by Harper Fox
“You’re in a bad fettle this morning, monk.”
Cai looked up from the cabinet of herbs and potions he was rearranging. He had plenty of everything, having seen Danan the week before, but he felt a restless need to rattle bottles and slam doors. Just now there was little else for him to do. He had arrived in Fen’s cell that morning to find his patient on his feet, voluntarily washing his face and limbs with a cloth and a bucket of water. He had already fastened a clean linen strip round his loins. He had stayed still when bidden for Cai to check his wound, and dressed himself without complaint in a fresh cassock.
He was healing well. Cai, squinting fiercely into a bottle of willow salve, tried to forget the sight of him in morning light, splashing water into his face, the droplets in a rainbow aura round his head. How he had looked as he had straightened to greet him, something like a smile touching his elegant face. He could stand up properly now, not leaning to favour his side. For once Cai’s ward was empty, and he hadn’t objected when Fen had followed him out of the cell, seated himself on one of the bunks and watched him begin his routine.
“What is it? Has the scarecrow been after you to shave your head again?”
“No.”
“Good. Because…”
Cai tried to analyse the silence behind him. It was warm, he decided. Warm and getting tighter… Before he could turn, Fen’s hand was on his shoulder. Cai would have to remember how quietly he could move. The hand passed briefly, gently, through his hair.
“Because that would be a shame.”
Cai almost dropped the jar of valerian root powder he’d uncorked. “Careful! Do you know how long this stuff takes to grind?”
“It stinks of mouse.” Fen had calmly retreated to the window ledge, as if his caressing touch had never happened. “What does it do?”
“It soothes troubled spirits and promotes the health generally, as its name suggests.”
Fen gave this a moment’s thought. “Valetudo,” he said. “Yes, I see. You look as if you could use a dose of it yourself. What’s happened to trouble your spirits, then?”
“Apart from you?” Cai firmly corked the jar and set it back in the cabinet. He’d barely slept in the few hours between midnight office and matins. He’d come as a novice to Fara with every intent to become a good Christian. Much of the doctrine—subjugation of earthly desire—had been strange to him, but between Leof and Theo he had learned to see the beauty of it too. Aelfric’s version was completely alien to him. With his lover and his teacher gone, why should he stay, to see his friends tortured by threats of eternal damnation? “Nothing. I’m busy, that’s all, and I can’t concentrate with you asking me all these questions.”
“You’re thinking of leaving.”
Cai repressed a twitch. How had Fen plucked that newborn thought from his head? “I’m thinking of remedies for constipation. You’ll see why, after a few more servings of Brother Hengist’s egg bread.”
“That stuff would bung up a bull. Maybe you should leave. I don’t see what a decent soldier’s doing amidst all these eunuchs anyway. But I for one am glad you were here on the night I arrived. Now—do you think you could take me for my daily walk?”
Closing up the cabinet, Cai turned away. He didn’t dare meet Fen’s eyes. There was a painful prickling behind his own. He was lost, if he let words of kindness from this enemy—however rough and fleeting—touch the loneliness gaping under his ribs. One of the blankets on the cots was rumpled. Cai snatched it off, shook it out hard and threw it back into place. “Go and put on your sandals, then.”
Cai had negotiated with Aelfric that the Viking prisoner should have an hour of exercise each day. He would get better sooner that way, Cai had argued, and then Cai would no longer have the flimsy excuse of protecting him as his patient. After that, Aelfric could do what he wished with him. Cai had enjoyed the furrow that had crossed the abbot’s brow at the thought of dealing with a six-foot Viking restored to full health. All the Canterbury clerics combined would be like gnats on the hide of a warhorse. Cai had to escort Fenrir personally during these outings, and any trouble that came from them would be visited—as usual—not on Cai himself, but on one of his friends.
Aelfric had wrapped chains around Cai. They were thin and meagre as the abbot himself, but he had chosen them well. They could tighten like wire, and none of Cai’s strength could avail him. Remembering poor Benedict moaning in the firelit dark, Cai realised that Aelfric knew how to choose the right chains for each man. Yes, it was time for Cai to go. Not back to his father’s stronghold but somewhere free. He’d take his chances among the robber bands who roamed the sunlit uplands of Cheviot and Traprain Law if he had to, shake off the shame and dust of this place forever.
