man ought to be
chaste.
They had barely touched one another.
Had spent their days apart, their nights in the communal hall. But
Fen was here now. “Yes,” Cai said softly, looking at him at last.
“I am a very poor Christian indeed.”
“How did your mother ox
fare?”
“Very messily. The twin was
a surprise. Would you like to see them?”
They made their way quietly back down
the track to the barn, pushing aside the long stalks of hypericum
as they passed. St. John’s wort, Danan called the plant, the power
of the ancient sun god disguised behind the name. As if the thought
had summoned her, there she was—far off on the seaward slope,
moving like a ghost through the moonlight. This was a fine night
for gathering herbs, she had taught—full moon, and the midsummer
tides of the earth at their height. The oil from the hypericum
leaves made a tonic that eased men’s griefs, caused the sun to
shine within them and disperse their sadness. She had a basket on
her arm. The moon lit up her cloud of white hair like a halo. Cai
wondered how Addy was, and if the old woman had lately brought him
mead, threading the legendary tunnels beneath the sea or sailing
the night air on her broom. Then Fen’s shoulder brushed his, and
all thoughts beyond the moment deserted him.
He’d left a lantern burning in the
barn, hung safely from a rafter while he worked. The ox dam had
taken hours about her labour, finally depositing one slithery
bundle into the straw, the second one coming so fast after it had
almost dropped into Cai’s hands. Now the pair were on their feet,
their eyes wide in the lamplight, their matching expressions of
astonishment so absolute that Cai began to laugh. “There they are.
One of each. The bull looks a bit like Eyulf.”
“Don’t wish that on him.”
Smiling, Fen went to look them over. Neither they nor their mother
flinched at his approach. His touch was careful, almost tender, as
he felt the little limbs, brushed drying afterbirth out of the
silky coats. Cai was surprised. Fen had liked Eldra, but she was a
war machine. His pleasure in these domestic young was
unforeseeable, so far a cry from the man who had wanted to slay
Addy that Cai struggled to fit the two images together in his
mind. You
don’t know him, his fading sense of self-preservation warned him.
Knowing should come
before love.
But it was too late for that
now.
Fen looked up. “Are you all
right?”
“Yes. Tired,
maybe.”
“They’re fine little
beasts. Shouldn’t she be up and feeding them?”
“Aye, that she should, the
lazy old girl.” Cai slapped the ox dam’s rump. She turned her
placid head in his direction but lay still, chomping serenely. “She
thinks she’s earned a rest. Come on, your ladyship.
Hup!”
Fen took hold of one great curving horn.
“You heard him, Dagsauga. On your feet.” Immediately the beast gave
a snort, spread her hooves on the packed-earth floor and lurched
upright. Her calves needed no second invitation, wobbling over on
uncertain legs, bumping bony brows against her udder.
“All right. What magic word
was that?”
“Just her name. All female
oxen are called Dagsauga in my country, or Smj?rbolli.” He paused
as if struggling for the Latin words, then said in Cai’s own
language, “Daisy. Buttercup.”
Cai gave a snort of laughter. “Viking
raiders call their oxen Buttercup?”
“No. Viking farmers. We
only raid in season, and then we tend our homes and crops, just as
you do. So that takes care of the little heifer. What are you
naming the bull?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.
He’s just a farm beast—he’ll go to market when he’s
weaned.”
“Still, you should name
him. It—”
“Yes, I know. It brings
down the spirit on him. Well, we’ll call him Yarrow, then, if that
isn’t too ordinary.”
“No. Very suitable.” Fen
gave Dagsauga an encouraging pat. Then he rested his hands on his
hips and looked around him into the barn’s golden shadows. “It’s
late. Will you be missed in church? Or the dormitory
hall?”
Why are you asking?
The words burned on
Cai’s tongue. He had kept his distance. Yes, he and Fen had been
busy, but there had been times, solitudes. Fen had made no move. It
was one thing, Cai supposed, to seize a man after a storm, or on a
wild island with no one to care for but the gulls. “No. I told
Aelfric I’d be out here all night, making sure the calves are safe.
And you?”
“I told him I was going out
to hunt.”
Cai swallowed. They both still
deferred to Aelfric, paid lip service to his authority, and so kept
within the terms of their uneasy truce. He wasn’t here now, and the
night—for both of them—was secured. “Hadn’t you better get on with
it, then?”
Fen raised one finely marked brow.
“With what?”
“With your hunt. While the
moon is still high.”
“Caius…”
It was low and soft, a plea not to be
teased further. Cai surrendered, letting go a breath. “Sorry. I
thought maybe we had to be shipwrecked first.”
“Everything’s changed here.
You’ve been busy. I didn’t wish to…disturb your
balance.”
“My balance?” Cai chuckled.
“What happened to the man who knocked me onto my arse in the
dunes?”
“Still here.”
“And offered to do to me
things I was stupid enough to refuse?”
“Still
offering.”
The barn was large, extending off
behind Dagsauga’s stall into deep, fragrant spaces. The year’s
first cut of hay was loosely piled and drying all around, muffling
footsteps to silence. Cai unhooked the lantern from the overhead
beam. He held it ahead of him and concentrated on that, on
following his own light. Lupine shadows leapt and crouched all
round him—some his own, others cast by the man moving noiselessly
behind him, and soon Cai couldn’t tell which was which, and fear
clashed with the arousal mounting inside him. Why was he afraid? He