“Oslaf, be silent.And hangon.”
The scene before him was dreamlike.Urging the pony on, Cai struggled to make sense of it.He had beenfighting for his grasp on reality all the way down the coastalplain, memories overlaying themselves onto his bleak presentmoment.He’d driven hard past the place where he’d first seen Leofon his journey home from trading, averted his eyes from the duneswhere they’d lain down.Now it was as if time had slipped, doubledback on itself with incomprehensible changes.Men were congregated,motionless but for the wind-driven flap of their robes, in theplace where the church had been.Shaken by the speed of hisapproach, Cai could almost take the vision wholesale, believe in itas he wanted to—the brotherhood nearly back at full complement,close to thirty of them standing in the sun.
But five were strangers.They weregathered around a tall, thin man whose resemblance to Theo vanishedafter one cruel sting.The remaining Fara brethren were facingthem.Through a flash of red fury Cai saw John and Cedric amongstthem.Cedric was propped up in Wilfrid’s arms, John on his knees,his face grey and drawn.
Cai let the mare pick up speed.She liked open ground, and the church—the remains of it, theundefended space with its tumble of stones and burnt rafters—stoodall by itself on the hillside.The monks were beginning to turn inresponse to the thunder of hooves.Mouths opened, fingers pointed.The thin man pushed back his hood to see, revealing a harsh tonsureand a face like a carrion crow’s.Repulsion crawled in Cai’smarrow, an antipathy that curdled his blood.Deepest instinct toldhim that this carrion bird was his enemy, more certainly thanthevikingrwho had plundered and burned with blind malice only.For amoment he wanted to plough straight into the group, smashinghimself and the chariot to bits in the process, but he eased thespeeding pony’s head around, drawing her through an arc to slow herdown.
“You,” he cried as soon ashe was within earshot.“What in God’s name are you doing?Why arethose men out of bed?”
Benedict detached himself from thegroup and ran to intercept him.“Caius, wait.”
“No!Take the horse.Holdher.”Cai leapt down, not caring whether Ben had obeyed his orderor not.He vaulted into the church over the tumbledown wall and ranto Brother John.“All right,” he said to him, crouching at hisside.“Just hold on and…” He broke off, lifting a scarlet hand.“He’s bleeding,” he yelled, and thrust out his red palm at thenewcomers.“Who the devil are you?What have you done?”
The tonsured man steppedforwards.If he was startled by Cai’s intervention, his face didn’tbetray it.In fact he looked coldly amused.“I am Abbot Aelfric ofCanterbury, sent to mend the devil’s work in this blasphemouspigsty.God and the Vikings have begun my mission for me.Now—before I order you tossed from the cliffs—who areyou?”
Cai hauled in a breath.Before hecould expel it, a shadow fell across him—Ben’s huge bulk,interposing itself between him and Aelfric.“My lord abbot,” hesaid, planting a hand on Cai’s shoulder and pushing him down.“Thisis our physician, Brother Caius.Forgive him.The men killed in theraid were his close friends, as—as they were to all ofus.”
“This wild-eyed savage is amonk?Where is his cassock?”
“He’s been travelling.Abbot Theodosius used to permit him to wear—”
“Where is his tonsure?”Aelfric turned back to address the brethren, dismissing Benedictwithout a glance.“And all of yours?Where are your hours forprayer?Why have I come here to find you doing as you wish, throughall the day and the night?You say the Vikings raided here.I sayagain—God wielded his sword over you, and sent a cleansing fire.Intruth…” He paused, eyes shining coldly.“Cast your minds back tothat night.In truth, did Vikings come?Or were they demons, castup from your own blackened consciences to reprove yoursins?”
Caius burst into laughter.“Youthink wedreamedthis raid?”He stood up, knocking aside Ben’s restraininghand.“Wilfrid—press the hem of John’s cassock here, as I have beendoing.To staunch the hole the dream-demon made in him.Tonsures,Aelfric?Hours for prayer?You try both, in a freezing winter here.You’ll want every hair on your shiny pate by the end of it.Ask thenewborn lambs in the snow if Brother Shepherd can come home to praynine times a day.”
“Caius!”
“What?”Cai swung round toface Ben.“Why is anyone listening to this man?”
“Because he’s our abbot,” Benreplied flatly.Cai opened his mouth, but Ben took his shoulders.Low and urgent, too soft for anyone else to hear, he went on,“Besides, what if...Oh God, what if he’s right?”
