Chapter Thirteen #2
the force of his recovery that the strike had told. He pounced back
at Cai with battlefield violence. Their weapons clashed again. An
equal strength, Cai would have sworn, and yet in the moment when
his own would have run out, there it was—the simultaneous melting
of Fen’s.
“Don’t you hold back on
me!” Cai ordered, slipping out from under the lock.
“Do you think I would
dishonour myself?”
Cai grunted under the impact of
a new attack. “You might try not to dishonour me. Fight me! I have to know.”
“What? You’ve already faced
me in battle.”
And run you through.
Cai missed his next
thrust entirely and almost fell. “Not a fair fight. An ambush in
the dark.”
“The best way to deal with
my kind, I promise you.”
“Don’t…” Whipping round, Cai
blocked three rapid feints. He did it well, but the fourth
brought Blóekraftr’s tip to his throat, and he froze, gasping.
“Don’t what,
monk?”
“Call yourself that.
My
kind.”
“Don’t tell me with one
breath to be what I am, and with the next forbid it.”
Up on the wall, Eyulf uttered a long,
dismal groan. Instantly Fen put up his sword. Cai swallowed. A
delicate stinging told him the blade had just broken his skin.
Marcus had leapt up onto the remains of a parapet and was gazing
off to the horizon, shielding his eyes against the sun.
“Marcus,” Cai called, not
taking his gaze off Fen’s. “What can you see?”
“I’m not certain. There’s a
fret, and… Wait. I see sails.”
“What shape are they? How
many?”
“Square. Five. No, seven.
No—oh, Domine adiuva me…”
“Marcus?”
“Yes?”
“If you see more than
seven, kindly keep it to yourself.”
Marcus remained silent. Cai
straightened up. He sheathed his sword and turned to the
white-faced men dropping their drill postures and looking out to
sea. “Brethren of Fara!” One by one they fixed their attention upon
him. He felt it like separate weights, barbs sinking into his
flesh. “How many times have we seen Viking fleets on their way to
the fishing grounds north of here? And even if it isn’t so—even if
they’re bound for shore—it’s broad daylight, and they’re a long way
out. When have we ever had this much warning? Every man here knows
his task.” No one stirred a muscle. Eyes fixed unblinkingly on him,
as if he on his own could make the nightmare disperse. “What’s
wrong with you? Come on!”
Fen touched his shoulder. The caress
was hidden, warm, the press of a palm to his spine. “Fear wipes
men’s minds,” he said softly. “Fear can drag them to hell even
faster than Aelfric would want.”
Cai took one long breath. “Wilfrid,”
he began, if not with kindness, then calmly at least. “Don’t be
afraid. You know the men appointed to you. Take them now, and herd
the goats and the sheep into the caves at the foot of the cliffs.
Gareth, you and Cedric tell the villagers to do the same, then help
them pack what they can carry and send them on their way inland.
They should head towards Traprain Law—my father might take them in,
if worst comes to worst. Hengist, have your men carry all our
grain, our fruit and salted meat into the cellars. And you, Marcus,
stop gawping and do as you’ve rehearsed—gather all our weapons at
the armoury and see they’re clean and ready. Well, what are you
waiting for? Go!”
They turned and filed out. Even Eyulf
knew his place in this emergency and ran off after Hengist to help
carry the grain. Cai looked after them. There was order and purpose
in their departure. He didn’t fool himself that it weighed in the
balance against seven or more Viking sails—the fret had closed in
now, sealing him off from the truth—but he’d done what he could. In
the silence of the drill yard, the sea wind moaned. “I’ll go and
fetch Dagsauga and the ox calves. If I set off with them now, I
might get them to safe pasture by dusk. Do you think Eldra will be
of any use to us?”
“In a foot battle? No. I
could do some damage, but they’d cut her out from under
me.”
Oh, you assume you’d be
riding? But
there was no point in challenging Fen’s arrogance there, not having
been on the receiving end of those battlefield horsemanship skills.
“I don’t want to use her like that.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then can you take her out
to the fields beyond the Coldstream ford—you know, the place where
we…”
“Er, yes.”
“And take the farm ponies
on leading reins. The further we spread our assets
around…”
“Yes. And yes, I will come
back.”
Cai flinched. “I never asked
that.”
Fen stepped up close to him. He
brushed one fingertip across the tiny cut on Cai’s throat, then
passionately took his face between his hands. “Your eyes ask it.
Your bloody beautiful mouth asks, in all the words you don’t say,
every time you look at me. Caius—you and your brethren took me in.
You saved my life. You could have tied me up in a wickerwork boat
and shoved me out to sea, but you didn’t. You gave me food,
clothing, work to do. My own kind abandoned me. Who am I going to
fight for, if these sails don’t pass by?”
Cai unfastened his sword belt. He
couldn’t bear the dragging weight of it round his hips. He
struggled out of it and dropped it on the turf. He’d have torn a
strip off another man for treating his weapon so, but he was blind
with tears. He had cut Fen too—a thin red line across his cheek
only now starting to bleed. He leaned his brow against Fen’s, and
Fen took hold of the hair at his nape and held him strongly. The
wind spiralled up from the cliffs—a raider’s wind, inshore, rich
with scents of autumn. It vortexed around them where they stood
motionless, a season’s first leaf-fall blowing in its
wings.