Brothers of the Wild North Sea Read online

  You have to find Addy. Addy will give you the treasure—the secret of Fara.

  Cai sat still. Theo had been silent in his head for a long time now, as if leaving him to deal with his own problems. In a way that had been good, because his voice—so close, so vivid—had made Cai fear for his sanity, but he had also missed him. This was just a memory, though, an echo. He reached for it, and like a dream it dissolved from under his grasp, leaving him desolate.

  He had come out here to fish. That was what he’d told Fen, and he would do it. He got up stiffly and shook out the net from its heap on the deck. He was a good fisherman, adept at spreading his nets against the current of the sea. Get out of the water, the creatures of the islands said. Well, he would when he was done. And if in the meantime the tempest chose to break on him, he would take that as God’s word. The Viking had sparked something in him he had thought was dead, some instinctive yearning to friendship and life, but he was tired now, and Fen was far away. Yes. He was done with the fight.

  The sun turned copper green and vanished. Out of the darkness came a voice—one note, low and huge, filling the horizon. Cai’s fishing boat sat still in the midst of it on water turned suddenly, deadly calm, and he listened. This was the voice of the wind, not upon him yet but racing blackly towards him over the waves.

  A visceral terror awoke in him, nothing to do with his life on the shore but a blood-simple message from his bones, lungs and heart that they did not want to be out here, exposed like a cork, with that demon gale bearing down on them. That they, no matter how tired Cai’s spirit was, did not want to cease. He grabbed the oars. He didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell now, but he began to row.

  The storm broke like the end of the world. The voice became a shriek, and the millpond water boiled. Just for a moment Cai had the advantage of it all—the wind was howling landward, pushing him. Then the first wave heaped itself out of the mouth of the demon.

  It smashed over the coracle. Cai ducked and clung to the little craft’s hull while its force thundered down on him and spent itself. For seconds the whole boat was under water, then she somehow righted and heaved back to surface. Scrabbling for purchase on her soaked deck, Cai managed to look up.

  Straight into the demon’s maw. A wave the size of Fara’s church was rearing over him. Half-blinded with salt, Cai stared at it. He had time to hear its snarl, its hungry, sucking roar as it gathered up, tugging the coracle into its undertow. Cai waited. He would meet his end as Theo and Leof had met theirs—upright, unafraid. He wouldn’t look away.

  Chapter Eight

  He was swimming. It might have been for minutes or for years. His sense of time had gone down with the coracle, shattered to shards.

  No. Not even swimming, not anymore. His arms were numb. He was clutching a spar from the wreckage. Each wave drove him under for longer, left him less time to suck lungfuls of air in between. He was starting to like the submersions. It was quiet down there, out of the shriek of the wind, the brutal chaos above. Down there was a memory, one that branched off from reality and blossomed on its own. Down there he hit the sands again with Fen, and this time no guilt about Leof rose to stop him, because Leof knew all, understood all, forgave all, and was no more likely to condemn him than the sun or the marram grasses waving over his head. Down there Fen’s arms closed round him, and even better than the sweet rush of hunger and release was the reality of that body on his, as if all his life his flesh had yearned for this brother, this counterpart, a missing piece of himself at last returned to him.

  The memory-dream was waiting. The spar became an obstacle to it, a grudging barrier, and he started to push it away.

  A wall sliced down into the water barely a foot from his skull. By lightning flash and tarnished light, Cai saw it—a timber wall, curved and glistening. A voice close to his ear said, “No, you don’t,” and a hand locked into the back of his shirt.

  A huge strength hauled him upwards. No more tender than the waves had been, it dragged him over the top of the wall, bruising his ribs and hips. A boat, Cai realised, when he was more in than out of it, and the strength let him go, dumping him onto its deck. He landed facedown and lay still.

  A boot promptly shoved at him. “Physician!”

  He kept his eyes shut. He was done for, his lungs flooded. The deck beneath him heaved, and he rolled with it, nothing more than flotsam on the tide.

  “You! Caius! Dead or alive?”

  He got his head up, coughing and choking, and shoved onto his arms. “Dead.”

