Brothers of the Wild North Sea Read online

  Aelfric spread his arms. “I will purify this place of all abomination,” he declaimed aloud, his voice a crow’s caw on the wind. “I will rebuild it in sanctity. You who remain here—never mind your goats and your laundry. Dedicate daylight today to gathering these fallen stones. Your church must be built out of rock, like Peter’s of Rome.”

  Cai stopped dead. Oslaf had started up the stairs to the infirmary with Cedric. He shielded his eyes from the sun. “Don’t be a fool, Aelfric,” he said. His anger had gone. To himself he sounded reasonable. He had to stop this stranger in such a fundamental mistake. “The Vikings knock down churches wherever they raid. I don’t think they care what we worship, or who, but the sight of our churches provokes them. We build in willow and thatch so it won’t matter so much—so we can put them back up again.”

  “Blasphemy!” Aelfric swung a finger at Cai, who thought he would soon become very tired of that gesture. And that word. “Blasphemy, to say the burning of a church matters not! A church built out of faith and sacred stone can never fall. We will build it. You will help us the moment your duties are done.”

  Cai shrugged and turned away. He didn’t know what battle he was facing here, if there was a battle at all. Benedict and all the Fara brethren had been devoted to Theo. A stranger marching into Theo’s monastic realm, threatening to desecrate his corpse… Cai would have expected to find Aelfric and his men in a heap at the foot of the cliff, hurled there by Benedict’s great hands. How had the crow taken charge? If Cai could bring himself to care, he’d have to find out, discover the nature of his power. And meanwhile… “Oslaf,” he called softly, running up the stairs to catch up with him. “I’ll take Cedric now. Can you get back down to the chariot—take it down to the stables without our new friend noticing?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good. And if he stops you—well, for God’s sake don’t let him see the swords.”

  To stay out of Aelfric’s way was the best. Over the next couple of days, Cai managed this well. John took fever from his enforced attendance in the church, and Cai stayed at his bedside, wrestling away the dark angel more by sheer force than medical skill. Half a dozen times he reached for Danan’s poppy vial, but held off, reading the lights in John’s eyes as a will to survive and praying he was right. Aelfric didn’t intrude into the infirmary, and Cai didn’t encounter him again until at last he could leave John for long enough to go in search of food.

  His route took him past Theo’s office. That was how the brethren had referred to the bare little cell by the scriptorium, though Theo had dispensed most of his administrative wisdom directly, outdoors or looking over his charges’ shoulders while they worked. The room had been the storehouse for his curiosities and teaching aids—a row of skulls, some from beasts whose living forms Cai couldn’t begin to imagine, some human—and on the shelves below, the array of devices he had used to teach the brethren his wild, anticlerical science. The Gospel of Science, Cai thought, Theo’s last words resounding in his head again. Only a copy, dear Caius. Don’t worry.

  A dark-robed form was moving round the room. This was such a familiar sight that at first Cai didn’t react to it. Tall and thin, bending over the shelves…

  Glass shattered on the stone flags. The floor was already glimmering with shards. Theo’s bronze spyglass lay in a corner, crushed as if a great foot had landed on it. The device he had called a sextant, the copper arc on its complex wooden frame—the thing he used to tell the distances between the stars—was in pieces against the far wall. While Cai watched in the doorway, Aelfric turned and swept the last shelf clear of its skulls, a single contemptuous gesture.

  When he was done, he planted his hands on Theo’s desk and glared at Cai as if he had expected to find him there. “You will understand this,” he growled. “God made all men—even you, physician—as the sublime peak of his creation. He did not set them adrift on some bare rock to float amongst the stars. He placed them at the centre. The sun…goes round…the Earth.”

  Cai wanted to weep. He wanted to fall on his knees, scrape up as many pieces of his beloved abbot’s precious toys as he could, fold them into his robes and make them whole again. “You’re worse than the Vikings,” he got out, the words scalding in his throat. “Even they didn’t… Even they left these things alone.”

  “Yes. The demons recognised the devil’s instruments.”