The sense of nightmare had lifted fromCai for a while, during his wild gallop from Broc’s stronghold.Nowit came down again, like a killing jar over an insect.Strength ranout of him.If Ben, the strongest and best of his friends here, hadfallen under the spell of this lunatic… All the light and warmth inCai’s world lay buried in the shallow mound beneath the hawthorntrees.He had briefly forgotten.“I don’t care,” he said dully.“Ijust want John and Cedric out of here.Will you help me ornot?”
Ben hesitated.Peripherally Cai sawAelfric smile, as if winning a finely calculated point.Then Oslaf,who had finished securing horse and chariot to a post, pushedthrough the crowd towards them.“Benedict,” he demandedbreathlessly.“What’s wrong with you?We must help Cai.”
He took Ben’s hand.The gesture waspotent—much more than brother to brother.Cai wanted to shieldthem, but Aelfric had seen it too.His gaze had focussed,knife-blade predatory, upon their joined hands.
Benedict shook himself and seemed tocome out of a trance.“Yes.Sorry.”He lifted his head.“Forgiveme, my lord abbot, but Caius is right.”
Aelfric let it go.He did so easily,as if he had found something better to pursue.“Go, then.I havesaid what I wish to for now.All those who need to, go with yourphysician.For now.”
Cai and Oslaf took charge ofCedric, who had stayed upright somehow, his eyes blank and lost.Benedict picked John up bodily and cradled him.Leading the way outof the church, Cai saw his new abbot’s thin lips working, moving asif in prayer.Abominations,Cai lip-read, and averted his gaze so as not toknow any more.Aelfric was watching Oslaf and Ben like ahawk.Abominations.A few of the monks who had suffered no injuryduring the raid did their best to creep out with the others, butAelfric’s retinue, starved-looking men like himself, moved to blocktheir path.
Aelfric spread his arms.“I willpurify this place of all abomination,” he declaimed aloud, hisvoice a crow’s caw on the wind.“I will rebuild it in sanctity.Youwho remain here—never mind your goats and your laundry.Dedicatedaylight today to gathering these fallen stones.Your church mustbe built out of rock, like Peter’s of Rome.”
Cai stopped dead.Oslaf had started upthe stairs to the infirmary with Cedric.He shielded his eyes fromthe sun.“Don’t be a fool, Aelfric,” he said.His anger had gone.To himself he sounded reasonable.He had to stop this stranger insuch a fundamental mistake.“The Vikings knock down churcheswherever they raid.I don’t think they care what we worship, orwho, but the sight of our churches provokes them.We build inwillow and thatch so it won’t matter so much—so we can put themback up again.”
“Blasphemy!”Aelfric swunga finger at Cai, who thought he would soon become very tired ofthat gesture.And that word.“Blasphemy, to say the burning of achurch matters not!A church built out of faith and sacred stonecan never fall.We will build it.You will help us the moment yourduties are done.”
Cai shrugged and turned away.Hedidn’t know what battle he was facing here, if there was a battleat all.Benedict and all the Fara brethren had been devoted toTheo.A stranger marching into Theo’s monastic realm, threateningto desecrate his corpse… Cai would have expected to find Aelfricand his men in a heap at the foot of the cliff, hurled there byBenedict’s great hands.How had the crow taken charge?If Cai couldbring himself to care, he’d have to find out, discover the natureof his power.And meanwhile… “Oslaf,” he called softly, running upthe stairs to catch up with him.“I’ll take Cedric now.Can you getback down to the chariot—take it down to the stables without ournew friend noticing?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good.And if he stopsyou—well, for God’s sake don’t let him see the swords.”
To stay out of Aelfric’s way was thebest.Over the next couple of days, Cai managed this well.Johntook fever from his enforced attendance in the church, and Caistayed at his bedside, wrestling away the dark angel more by sheerforce than medical skill.Half a dozen times he reached for Danan’spoppy vial, but held off, reading the lights in John’s eyes as awill to survive and praying he was right.Aelfric didn’t intrudeinto the infirmary, and Cai didn’t encounter him again until atlast he could leave John for long enough to go in search offood.
His route took him past Theo’soffice.That was how the brethren had referred to the bare littlecell by the scriptorium, though Theo had dispensed most of hisadministrative wisdom directly, outdoors or looking over hischarges’ shoulders while they worked.The room had been thestorehouse 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 hadused to teach the brethren his wild, anticlerical science.TheGospel ofScience,Caithought, Theo’s last words resounding in his head again.Only a copy, dearCaius.Don’t worry.
