Chapter Twenty One #2
head. Ecgbert would think he ran this place like a Roman fort.
“Thank you, Hengist. Now, the rest of you…take orderly places
around the church, just as when you come to prayers. This is a
solemn occasion.”
Hard for him to say, when Godric’s
rosy wife was standing before him, beaming from ear to ear, one
laughing infant peering at him from her skirts, the baby in her
arms flailing and crowing at the fun of it all. “Abbot Cai, they
say he died in the odour of sanctity. Can it be so?”
“I don’t know.” Cai said
that to them often—always disappointing them but increasing their
respect for his answers when they came. Not knowing didn’t scare
him as it once had. He didn’t know if he would last out these
torchlit minutes, even with Fen’s warm presence at his back. His
chest was tight, a coppery taste in his throat. “It’s a very wide
world, Barda, isn’t it? I have come to see. Now, my friends, be
mindful—we are in the presence of a king.”
Poor Ecgbert, for all his gold and
brocade, had almost been forgotten. Now he stepped forwards, and
Cai’s brethren and friends did him honour after their own fashion,
ceasing to shuffle and murmur, touching fringes, bowing heads.
Nobody knelt. Distractedly Cai wondered if their education was
taking effect, and whether it would bring them in the end to
liberty or destruction.
He had to open the coffin. That was
what he had come here to do. Why was he suddenly reluctant? It was
best, wasn’t it, to dispel any illusions beginning to gather around
the old man’s death? He went and laid his hand upon the casket. It
was a very plain one. Cai caressed the grain of the wood—Addy’s
choice, he was sure, not the gorgeous Northumbrian
king’s.
“My friend,” he said
quietly. “I’m sorry you died so far from your seals and your birds.
Forgive me for disturbing your rest.”
Footsteps pounded on the turf outside.
Cai didn’t have to look to recognise Eyulf’s uneven, shambling
gait. He turned in time to see the boy gallop into the church.
Hengist had clearly sent him off like an arrow for supplies, and he
was coming back the same way. His arms were piled high with
wineskins and loaves wrapped in linen. He couldn’t possibly
see.
The night had spread a fine, barely
visible carpet of frost into the church. Eyulf tried to slow, and
his feet shot out from under him. Before anybody could move or try
to catch him, he had crashed to his backside on the flags. His
loaves and flagons went flying. The next thing Cai heard was the
deep hollow thud of his skull cracking off Addy’s bier.
Cai put a hand to his mouth. Fen
crossed his arms—turned aside and hid his eyes. All around the
church, jaws were dropping, the first snorts of laughter—echoes of
the one Cai was still fighting to restrain—breaking out.
Cai bit his lip. “Hush,” he commanded,
his voice unsteady. He strode over and knelt by the poor boy. So
much for the solemn occasion. “For the love of God, Eyulf. Don’t
you know that’s King Ecgbert over there?” Eyulf was flat on his
back, staring up at the newly thatched roof. “Well, never mind. Are
you hurt? Sit up and let me see.”
“Brother Cai?”
Eyulf hadn’t moved. His gaze was
still fixed on the rafters, or some fascinating point beyond them.
Cai hadn’t heard himself called Brother for such a long time. He smiled at the
sound of it. And then he realised who had said the words.
“Eyulf?”
Eyulf looked at him. Not through him,
or past him, or with dim comprehension that someone was there. Not
as a sheep or an ox. “Brother Cai,” he repeated, his voice rough
but clear. “Caius.” He sat up, Cai putting a hand to his elbow in
wonder and easing him upright. “It’s Caius, isn’t it? My
friend.”
Cai had never heard him form a single
complete word. “Yes,” he said faintly. “Yes, I’m your
friend.”
“You hid me in the barn, Cai. You
saved me from the raider. And Fenrir…” He twisted to look at Fen,
who had crouched wide-eyed beside him, and broke into laughter. “Do
you remember?” Growling, he twisted his face into the old mask that
meant Viking. “And yet Brother Fen caught me when I fell down from the
tower.”
He started to struggle to his feet. Cai
helped him, oblivious to the surge of pain in his lungs. “Eyulf, is
it... Is it you?”
“Yes!” Eyulf beamed at him.
He stared around him. “I have been lost in the dark for so long.