  For once Aelfric was on his own. Every other time when Cai had encountered him, he had been surrounded by his retinue of grim-faced clerics. Cai too was alone. Aelfric was lean, but Cai sensed a strength in him. It would be no cowardice to take him on now—by the rules of Broc’s stronghold, not the cloister. Man to man, and the loser to repent the error of his ways as he dropped like a stone from the window.

  Caius, don’t worry.

  This time the voice was almost physical. Cai barely restrained himself from jerking around. He felt as if Theo had laid a warm hand on his shoulder. Don’t worry. Don’t let him destroy you or drive you away. Guard my flock.

  Cai decided he was going mad. That was far from unlikely, given his last few days. He had seen better men than himself break down over less. That was fine. If he had to hear voices, Theo’s would be the one he chose, unless it had been Leof’s. But that sweet soul was resting in a peace beyond Cai’s understanding, his voice the sea-wind song among the gorse. Cai went up to the desk. Aelfric tensed for confrontation, but there was no need.

  “Have you set a watch?”

  “A watch?”

  “At night. The raid here came early this year. But now they’ve come once, they’ll do it again. They think we have something they want.”

  “The demons will not come when men’s hearts here are pure. And pure they shall be.”

  Cai gave it up. He could watch the sea himself. He no longer seemed to need sleep. “By your own wisdom, then. But remember this.” He took up the stub of a candle from Theo’s desk and put it upright. “Here is the sun. Imagine its light if you can.” He placed in front of it the round stone Theo used as a paperweight, and produced from a pocket in his cassock a small pink apple. It was one of Broc’s, from the orchard where sweet Roman strains still grew. He set it down in front of the stone, so that all three objects were in a line. “We are on the rock, my lord abbot. The apple is the moon. Just now our rock, this stone, sits between the sun and moon, and so the moon is dark. In fourteen days, this apple moon has moved to our rock’s other side, and so we see her face in full. So we must be between the sun and the moon—not at the centre of them.” Cai paused and drew in a deep breath. “Preach what you will. Darken men’s minds if you must—tell them the sun and all creation dances round you. As long as there’s a candle, a stone or an apple anywhere in this monastery—I can prove otherwise.”

  Chapter Three

  Cai stood on a fallen lintel stone, his arms folded over his chest. His perch gave him a good vantage point over the ruins where the dormitory chambers had been, and he was watching carefully. One, two, three. Step, parry, thrust. So far he wasn’t displeased, except that Brother Wilfrid… “No, no, no.” He leapt down and ran across the open, sunlit space. “Wilf, your Viking just ran you straight through the heart. Don’t drop your shield.”

  “Why, you just told me not to raise it, lest he strike me through the balls!”

  Cai stepped back, lifting his hands in despair. He let the dozen men gathered around him have their laugh—joined briefly with it himself. In the week since the raid, not much laughter had been heard at Fara. He took up position behind Wilf and covered his shield hand with his own. He nodded to Oslaf, Wilf’s fighting partner for this bout. Oslaf came forwards, feinting with his sackcloth-covered sword. “Raise your shield. Now lower. React. You can see what he’s going to do from the set of his shoulders.” Especially when he’s poking at you like an old woman chasing flies with a broomstick, but that can’t be helped. “Predict him. Better. Good.”

  Signalling to the others that they should continue the drill, Cai retur
ned to his post. This was his third session, and the best turnout yet. When he’d let it be known two days before that he would be here with Broc’s donated arsenal, only Oslaf and four others had appeared, glancing nervously over their shoulders. Cai couldn’t blame them for their fears. The ruin was a good place to practise—the one remaining wall shielded their endeavours from the main hall, and rebuilding here was a low priority, the displaced monks sleeping on makeshift cots in a barn, where they rested the more easily for safety in numbers—but Aelfric wouldn’t remain deceived for long. A handful of monks missing from their duties during quiet hours was one thing. A dozen, though, almost half the surviving complement…

  Cai sensed movement behind him and whipped round. “Benedict,” he said in relief, then recalled his friend’s behaviour over the past few days and frowned. “Have you come to join us? Or has our lord abbot sent you to smoke us out?”

  Benedict looked at the ground. He was very pale. “I should be insulted that you ask. But I understand.”

  “To join us, then?” Cai jumped down. “Did something change your mind?”