“Cai. I need you to slow down.”
Cai had set off blindly across the courtyard and continued from habit along the track that led to the clifftop. Fine rain and sea fret were blowing into his eyes. Normally Fen walked beside him on these trips, his air one of resigned, almost exaggerated obedience—Cai’s prisoner, even if he could have picked his captor up and slung him off the cliff with barely an effort. Now he was lagging behind, one hand pressed to his side.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re meant to be guarding me. I can’t keep up with you.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Cai slowed up and waited until Fen had limped to his side. Fen’s breath was rasping in his throat, his lips tinged with blue. Cai hadn’t intended to offer his arm, but the gesture came naturally, and Fen took it easily, as if their bodies had been made to fit together like this. They stood in the rain, both surprised by their sudden proximity. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I thought that perhaps the next stage of my healing was…a route march.”
“No. You should still take things slowly. Lean on me.”
They set off again down the track. The north coast was wearing her wild summer face this morning, sealskin greys fighting it out with green and startling violet among the breeze-whipped waves. The wind was fierce but not cold. The sea met the sky with such purity here, and for all its austerity, its vivid scents and colours had pierced Cai’s heart from his first hour within Fara’s walls. He couldn’t imagine life anywhere else.
“If such a man as your scarecrow had been set in charge of the clan of Torleik,” Fen said, his voice still ragged, “we would have taken him and pulled his lungs out through his back. It is called the blood eagle.”
Cai frowned in disgust. “I’ve heard of it. Charming practice though it is, it’s not my solution to Aelfric.”
“Why not? Because of your faith? Your Christian convictions?”
“More than that. My convictions as a man.” Even as he spoke, Cai wondered if he was telling the truth. If he had Leof’s murderer in front of him, the heat of battle upon him and an axe in his hand…
“It wasn’t the Torleik who came here. That night—when your abbot was killed, and your boy—it wasn’t my men. A different tribe.”
Once more it was as if Fen had pulled a thought from Cai’s skull. This time Cai felt it as a violation, and he dropped Fen’s arm, striding on ahead. “Who told you about my…about Leof?”
“Your brethren are gossips. I hear many things in my cell. Many reasons why you’d just as soon poison as heal me. But it wasn’t the Torleik.”
“What difference do you think that makes to me? Would your lot have treated them any better—Leof and Theo?”
“No. Perhaps not. I only wish you to know, because…”
Whatever Fen’s reasons, they were lost in a rumble of hooves. Reflexively Cai drew Fen to the side of the track, out of the path of the monastery’s single overworked plough ox trotting determinedly towards them with her broken harness trailing in her wake. Normally the most stolid of creatures, she was moving like a compact landslide, the earth vibrating under her feet. Behind her ran Benedict, his face distraught.
“Catch her,” he yelled, as soon as he saw Cai. “Something scared her. She bolted.” Be
nedict stumbled and fell, then dragged himself upright and staggered on. “I couldn’t stop her. I can’t do anything. I am useless—a sinner—a worm.”
Cai caught Benedict, and Fen caught the ox. He seized the beast’s trailing harness as she passed, and without seeming effort pulled her head round, forcing her to a snorting halt with her great-horned head leaning into his chest. Cai dropped to his knees with Benedict. “Ben! For God’s sake, what’s the matter?”
“I am nothing. All the works of my hands fail me. Aelfric said it would be so.”
“What has he told you?”
“Enough. Enough. A life of sin here, and an eternity in the fire.”
He was shuddering, sobs racking his big frame. Cai rocked him, clasped him roughly. “You know better than that. How often have you helped me in the infirmary? You’ve seen what happens when men die. All pain of that kind—burning, hurting—it stops when the body does. None of it could possibly follow the soul.”
“But what if it can, Cai? What if it’s true? In that case I’ve not just damned myself to eternal torment…I’ve damned Oslaf too!”
“I swear, I will make a Viking angel out of that scrawny…” Cai fell silent, fire rising up in his throat. He looked over Benedict’s shoulder to Fen, who was now watching from a few feet away, the ox standing tamely at his side. What could he say to wipe off Aelfric’s dirt from his poor friend’s soul? He wasn’t Theo, with philosophical arguments at his fingertips for any occasion.