But here are all my brethren… I knew you were there. My God—all
those years, and not a cross word from any one of you. Not one
single act of unkindness. My God, my God…”
He began to sob. Cai took hold of him,
and he collapsed into his arms. Cai placed a hand on his skull. He
looked across his shoulder to the gaping villagers, to the monks
who did not know whether to laugh or burst into tears with the
boy—to the poor bewildered king, and finally to Fen, who would see
that his words were brought into action. Fara was not a Roman fort,
but Fen was now Cai’s general. Cai loved him more than sunlight,
more than breath.
“I do not wish this coffin
opened,” he said. “Do you understand me? The man inside it was my
friend. And His Majesty Ecgbert, king of this realm, has declared
and witnessed that Aedar has died and remained incorruptible. Who
are we to doubt his word? Go back to your work and your homes now,
all of you, and be at peace.”
“Fen, what are we doing
here? Oh, God—did I fall asleep again?”
“No. You did
well.”
“I fell asleep. Please not
at the table.”
“No. You were a perfect
host—good enough for a king. You just became tired at the end, and
I brought you away.”
“Carried me.”
“You weigh less than a goat
wet through. Does it shame you?”
“No. No, never. I just
don’t want the others to see.”
“No one saw.”
“Why… Why did you bring me
here?”
“You know why.”
Cai lifted his head. Fen had made him
comfortable on the stone flags. Only one torch was burning in the
church now, its light low and fitful. Fen had found a blanket from
somewhere and sat him at the foot of Addy’s coffin—settled down
beside him and held him in his arms.
“Is this my free-thinking
heathen? You look good in that cassock, but…” Cai paused and waited
till the need to cough had passed by. He didn’t have the strength
for another seizure. He remembered now—he hadn’t gone to sleep. His
throat and lungs had closed, and Fen had helped him out into the
air, and he had gasped and choked until scarlet had splashed onto
Fen’s sleeve, and then he had known nothing. The stains were still
there. “You told me the other day you’re not sure you believe in
any god.”
“Well, I’ve never met one.
I did meet Addy, though.”
Cai caressed the broad chest.
“Fen—Eyulf banged his head.”
“Yes. He was little better
than a beast, and we left him telling Ecgbert of Bernicia about his
political views. But you’re right—he banged his head.”
“Is that what you think I
should do—crack my skull off this poor old man’s
coffin?”
“Of course not. I have just
brought you here to pass the night. Addy deserves our
vigil.”
“He does. But I can’t keep
my eyes open.”
“Then sleep,
beloved.”
Cai burrowed back into the deep,
sacred warmth of his embrace. He knew what was happening to him. He
tried to fight it—the sudden lapses into sleep, the dark that
awaited him after each struggle for breath—but it was merciful, the
long, slow process of his body shutting down. Not tonight,
he prayed—to God or
to Addy or Fen, sinking his fingers into Fen’s robes and hanging
on. It was always his last cry on the brink of the dark.
Not tonight. One
more morning with him, one more waking in his arms.
A long grey time passed. Immeasurable,
deep, a limitless sea fret shot through with scents like sunlight,
a tang of sex-heated skin… Cai woke up in the dawn, his prayer
granted.
Oh Christ, for the last time. Sunrise
gold was pouring through the little unglazed arch at the east end.
Fen was sleeping peacefully, and something inside Cai had reached
its end. The sense of his lung being stitched into his ribs, the
unremitting pain that had stopped him from standing upright for
months… All that was gone, and in its place was a void. A floating,
dreadful freedom. He couldn’t draw breath.
He lurched upright. He tore out of
Fen’s embrace and staggered a few steps—crashed to his knees on the
flagstones, then hauled up again and ran for the doors. He had to
get outside. He wanted the sun on his face—one last sight of winter
dawn. Tearing the doors open, he fell out into the day.
His lungs inflated, frosty air blazing
deep into his chest. An ecstatic heat filled the void. He let the
breath go in a wail and sucked the next one in. Strength flooded
him. He wasn’t torn or broken. He was free.
When Fen reached him, his face a blank
of terror, he was standing with his arms stretched to the sun.
“Caius! Cai, what is it?”
Cai couldn’t tell him. He whirled to
face him—seized his face between his hands and kissed him. He had
breath for it. He had breath for everything. Kiss after kiss, until
Fen was laughing and cursing him, demanding he explain. Cai had no
explanation. He flung his arms round his lover—his tall, proud,
solid Viking—and swept him off his feet.