  “I am not to touch Oslaf,” Ben told him. Cai raised an eyebrow—nobody was touching anybody these days, not now that they all slept like frightened puppies in a barn. “No,” Ben said intensely, reading his thought. “Not like that. I am not to lay hand on him even in friendship. Nor am I to speak to him, go near him or have dealings with him at all beyond the absolute necessities of work.”

  “Dear God. Aelfric told you this?”

  “I wasn’t accorded that much dignity. It was Laban, his chief aide.”

  “Will you obey?”

  “For Oslaf’s sake—yes, I will.”

  “But…it’s brutal. Why?”

  “Because if I don’t, the punishment will fall on Oslaf, not on me.”

  Cai shook his head. He could see the crude cleverness of such tactics, but… “Punishment? Look at you, Ben. You could snap Laban over your knee like a twig. Aelfric too, for that matter.”

  “Yet I can’t shelter Oslaf from their condemnation. From being named a pervert, as I have been named. They’ll do it before everyone, Laban said. Stand him in front of all his brethren and…” Benedict’s voice scraped into silence. Then he looked up, meeting Cai’s gaze with hunted desperation. “I can’t say any more. What if he’s right, Cai? What if we are impure in the sight of the Lord? I would send my own soul to hell if I had to, but not his—not Oslaf’s.”

  Shards of broken glass seemed to move in Cai’s throat. He stood in miserable silence, trying to work out what had been impure about his love for Leof. “All right,” he said eventually. “Do what you think is best. You shouldn’t have come here, you know—if Aelfric scares you so.”

  “Well, he does. But I gave it thought, and the Vikings scare me more.” He smiled uncertainly and looked more like his old self. “Will you teach me to fight, Brother?”

  Cai smiled too. “Gladly. You present me with a problem, though—we don’t have enough weapons to go round.”

  Ben scanned the dormitory ruins. His gaze fell on the pile of half-burned rafters Eyulf had begun chopping up for firewood. “No, but by the grace of God we have plenty of big sticks. Where I come from, those are our weapons. Maybe I have something to teach you.”

  Cai followed him curiously. For all his size, Ben was such a gentle soul. Cai couldn’t imagine him wielding anything more deadly than a ploughshare. Still, those had been beaten into swords before now. Lifting a long, straight stick from the pile, Ben knocked ash off the end of it and handed it to Cai. “Here. Hold it with your hands apart, like this.”

  “Why me?”

  “I haven’t been forbidden to look at you—not yet, anyway. Or to beat you hollow.”

  There was a glimmer of challenge in Ben’s eyes. Deciding he liked that better than the pained anxiety, Cai hefted the stick. It couldn’t be that hard. “Oh, feel free to try.”

  Ben grabbed himself a length of wood and grinned at Cai disarmingly. “Well, with a beginner, I’d…”

  He moved, and Cai’s legs shot out from under him, swiped from behind by a blow he’d never seen coming. He landed on his backside in the dust. Another clatter of laughter arose from the monks, and he looked around him wryly. Well, he had been drilling them harshly. Maybe the sight of their tormentor knocked on his arse was refreshing to them. “Interesting,” he said, taking Ben’s hand and scrambling up. “Please. Show me.”

  “You know, at the very last instant you tripped over your robes. Try tucking them up into your belt—on one side, anyway. You could use the protection on the other. Whichever leg you lead with when you wield a sword.”

  Too intrigued to hesitate, Cai hitched up his cassock’s heavy hem and wrapped it once over his belt. Ben did likewise, and Cai nodded at his brethren, some of whom were copying the action. “Yes, you lot. Try it like that. And get on with your drills—no need to watch my humiliation.”

  Ben corrected his stance and his grip on the pole. Then the two faced each other, circling warily. Ben came forwards, slowly enough this time for Cai to see his intent, and their sticks locked at right angles with a loud crack. Nodding satisfaction, Ben stepped back and tried for the leg-swipe manoeuvre again. He was taking it easy on purpose, but Cai understood how a twisting dance step would take him out of range—balanced and jumped and got around him in time to try for the drop move himself. Ben sidestepped with unlikely speed, spun round and delivered a thump that shook Cai to the bone through the defending pole.

