A dark-robed form was moving round theroom.This was such a familiar sight that at first Cai didn’t reactto it.Tall and thin, bending over the shelves…
Glass shattered on the stone flags.The floor was already glimmering with shards.Theo’s bronzespyglass lay in a corner, crushed as if a great foot had landed onit.The device he had called a sextant, the copper arc on itscomplex wooden frame—the thing he used to tell the distancesbetween the stars—was in pieces against the far wall.While Caiwatched in the doorway, Aelfric turned and swept the last shelfclear of its skulls, a single contemptuous gesture.
When he was done, he planted his handson Theo’s desk and glared at Cai as if he had expected to find himthere.“You will understand this,” he growled.“God made allmen—even you, physician—as the sublime peak of his creation.He didnot set them adrift on some bare rock to float amongst the stars.He placed them at the centre.The sun…goes round…theEarth.”
Cai wanted to weep.He wanted to fallon his knees, scrape up as many pieces of his beloved abbot’sprecious toys as he could, fold them into his robes and make themwhole again.“You’re worse than the Vikings,” he got out, the wordsscalding in his throat.“Even they didn’t… Even they left thesethings alone.”
“Yes.The demons recognisedthe devil’s instruments.”
For once Aelfric was on his own.Everyother time when Cai had encountered him, he had been surrounded byhis retinue of grim-faced clerics.Cai too was alone.Aelfric waslean, but Cai sensed a strength in him.It would be no cowardice totake him on now—by the rules of Broc’s stronghold, not thecloister.Man to man, and the loser to repent the error of his waysas he dropped like a stone from the window.
Caius, don’tworry.
This time the voice was almostphysical.Cai barely restrained himself from jerking around.Hefelt as if Theo had laid a warm hand on his shoulder.Don’t worry.Don’tlet him destroy you or drive you away.Guard my flock.
Cai decided he was going mad.That wasfar from unlikely, given his last few days.He had seen better menthan himself break down over less.That was fine.If he had to hearvoices, Theo’s would be the one he chose, unless it had beenLeof’s.But that sweet soul was resting in a peace beyond Cai’sunderstanding, his voice the sea-wind song among the gorse.Caiwent up to the desk.Aelfric tensed for confrontation, but therewas no need.
“Have you set awatch?”
“A watch?”
“At night.The raid herecame early this year.But now they’ve come once, they’ll do itagain.They think we have something they want.”
“The demons will not comewhen men’s hearts here are pure.And pure they shallbe.”
Cai gave it up.He could watchthe sea himself.He no longer seemed to need sleep.“By your ownwisdom, then.But remember this.”He took up the stub of a candlefrom Theo’s desk and put it upright.“Here is the sun.Imagine itslight if you can.”He placed in front of it the round stone Theoused as a paperweight, and produced from a pocket in his cassock asmall pink apple.It was one of Broc’s, from the orchard wheresweet Roman strains still grew.He set it down in front of thestone, so that all three objects were in a line.“Weareon the rock, my lordabbot.The apple is the moon.Just now our rock, this stone, sitsbetween the sun and moon, and so the moon is dark.In fourteendays, this apple moon has moved to our rock’s other side, and so wesee her face in full.So we must be between the sun and themoon—not at the centre of them.”Cai paused and drew in a deepbreath.“Preach what you will.Darken men’s minds if you must—tellthem the sun and all creation dances round you.As long as there’sa candle, a stone or an apple anywhere in this monastery—I canprove otherwise.”
Chapter Three
Cai stood on a fallen lintel stone,his arms folded over his chest.His perch gave him a good vantagepoint over the ruins where the dormitory chambers had been, and hewas watching carefully.One, two, three.Step, parry, thrust.Sofar 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 dropyour shield.”
“Why, you just told me notto raise it, lest he strike me through the balls!”
Cai stepped back, lifting hishands in despair.He let the dozen men gathered around him havetheir laugh—joined briefly with it himself.In the week since theraid, not much laughter had been heard at Fara.He took up positionbehind Wilf and covered his shield hand with his own.He nodded toOslaf, Wilf’s fighting partner for this bout.Oslaf came forwards,feinting with his sackcloth-covered sword.“Raise your shield.Nowlower.React.You can see what he’s going to do from the set of hisshoulders.”Especially when he’s poking at you like an old womanchasing flies with a broomstick, but that can’t be helped.“Predict him.Better.Good.”
Signalling to the others that theyshould continue the drill, Cai returned to his post.This was histhird session, and the best turnout yet.When he’d let it be knowntwo days before that he would be here with Broc’s donated arsenal,only Oslaf and four others had appeared, glancing nervously overtheir shoulders.Cai couldn’t blame them for their fears.The ruinwas a good place to practise—the one remaining wall shielded theirendeavours from the main hall, and rebuilding here was a lowpriority, the displaced monks sleeping on makeshift cots in a barn,where they rested the more easily for safety in numbers—but Aelfricwouldn’t remain deceived for long.A handful of monks missing fromtheir duties during quiet hours was one thing.A dozen, though,almost half the surviving complement…
Cai sensed movement behind him andwhipped round.“Benedict,” he said in relief, then recalled hisfriend’s behaviour over the past few days and frowned.“Have youcome to join us?Or has our lord abbot sent you to smoke usout?”
Benedict looked at the ground.He wasvery pale.“I should be insulted that you ask.But Iunderstand.”
“To join us, then?”Caijumped down.“Did something change your mind?”
“I am not to touch Oslaf,”Ben told him.Cai raised an eyebrow—nobody was touching anybodythese days, not now that they all slept like frightened puppies ina barn.“No,” Ben said intensely, reading his thought.“Not likethat.I am not to lay hand on him even in friendship.Nor am I tospeak to him, go near him or have dealings with him at all beyondthe absolute necessities of work.”
“Dear God.Aelfric told youthis?”
“I wasn’t accorded thatmuch dignity.It was Laban, his chief aide.”
“Will you obey?”
“For Oslaf’s sake—yes, Iwill.”
“But…it’s brutal.Why?”
“Because if I don’t, thepunishment will fall on Oslaf, not on me.”
Cai shook his head.He could see thecrude 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.”