But Theo had never turned to philosophy when faced with unhappy men, had he? He had listened, then asked questions. Simple ones that brought forth equally simple, powerful answers. “Don’t you believe in a merciful God?”
“What? Yes, but…”
“An infinite God, infinitely merciful. Come on, Ben. It’s one of the dearest beliefs we hold, the first things they taught us.”
Ben caught his breath. “I…I remember.”
“Then how can that same God do as Aelfric teaches? How?”
Benedict didn’t reply. But his rigidity eased, and after a moment he laid his brow to Cai’s shoulder. Fresh sobs shook him, but they sounded easier now, less fraught, as if a dry riverbed inside him had suddenly flooded after rain.
Fen gathered up the ox’s reins. His expression was unfathomable. “I will leave you,” he said softly. “I will mend this beast’s harness and hitch her to the plough.”
Cai glanced up at him. “Can you do that?”
“I can. Princes are farmers in my land too, just as they are in yours.”
Caius left Ben with the plough. The ox had been harnessed to it and tethered, the rein repaired and one wayward ploughshare knocked back into place, but the field was empty. Distractedly bidding Ben to mind his work and not think, Cai scanned the landscape. Fen was nowhere to be seen. Cai set off at a run.
On instinct he headed for the armoury. Fen’s sword, Head-cleaving Bloodsucker or whatever vile thing he’d named it, was still safe in its rack, and that was something, but…
But Eldra and the chariot were gone, and that was something else entirely.
Cai bolted out of the barn’s shadows. He was breathless from his dash down the hill, and now his heart was trying to punch through his ribs with fear. Had he managed to unleash upon his brethren and the coastal villages a Viking raider with a chariot and warhorse at his command? And worse than the fear of that, sliding around in Cai’s guts like a hungry snake—betrayal, tiny and cold. What had he expected? The softening in amber eyes, the brief touch to his hair—what had Cai taken from that, to make him think Fen would do anything other than rob him and run at his first chance?
Hoofbeats again. Cai whipped round, expecting to be mown down, not by an ox this time but by his own father’s horse. There in the pasture that edged the sea, sudden sunlight flashing off her trappings, Eldra was circling. She had been expertly hitched to the chariot, and Fen was standing casually on the footboard, guiding her round in a wide arc. He saw Cai, transferred the reins to one hand and raised the other in greeting. “Come along, physician. I’ve just been warming her up for you.”
Cai stumbled across the grass. He was dreaming, surely. Fen trotted Eldra over to meet him and drew her to a halt at his side. “Come on. Jump up.”
“No. God almighty, Fen—you jump down. Quick, before somebody sees us.”
“Who? The scarecrow?”
“Anyone, you idiot. I’ll be killed for letting you do this.” Cai made to grab Eldra’s bridle, but Fen edged her deftly out of his reach. “Besides, I have duties. The infirmary, and…” He paused, listening, as a bell began to clang. The tower was still in ruins, but Eyulf had learned how to climb to the top of it and ring his refectory bell to summon the brethren to prayer. “It’s time for terce.”
“Oh, more God-bothering… Do you think he likes being woken up nine times a day by your importunities? If they’re all in church, no one will see us go.”
“Go where? I can’t just leave. I can’t—”
Fen held out his hand. It was wide and capable, and Cai knew the heat that coursed beneath its pale skin. “Oh, I’ve no doubt that you’re needed here, even if you’ve started to doubt it yourself. But you have to get away for now. Look at you—hollows under your eyes, half the life drained out of you. A gallop on the sands will set you right. And unlike you, I really know how to drive this thing.”
Cai let Fen take his hand. He used it for balance only, not wanting to pull at his patient’s healing wound, and he leapt up onto the board. He took his position at the rail next to Fen. “This is madness. I’ll be defrocked.”
“Defrocked…” Fen grinned and gave the reins a shake so that Eldra trotted forwards out of the paddock. “That would be a sight to see. Is that what happens when you disgrace yourself beyond forgiveness?”
“Among other things. Fen, you’d really better stop.”
