Chapter Eighteen #3
around him. “No. I’ve been ill, that’s all. I was wounded in the
last raid.”
“You took a blade?”
The old
sod sounded more delighted than concerned. Still, his arm was warm,
and as he had pointed out to Cai, he had never pretended to be
other than he was. “Yes, a sword. Right through my
side.”
“That’s a brave lad! Let me see the mark of it.”
“Not here. I’d have to hitch up my robes too high, and that’s
unbecoming…”
“In the house of God.” Broc snorted. “I’m sure old Martius and
Cernunnos wouldn’t faint to see your tackle. Never mind. Look at
what that bastard Bren did to me in the last cattle
raid!”
He pulled open the neck of his tunic, and Cai saw a livid scar
snaking up his throat. He gave a low whistle. “You were lucky. That
one missed your carotid by an inch.” Broc beamed as if he’d been
given a gift, and Cai remembered he had marks of battle he
could show without
getting undressed. “A Viking I was fighting slashed my arm.
Look.”
Broc whistled in his turn. “That must
have gone to the bone.”
“Near enough. And here,
where I fell from the scriptorium onto the rocks.”
“I can see grit in it
still. This is where Edulf lobbed a javelin at me. That was a grand
battle.” Broc rolled down his sleeve and sat nodding in
satisfaction at the memories for a moment. “Next time you’re
troubled with raiders, you should remember that I can raise an
army. I have enemies all over these hills. They’d just as soon
fight Vikings as fight me.”
An army… Cai hid a smile. That would
be Broc himself in a chariot, and a handful of old-timers like
himself on ponies. “Thank you. But I’m not sure if I’d stand up to
another raid. We’ve lost so many men, and our best warrior is… He
had to leave.”
“That damn Viking. Ah,
you’d feel different once your blood was up.” Broc patted the open
book, turned another couple of pages. “I bet you would fight for
this, if nothing else.”
“Perhaps. It’s a fine
thing, isn’t it?”
“Aye, fine enough. But your
own Roman ancestors knew more than this. It’s these bloodless
Christians who are trying to make such knowledge rare.” Stretching
and yawning, Broc glanced at the night sky through the open
rafters. “Still, it’s good that someone wrote it down. I must go
while there’s still some light.”
Cai accompanied him as far as the
door. Once there, the old man surveyed the darkening hillside,
starred all over with faint light from the beehive cells. “Forgive
me,” he said—a low growl expressive of anything but remorse, but
nevertheless a shock to Cai. “I have seen this place now. Your
monks have told me how you built it up from less than nothing.
You’ve done well. You should take care of that book, boy—and
yourself.”
The breeze snuffed Cai’s lantern in
the doorway to his cell. He thought about lighting it again, but
then set it aside in its niche. He was tired. That was good. His
one hope tonight was that he would drop into the profound sleep
where all his memories of Fen seemed to be stored, fresh and vivid
as if just laid down. Yes, tales with the ink still wet on them, of
a monk and a Viking who met in combat and defied two worlds to live
in love. Wild fantasy, of course, on a chill north-coast night with
the wind moaning through every gap in the stonework. Awake, Cai was
losing belief in the stories himself.
He stripped off his cassock and
fumbled in the dark for his woollen nightshirt. Barda had made a
batch of the garments for the monks when the autumn nights began to
cool. A true ascetic would have refused her, but Cai had been too
glad of the gift to refuse it for any of his brethren, who spent
their nights warmer if itchier for her generosity. He shrugged into
his and lay down. He would say his prayers later, he told himself.
He would have the strength for them once he’d visited his
dreams.
A shoulder touched his. Biting back a
yelp of fright, Cai sprang out of his bunk. He retreated until the
hut’s curved wall stopped him, reaching for the sword that lived in
here with him now that the armoury was gone. “Who is
that?”
Silence. Had Broccus somehow made good
on his offer to send him a girl? Perhaps he’d intended it all
along, brought the poor lass with him, hidden under sheep or sacks
of grain. With an effort Cai stopped the wild rush of speculation.
“Speak, or you’ll be sorry for it. Who is there?”
“Caius, it’s…it’s me.
Oslaf.”
Cai let go the sword along with a
pent-up breath. The weapon thudded onto the earthen floor. “Oslaf?
What in God’s name are you doing here?” He grabbed at possibilities
and found one that didn’t make his hair stand on end. “Are you
sick? Did you come here to find me?”
“I should say that,
shouldn’t I? That I felt ill, came here and…fell asleep on your
bunk while I was waiting?”