  Fires leapt up in Cai’s breast. He hadn’t liked fighting for Broc, but those ragged hill-warriors who took him on had soon learned to regret it. He struck back powerfully, knocking a grunt and a startled laugh from his opponent, and they set to in good earnest. Splinters flew from the poles as they clashed. This was a battlefield art, not an elegant one, and after being ditched to the ground twice more, Cai took it to close quarters with a kind of joyous rage. It was good not to think. It was good to struggle hotly with a man of his own strength—stronger, if he let himself admit it. He braced, Ben’s corded bare thigh pressing tight against his, then thrust him back, gasping. A heat like arousal flared through him. God, maybe he was impure, for such life to be burning in his veins, Leof barely cold in his grave… He tried to retreat, but Ben wasn’t having any of that, surging forwards in pursuit.

  Oh, it was good. Cai let go and fought for his life. He didn’t hear the silence that came down over the ruined hall, didn’t notice that the monks had stopped their practice and were standing in a frightened clump. Ben was calling his name, but he didn’t want to stop. Why was Ben blocking him, not responding to his moves? One block—another—until on the third Ben’s pole snapped under Cai’s assault, dropping Cai hard against his chest.

  “Caius, please. The abbot!”

  Cai froze. Ben’s hands were tight on his shoulders, immobilising him. Panting, Cai came back from his fugue far enough to see not just Aelfric but Laban and the three other Canterbury clerics lined up on the far side of the hall.

  He pushed out of Ben’s arms. He couldn’t imagine why he had feared or hated these men for one instant. They were nothing to him—scrawny black-robed skeletons he could knock down with one hand. He strode through the crowd of his brethren, who parted to make way for him, and took a running leap up onto the lintel stone once more. “Good day, my lord abbot,” he shouted, cheerfully brandishing the pole. “How may I help you?”

  Aelfric stepped forwards. He was pale, and he hadn’t managed to compose his face into its crow-like scowl. “What… What is the meaning of this?”

  Cai glanced back at the monks. It was well enough for him to take his own monastic life in his hands, wasn’t it? But his little army hadn’t bargained for this. “It’s drill practice,” he called out, making sure they heard. “And I am responsible for it. Ben, will you take these men to the armoury and make sure the weapons are all put away? I want to speak to Aelfric.”

  He waited till the last of the monks had filed ou
t of the hall, their faces averted from Laban’s glare. Aelfric didn’t even look at them. His gaze was fixed on Cai, as if reassessing him. “Explain yourself.”

  “I will. I will defend you from the demons—yes, even you—next time they come. Just in case they aren’t to be deterred by prayer.”

  Aelfric seemed to take this in. Cai wondered what had changed inside the narrow, tonsured head—or what had changed in himself, to make those harsh features shadow with uncertainty. “Your faith is imperfect, Caius. Do you not believe these things are in God’s hands?”

  Cai looked down at his own, clamped tight around the weapon. His faith was in tatters. Was this what old Danan had meant? “Yes, my lord abbot,” he said clearly. “I believe that they certainly are.”

  Cai waited for punishment to fall on him—or, worse, upon one of the brave souls who still joined him each day to learn to fight. Aelfric hadn’t forbidden it. He was allowing the rebuilding of the church in timber, wattle and daub, and Theo’s bones lay undisturbed beneath it. Still, he spent most of his days in whispered consultation with one or other of his retinue, and Cai had little doubt that whatever balance of power his own efforts had disturbed, soon the scales would swing back with a vengeance.

  He wasn’t given time to find out. And Aelfric’s plans, whatever they had been, died in the bud. On a full-moon night barely two weeks after the abbot’s arrival, the raiders came again.

  This time they met with a frightened, ferocious resistance. The men sleeping in their makeshift dormitory started awake at the frantic ringing of the bell. Aelfric had allowed a night watch too, and the appropriation of the bell Hengist used in the kitchen to summon Eyulf to scrub turnips.

  Cai stood up in the middle of the bunks, gesturing for silence and calm. “We knew this would come,” he said softly. “My men, you know what to do. The rest of you—find Aelfric and go with him to the crypt.”