Cai jerked his head up.The churchyarddissolved to a firelit hut.All around him, sights and soundsfamiliar to him from earliest childhood took up their places onceagain—babies crying, one of Broc’s latest wives nursing a newbornat her breast.Shepherds and traders wandered in and out.Broc’sgreat wolfhounds growled at the sheep being driven past the opendoor.The chieftain’s hut was the daily centre of all thehillfort’s dealings, and Broc wasn’t the man to call a halt to anyof that just because his son had turned up, and so half thesettlement had seen the proud monk from Fara drop to his knees oncommand.“Yes, Father?”
“What is there in it forme?”
Cai took him in.There am I, twentyyears into the future,he thought.Strong as an ox, jet-black hair onlynow being streaked by a line or two of grey.Indestructible.“Idon’t understand.”
“If I grant these things toyou—weapons, horses, men—what will I get in return?”
“You know I havenothing.”
“That was by your choice.Before you left me here, you had a kingdom to inherit.”
A kingdom?Twelve miserablefields and a hilltop?Just two days before, Cai would have said it.He’dhave laughed at the old man’s arrogance, certain he had found abetter world.He couldn’t imagine ever wanting to laugh again, notif he too survived to Broc’s late years, his own sturdy frameholding him fast in a life he no longer desired.“Tell me what youwant of me.I must have the weapons.I’ll do whatever youask.”
“Come back and be my sonagain.”
“You have dozens of sons.”Cai glanced around the thriving, bustling roundhouse, from whoseevery shadow peered a face more or less like his own.“Hundreds bynow, probably.”
“You were myfirstborn.”
Cai swallowed hard.What had Danansaid—that Broccus grieved for him?He hadn’t believed it.All hislife he’d been treated like Broc’s horse or his dog.A good one,granted—an asset to be shown off on market days and feasts—butnothing more than that.Coldly he said, “May I get upnow?”
“You’d never have knelt in thefirst place if that lunatic Greek hadn’t cut the balls off you.Yes, get up.Come and stand before me.You’ve grown, I think.Started to fill out.It’s strange—you stilllooklike a man.”
Cai submitted to the inspection.Hewas past being bothered by Broc’s words or the spectacle he wasproviding to the clan.He even stood still when Broc pushed up outof his chair and took his shoulders as if to measure theirwidth.
“How is he, then?”the oldman asked idly, tugging at his hair.“Theo, and that little Saxonbedwarmer of yours?Did they get through your raid?”
“No.The lunatic and thebedwarmer are both dead.You were right, Broccus—peace isn’t theway.I thought you would help me, but if not… Just let mego.”
Caius turned and walked off.He couldhear Broc calling after him, but it didn’t seem to matter throughthe ongoing racket in his head.The cries and the shouting hadnever let up.Sometimes beneath them sea bells whispered, and thebell from the burnt-out church—fallen along with the tower andstolen for melt by the raiders—kept up its dull warningsong.
He picked his way around the centralfire, around groups of children playing in the dust.When he trodon one, he picked it up out of habit and put it on his hip,jouncing it absently.He’d barely been big enough to walk himselfwhen his first little half-sib had been thrust into his arms, andso it had gone on.He’d lived hip-deep among children all his life.Now he came to think of it, they were the only part of his father’sworld he’d missed, and he held the small body close, blindlyseeking comfort.Probably it was a relative anyway.
The child began to yowl and laugh inpleasure at the ride, and its mother emerged from one of thesmaller huts, smiling to see Broc’s eldest boy back in camp.“Caius, Caius!Lost your frock?”
Cai handed the infant down to her.“Looks that way, doesn’t it?Just for today.”
“Ah, won’t you stay withus?Don’t mind your old fool of a father.”
“I don’t, Helena.But Ihave to go.”
“You should hear him.Caithis, Cai that, when he’s trying to get your brothers to behave.Ithink he’s even proud of you for joining that monastery ofyours.”
“Yes, he sounded it.”Cai lookedinto her cheerful face, dusted all over with flour.Yes, she’d beenone of Broc’s women for a while.She hadn’t suffered too much, andnow she had a home, and this sturdy boy.Come back and be my son again.In a way, it wouldbe the easiest thing in the world.If he stayed, no doubt thenoises in his head would soon be drowned out by others—the pigssquealing now, for example, as the inept village butcher began histask… Cai’s head spun.“I have to go,” he repeated, avoiding herkindly outstretched hand.“I don’t belong here anymore.”
The question remained as towhere hedidbelong.Stumbling out of the village, past Broc’s ferociousouter defences, the wooden palisade and Roman-style earthworks, Caitried to think it through.Leof had brought him to Fara.WheneverCai had doubted what he was doing there, he had turned to Leof andseen, in his friend’s devout, loving ways, an ideal pattern forlife.And although Cai knew Abbot Theo had never been supposed totell him that the round apple Earth danced round the sun, histeachings had shown Cai what such a life could be when lit up fromwithin by learning.
Find Addy.Remember,Cai—the secret isn’t in the book.It’s in the binding.
Cai jolted to a halt on the track.Theo’s voice, cutting through his inner racket like a knife, solemnand clear as if the abbot had been standing in the sunshine besidehim.Leof and Theo were gone.Cai hadn’t been able to save eitherfrom a brutal, unchristian death.And his abbot’s last command,half-forgotten in the mess inside his skull, meant nothing tohim.
He could feel the revolutions ofthe Earth.He wasn’t meant to, he was sure.The vastness of therock, and the great invisible force that pinned him to it, meant hecould spend his days in blissful unawareness of moving at all.Suchan illusion was every man’s right, Theo had taught.Learning couldbe taken or rejected.But the choice had to be there.The treasure.Thesecret of Fara.
The sky darkened.The track was emptybefore and behind him, and he was far enough from the hillfort thatno one could see him, but he made his way into the gorse, a painfulsickness boiling up in him.He wished the Earth would stop.Hewished there wasn’t blood beneath his nails, so deeply ingrainedthat no amount of scrubbing would shift it.He doubled up, hisstomach clenching.
He’d forgotten to bring food with him,and Broccus hadn’t offered any.Still the efforts to vomit torethrough him.He used to suffer from strange, disabling headaches,days when coloured glass had seemed to float in front of his eyes.On those days Leof had sat by his bunk, pressing a cold, damp clothto his brow.Cai threw up water and stood gasping, wiping away hottears.
His head had cleared a little.Thatoften happened once the sickness had pitched, Leof cleaning him upand telling him gently how poor an inspiration he was for hisprofession.Even the bells and the screams inside his head weredying down.