  “Get your arse up off that deck and help me anyway.”

  The next flash revealed a Viking in the prow. He was soaked and resplendent, his jerkin and leggings clinging to him, cassock discarded God knew where. With one hand he was clutching the mast of Fara’s only sailboat. He was holding the other out to Cai. “Come on! Help me raise sail.”

  “Sail…” Cai grabbed him and hauled himself up. “You can’t. Not in this.”

  “How do you think I got out here?”

  That smile could dazzle the lightning. His fingers were locked round Cai’s arm, a hold that would never grow tired. “You came after me.”

  “What?”

  Cai repeated it, yelling through the spray. “You came after me. In a storm.”

  “Call this a storm? Torleik babies sail their coracles through worse than this.” Again, that flash of a grin. “Having said that, grab the rope. We might get the chance at one run.”

  “To shore?”

  “No. We’ll never make it. That island, the long, low one to the east.”

  Cai shielded his eyes to look. Another wave tipped the boat through the height of its mast, but Fen rode out the lurching movement easily, holding Cai fast. By harsh copper light he made out the shape on the horizon. “Not there. That’s East Fara. There’s no safe anchorage—just rocks.”

  “Maybe not for fisherman monks.” Fen tossed him the rope that would haul up the boat’s ragged sail. “I am a Viking. And we have no choice.”

  He was right. Cai backed off with the rope. The boat’s next lurch knocked his feet out from under him, and the sail unfurled as he slithered aft, instantly snapping belly-tight with air. Fen ran back to join him, and together they wrenched the canvas round far enough to reap the gale without capsizing, to find and ride the angle of the wind. The boat jerked forwards twice, like Eldra impatient of her harness, then shot through a gap in the waves.

  Fen roared with laughter. Cai joined in. Fear fell away from him, dirty old clothes he had no use for anymore. Fen had come out for him, out through the storm, and the upshot of it all—life or death, the future Cai had spent all his life grabbing after, striving to control—didn’t matter. He was here in Fen’s moment, tearing through the lightning, and all would be well.

  All would be well. Belief sprang up in him. It was nothing like the faith he had been taught. Wild and hot, it had as much to do with the sea as his salvation from it. Depended on nothing—held no God outside himself accountable. He didn’t have to reach for it at all. It was simply here, like the seals and the birds and the storm. Like Fen. It burned and hurt, then leapt up high like fire and made him laugh still louder, hauling on the rope, his hands working so close to Fen’s that when the flicker of sheet lightning came, he couldn’t tell which pair was his own.

  It sustained him even when the boat’s keel struck off the rocks that guarded East Fara. A stretch of beach he hadn’t known was there gleamed briefly beyond them, and he joined frantically with Fen’s efforts to guide them there, to fly them to it while the wind ripped the sail from the mast and the boat heeled over. All would be well… The words were ringing in his head when the boat ran aground, smashing to a halt, pitching him over her prow into the dark.

  “Caius. Cai!”

  Hands were shaking his shoulders. He was propped against a rock. Every bone in his body felt bruised, and it was easier to stay under. To sleep. One of the hands—and he knew them, was beginning to know their touch better than his own—d
elivered a smart slap to the side of his face. Fen. Cai surfaced, gasping, ready to hit him back.

  He was waist-deep in water. Fen must have dragged him this far ashore, far enough out of the roaring surf to set him down. The black rocks rose all round him like a jagged, burned-out forest. Waves were crashing to oblivion on their spines, rushing between them. A huge foam-topped crest heaved up out of the dark as he watched, the tempest hungry for their lives even now. Fen hadn’t seen it. He was leaning over Cai, holding him out of the water. Cai didn’t bother to try and warn him. He got his feet beneath him—surged up, grabbed Fen and shoved him ahead of him up the beach.

  Neither had much running left in him. Up ahead was a crescent of rocks whose outer edge was turned to the storm-driven tide. A wave broke over it just as Cai and Fen fell into its sheltering curve, but it would do. The wind howled a little less fiercely there. The sea still stretched out its paws, but couldn’t drag them back. Sand was piled up here, strange rippled structures marked with kelp and a million fractured shells.