“Once we’ve had a run. Did you manage to console him—your friend with the ox?”
“Not much.”
“What ailed him? Why does he think himself a worm and a sinner?”
Cai adjusted his grip on the rail. Fen had the chariot going at a steady pace, as if they had all the time in the world, covering the turf between the outer walls and the long stretch of beach to the north. If this was madness, Cai couldn’t deny that it was sweet to him—the sense of movement, the rush of the salt wind. Of leaving everything behind. “Aelfric preached us a sermon last night. About hellfire.”
“Hellfire? Ah, not that again!”
Cai broke into laughter. He couldn’t help himself—the fresh air, and Eldra’s lively shift from a trot to a canter, shook his spirit loose. “What? Last night was the first I ever heard of it. How does an infidel Viking raider know?”
“That slave monk of Sigurd’s. The one who taught me Latin… He used to rant about the eternal torments of hell that awaited us infidels.”
“Well, I’m sure you gave him good reason.”
“We thought at first he meant our goddess Hel, or the Hel river to the underworld. When we understood him at last, we laughed at him. As if any god—or even your Christian devil—would spend all eternity spiking mere humans with forks, or burning them on fires.”
“I suppose the arrangements for your damned souls are far better.”
“Oh, we have our Underworld. It is called Helheim—the house of Goddess Hel, and so you Christians haven’t even come up with an original name for the place. I am not sure that we have damned souls, though. Only those unfortunate enough not to die a hero’s death in battle.” Fen snapped Eldra’s reins, and she picked up speed, neatly rounding an outcrop of rocks. “The rest of us gallop straight across Bifrost, the rainbow bridge into Valhalla. So no fears of the afterlife trouble our hearts, monk.”
“I should’ve let you talk to Ben. I brought him little enough comfort.”
“Ah, half of it depends upon the man. You heard the same sermon, and you are not on your knees weeping over your sins. Are you?”
No. Cai was bolt
upright, his spine straight. He could see for miles, and he felt fine. “Maybe I ought to be.”
“Nonsense. Die on the battlefield—you seem fond enough of fighting—and you too might fly to Valhalla. I’m sure Thor will overlook the skirt.”
Cai didn’t point out that two sets of skirts would have to be overlooked at present. Fen was beaming, thoroughly pleased with his joke and his spiritual prospects. Cai let him get on with it. Somebody around here should be happy. And Cai could see the virtues of the warrior’s way. It didn’t have to be the same as Broc’s, low and dirty, though Broc had shown him enough of it to give him the skills. Speaking of which… “Who says I can’t drive this thing?”
“I didn’t. I just said I would do it better.”
“And what makes you think so?”
“I have to do it better than a monk. You’re free to prove me wrong.”
Fen offered him the reins with exaggerated courtesy. Cai stepped into the place he’d conceded. The leather was warm and smooth where Fen had held it, Eldra’s mouth a willing, vigorous tug on the bit. Instinctively Cai adjusted his grip so he wouldn’t restrict her. He leaned forwards over the rim. “Go on, girl,” he called, paying her out a little more rein. “Go on!”
Fen had left him with the easy part. The rocks and the turf were behind them, the beach ahead. The tide was out, the sand hard-packed and firm. Eldra stretched her pace out to a battlefield gallop and took off.
It was a beautiful run. Eldra, sturdy and tireless, flew across the strand. Cai straightened her out along the water’s edge, so that her hooves sent up explosions of spray. The chariot wheel hit a stone, jouncing the carriage, and Fen yelled with laughter and slung an arm around Cai’s waist, steadying himself, securing them both.
He didn’t take the arm away when they were running smooth again. Cai didn’t question the continued embrace. It felt right, to be pelting through the hoofbeat thunder with a brother warrior’s hold on him. Doubts and tormented thoughts dropped away from him. He drew deep breaths of the rich air. Spray and sand stung his face, and he drove Eldra on, faster and faster. He was pinned from the waist down between the chariot’s rail and Fen’s warm, whipcord frame. The rhythmic jolting made his flesh begin to ache, a yearning like music, like the relief of tears. He was still alive, wasn’t he? No matter how hard he’d wished himself buried under the hawthorns at Leof’s side, here he was. Energy surged in him.