Crouching, Cai sheathed the sword. He
hung it up again, then retrieved the lantern from its niche and
re-lit it by feel, his flint striking sparks before the wick
caught. A soft glow filled the cell, revealing Oslaf sitting
upright in the bunk, his hair dishevelled, his pallor lending
credence to his story. And if it was true, he had kindly undressed
in readiness for Cai’s examination. He was an attractive lad,
skinny but no longer starvation-thin. His skin was smooth and
unmarred, a hazelnut brown in the lamplight, scattered with
freckles.
“Oh God,” Cai whispered.
“You’d better tell me the truth.”
“Not if you stand there
like Judgement. I can’t.”
“Like
Judgement?”
“As if you’re about to
point at me, call me an abomination and throw me out,
like—”
“Oslaf!” Cai slung the
lantern over a hook. He knelt on the bunk and took the boy into his
arms, pulling up the blanket to warm him. “Of course I’m not. How
can you?”
“I’m sorry. But you’ve been
different lately. You know you have.”
“Aye. And if you don’t know
why, no one does.”
Oslaf laid his head on Cai’s shoulder.
Cai knew the nature of the convulsion that went through him—the
heave of a grief too deep for tears, dry and terrible. He held him
until it had passed. Oslaf said, “I do know.” His voice was worn to
rags. “I do know. I’ve been watching you, and I’ve seen you dying
inside your skin, just like I did after Ben. When your father came
tonight, I thought he was going to pick you up and take you home,
like my grandmother did when you summoned her.”
“Not Broc’s style.” Cai
rocked the boy, pressed an absent kiss to his brow. “Still, he was
kinder than I’d thought.”
“Yes. He’s like you. And
you’re so like him. I can see how you’ll be when you’re older—strong
and tough, but compassionate too, and shining with your learning. I
want to be with a man like that.”
Cai frowned. This view of his
resemblance to the old man was too startling to take in all at
once. “You will be with me. As long as the Fara brethren are
together—”
“No. With you as Benedict
was with me. As you were with… Cai, I’ve grown afraid to say his
name to you.”
Cai knew why. He’d been walking around
with his grief held before him like a frozen shield, deflecting all
attempts at human kindness. “I’m sorry. Say it.”
“With you like Fen was,
then. What can be the harm? Yours is over the sea, and mine is…” He
choked faintly. “Mine is under the earth. We can comfort each
other. You don’t need to show it in the daytime, Cai, not to the
others. But I can come into your bed at night, and you can touch
me—warm yourself on me, lose your pain for a while in my flesh.
And…I can lose mine.”
“No,” Cai said softly. “You
can’t.” Oslaf had lifted his head. He was nose-to-nose with Cai
now. His lips were parted, his breath sweet with the mead that had
given him the courage to come here. To kiss him would have been
easy—the easiest thing in the world. But Cai knew he could lay him
down here, wring pleasure from both their bodies from now until
dawn, and make no real difference to either of them. “You can’t
lose it. You can only learn to live with it, and that’s not the
way.”
Oslaf thumped a fist off his
shoulder. “Why not? What is the bloody way?”
“I don’t know. I’m
beginning to think…time. Only time.”
“That’s no use to me. I
want you now.”
“Lie down.”
Oslaf sucked a breath. Despite his
declarations, he was rigid in Cai’s arms. Fear as well as arousal
rolled off him in waves. Cai turned him so that he was lying with
his back pressed to Cai’s belly. Once more he adjusted the blanket
to cover the poor naked limbs.
“When I lie here at night,”
he said, “I have so many stories about Fen that go through my head.
I can’t seem to get at them during the day.” Oslaf had lapsed into
listening stillness, and Cai stroked his hair. “I certainly can’t
tell them to anyone else. That’s why I’ve been…such a block of ice,
I suppose. Is it like that with Benedict too?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to
think about it. I just want—”
“You do.”
“No! Why can’t you be like
the others? They’re afraid to say his name to me, and I don’t want
to make them weep and pat my head and not know what to do with
themselves by saying it to them.”
“It’s always so when
someone dies or…goes away. Death is too big for us. We jump to get
out of its way.”
“Not you,
though.”
Cai held him tight. “No, not me. Tell
me a story about Benedict. Just one.”
“If you will tell me one
about Fen.”
Shrugging, Cai nodded. Oslaf’s hair
was soft. His body was lithe, coming to a fine, strong maturity.
Everything about him was sweet and good and right, and utterly
wrong. “Very well. You first.”
“I don’t know where to
start.”
“From the beginning, if you
like.”
“The beginning…” Suddenly
Oslaf twisted over onto his back, pushed his fringe out of his eyes
and looked into the long-vanished world beyond the stone hut’s
roof. His head was pillowed comfortably on Cai’s arm. “I remember.
My brother Bertwald brought me here. He hated you lot, you know—he
thought you were going to whip me or crucify me for the good of my
soul. And as I was half-dragging him up the track, this fine tall