  Cai pulled Fen out of the storm. They dropped to their knees, huddling against the rock. This time when Fen’s mouth sought his, he turned to him with a cry of joy and relief. Fen had been right—his blood was singing already, so loud the angels must hear. His skull banged off stone, and he reached up through exploding stars to grab anything he could of the Viking’s hot muscle and bone. Fen resisted him, tearing back to arm’s length, far enough to see him. “Caius.”

  “My wolf from the sea.”

  “Yes.”

  “You came for me.”

  “Well, none of your other lily-arsed brethren would do it. They saw you, and they ran around like headless chickens, but…”

  “They’re not sailors. They’re not…” Not you, Cai wanted to finish, but his throat had seized up.

  “Not pirates. Not vikingr.”

  Cai nodded. Like their shelter, it would have to do. Another wave broke, spray arcing high, landing with a seething crackle all around. Fen’s mouth was salty with it when it next landed on Cai’s, and he moved like the thunder, bearing Cai down onto the sand. But Cai was full of newborn faith and certainty. He rolled on top, pinning him, and Fen looked up and whispered, “There you are,” as if in recognition. As if at the end of a long, lonely wait.

  Cai shuddered. He straddled Fen’s thighs and ran a hand down over his stomach, over the hard plane that rippled and arched to find his touch. Fen was erect beneath the leather thong of his leggings. He moaned when Cai freed him, sea-chilled fingers clumsy on the lace. His cock lifted stiff and full into Cai’s grasp, a vision seared into Cai’s brain by the lightning. In the green-flashing darkness that followed, Cai plunged down on him, shifting to allow him access in return. He buried his face on the side of Fen’s neck. That great, strong hand was on him now, between their bodies, undoing him.

  There—flesh to flesh, Fen letting go only long enough to grab him by the backside, hauling him into place. Bucking up as if he meant to dislodge him, at the same time holding him tight enough to keep him there forever. Gasping, Cai thrust back, for the first time in his life with all his strength. Leof would have broken beneath him. Fen only shouted in pleasure and rose up to meet him again. After one more kiss and shove of his tongue beneath Fen’s ear, Cai sat up to get his back into the rhythm, laying hold of both of them. He fastened a fierce grasp on Fen’s shoulders. The heated length trapped against his belly hardened still further, summoning his own to one last delicious stretch, a storm to match the tempest around him gathering in his spine.

  “Fen!” he yelled, and in the next lightning flash saw him, face wild with consummation, all the amber in his vulpine stare turned silver. Climax started, a surge too huge to sustain, and Cai let go, surrendering to the inner leap.

  Fen curled up from beneath him and seized him tight into his arms. They thudded down together onto the sand, wrestling in feral joy. The wind shrieked unheard. High above them in the tormented night, the moon sailed clear out of the clouds.

  Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…

  Cai twitched and stirred. His face was buried deep in Fen’s shirt, and if that was Abbot Aelfric, they were both in trouble now.

  Sanctificetur nomen tuum!

  Aelfric didn’t belt out his Our Fathers like that, as if the words were rocks he could throw to ward off the devil. The distant voice faded, and Cai decided he’d been dreaming. He pressed tighter to Fen’s side, moaning softly when the arms around him locked him more firmly into place. The storm was over. The tide had gone. The sand was softer than his bunk at Fara, Fen’s hold on him warmer than sunlight, and he could fall back into sleep.

  Something tugged at his sleeve. Still not looking, he jerked his arm away. The scrabbling touch came again, this time at his belt. Trying to pull it free. Well, Fen was welcome, if he wanted to start over. It had been years since Cai had awoken with another body next to his. Hundreds of mornings trying to quell his waking erection in the name of God. Burrowing against him, Cai shivered at the powerful lift of his own flesh. The tugging came again—insistent, more like a bird plucking at him than Fen’s frank grab—and he cracked one eye open to look.

  A monster was standing over him. He sat bolt upright, tearing out of Fen’s embrace, scattering sand. The monster jerked back. It put its head on one side. It wasn’t afraid—just startled by Cai’s sudden movement. It considered for a moment, then opened its toothless mouth wide and emitted a weird cry. Four others exactly like it emerged from the pale dawn light.

  Cai’s erection died. He snatched for the fisherman’s knife at his belt. Behind him Fen was waking up, scrambling onto his knees. “Cai, what the hell—”

  “Fara devils! I’ve heard of them. They eat shipwrecked sailors.”

  “Devils? They look human to me. Almost.”

  There were eight of them now. Yes, almost human. All of them skeletally thin, dressed in a few rags of sealskin. Horribly alike in the twist of their wasted features, their narrow, hairless skulls. Two of them had harelips, stumps of rotting teeth showing in the gap.

  Instinctively Cai got to his feet and pressed his back to Fen’s, and felt him doing likewise, getting ready for defence. “I can take three of them. You?”

  A contemptuous snort. “These bags of bones? I’ll take what’s left and come back for your three.”

  “Wonderful. What are you going to do about the dozen more that just climbed up over those rocks?”

  “Pater Noster, qui es in caelis!”

  The devils nearest to Cai started and cringed at the voice. It was much closer now. Cai’s vision was still blurred with sleep and salt, and he dragged his sleeve over his eyes. An old man had appeared at the crest of the nearest dune. He could have been brother to Danan. His wild white hair flew with the same vigour, and he came leaping down the sandy slope with much of that lady’s unlikely speed. His hands were raised over his head. In one of them he clasped a staff like a shepherd’s, and he gesticulated with it powerfully, gestures of banishment that came in time with his shouted prayers.

  “Sanctificetur nomen tuum! Adveniat regnum tuum! Fiat voluntas tua…”

  Now he was on the flat, his ragged brown robes flying to expose skinny ankles. The devils began to fall back from around Cai and Fen, whimpering sounds emerging from their twisted mouths. “Sicut in caelo et in terra!”

  On earth as it is in heaven. Too much for the devils of Fara, who turned in one ungainly movement and began to run, hopping and stumbling in their haste. The old man galloped after them a little way down the beach, then came to a gasping halt, arms still upraised. He dropped out of Latin and continued, sadly, as if to himself, “Give them this day their daily bread. Just not the flesh of these sailors.”

  His arms fell. He turned, leaning on his staff. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

  Cai glanced at Fen, who was staring at the old man in disbelief. Perhaps they both were dreaming. Benedict had died, and perhaps Cai had gone down with the coracle. This was a strange afterwor
ld, with snaggle-toothed cannibal denizens and fleshly joys beyond imagination in the sea foam, but he would take it over Aelfric’s hellfire.

  “No,” he called, steadying himself against Fen. “What are they? Why are they afraid of you?”

  “They don’t seem to like the sound of Latin prayer. I use it to chase them off.” He shrugged despondently. “I might as well give the poor devils a blessing while I’m at it.”

  “They are devils, then?”

  The old man stumped towards them up the beach. “Not in the sense you mean. They’re as human as you are—the first people of these islands. Heaven knows how they came to be cut off here, but they only breed among themselves, and it damages them.”

  “Would they have eaten us?”

  Another shrug. “They eat what they can. Speaking of which, you boys will want your breakfast. I wondered why he dropped me such a big one this morning. God provides.”

  Cai shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “The eagle. Such a big fish,” the old man told him easily, as if he ought to have known. “He brings me one each day, clutched in his great claws. This morning, a salmon the size of a young seal! Well, sailors have grand appetites. And being washed ashore is hungry work. Come along.”

  The old man set off at a brisk pace. After an exchanged look, Cai and Fen followed him.

  “Do you think he knows Latin for more than his prayers?” Fen asked quietly, dropping into stride at Cai’s side. “I understand a bit of your uncouth north-shores tongue, but clearly not enough. I thought he said an eagle dropped a fish for him.”

  “He did.” Cai jogged ahead and caught the old man up. “Sir, we’re grateful for the rescue. My friend isn’t from here. Do you speak Latin, so that he can understand?”

  “Of course. Ita vero.” He switched without effort, the neat Roman syllables falling more naturally from his mouth than they ever would from Cai’s. “But I’m surprised that sailors do.”