Cai ran to him, seized him by thearmpits and dragged him out of the clutch of the tenth wave.Thistime no hand seized his cassock.That had been a convulsion, Caithought, a killer’s last impulse to kill.Cai could not identifythe impulses guiding his own actions now.He hauled his burden upthe beach onto dry sand, not caring that the long, well-wroughtlimbs jolted over rocks.Maybe death by drowning was too good, tooeasy for this brute.Maybe Cai would find the spark of life in him,fan it up to consciousness and take his cold vengeance after all.There were things in his medical kit, acids, drugs for cleaningdirty wounds, drugs that would burn…
He let the young man’s shoulders falland thudded down beside him in the sand.He wouldn’t allow hisragged inhalations to be sobs.He was breathless, that was all.Heundid his satchel, reached in and drew out the first vial that cameto hand—Danan’s poppy, glowing with its own light under the moon.Cai had let a human creature howl in its lonely death throes.He’ddone it for hours, closing his ears and his heart.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out,not to the Viking but to Theo’s ghost and Leof’s.He uncapped thebottle, cleared strands of hair and seaweed from the raider’s palemouth and pressed the rim to his lips.
“Gunnar,” the young mansaid, on a note of soft wonder.His eyes opened wide.They werefocussed on a distant shore, a homeland far from this bleak coast.“Gunnar,” he repeated.Tears filled the amber eyes.He reached out,and Cai flinched away, but this time his scarred, capable hand onlystroked the empty air.
Cai poured the liquid down the man’sthroat.It was a dose for sleep, not death, and he shuddered inbewilderment as he fastened up his satchel and bent down to takehold of the fallen man again.It was a quarter of a mile to thefoot of the cliff.If he managed that, there was the path, almostsheer in parts, a tough climb even unburdened.If Aelfric or one ofthe other Canterbury spooks caught sight of him…
“Caius?”
He jumped and let the Viking drop,nearly hard enough to break his skull on a rock.Staring up intothe darkness, he made out a familiar shape, briefly outlinedagainst the sky and then beginning a scramble down the path.Benedict… Cai couldn’t have hoped for anyone better, and yet achill of mistrust went through him.Ben should have been asleep.“What are you doing out here?”he called cautiously.“Where’sOslaf?”
“Praying, as the abbot toldhim to.It’s where you should be too.”
“And you.But we don’tmarch to Aelfric’s drum yet.Or do we?”
Cai hadn’t meant it to sound like achallenge.After Leof, Ben had been his dearest friend at Fara, hisadvocate in the early days when even Theo’s gentle rule had chafedhim.But he hated the new coldness in Ben’s eyes.He waitedwarily.
Ben put out one sandalled foot andgave the raider a shove.“Is it dead?”
“Almost.Don’t kickhim—that’s where I hurt him during the fight.”
“And you came down tofinish him off?”
Cai nodded.That had been his exactintention.He couldn’t remember when or how he had lost it.“Ican’t, though.Help me carry him up.”
“Are you off yourhead?”
“Possibly.I wounded himmyself.I can’t kill him.”
Ben snorted, sounding more like hisold self.“You did for three of his friends up there, no bother atall.”
“Yes, in the heat of it.”Cai glanced back out over the moon-burnished sand.The tide hadalready covered the place where he had tussled with the Viking.Soall earthly struggles would end, Theo had taught—wiped clear,smoothed away by God’s hand.“I can’t explain it to you.Are yougoing to help me or not?”
“Where will you puthim?”
“To bed, of course.I needto treat him.”
“In the infirmary?Where John andthe rest of your brothers are still bleeding fromvikingrswords?”
“I’ll put him in thequarantine cell.Look—the moon is setting.Carry him up to theclifftop for me.I won’t ask you to have anything else to do withit, except…” Cai paused, wiping salt-stung tears out of his eyes.“Don’t tell Aelfric.”
“Aelfric is going to noticea six-foot-tall Viking in his monastery.Even in the quarantinecell.”
Cai almost laughed.But the Benedicthe had once known, that vigorous and hot-tempered ploughman, wouldhave knocked him down for so much as suggesting the betrayal.“I’lldeal with Aelfric,” he said hoarsely.“Here.You take his shouldersand I’ll…”
“No.Leave him to me.”Benpushed Cai out of the way.“You bring your kit and his things.Thatsword is a good one—the shield too.Is that his helmet downthere?”
Cai looked.The incoming tide hadwashed a gleaming curve of metal up into a niche between the rocks.He went to pick it up.He turned it over in his hands.Yes, hethought it belonged to the Viking.He remembered how the amber eyeshad widened and shone out from behind its mask.Would Cai have beenable to run the young man through without the disfiguringmetal?
It didn’t matter.Cai gathered theother weapons and followed Ben up the cliff path, suddenly tooexhausted to do more than put one foot in front of the other.Benhad slung the Viking over one shoulder.The matted bronze hair hungdown, swinging in time with Ben’s movements.The hand that hadreached out blindly for a long-gone friend also swung, limp andpale.Cai doubted there was a pulse in its wrist.He wanted tocheck, but Ben was moving too fast for him.Probably being carriedlike this would kill the raider off before they got to the top ofthe cliffs, but Cai could hardly ask Ben to cradle him in hisarms.
If he died, he died.The worldwould be that much simpler for Cai.There would only be awolf-shaped vacancy, a gap where the sea wind would blowsoundlessly through.Cai remembered his dream and caught hisbreath, stumbling on the track.The wolf from the sea…
Yes.The wolf would die.A faint dawnlight was filling the infirmary by the time Cai and Ben got there,turning the lantern’s flame sallow.Eyes flew wide at theirarrival.Bodies stirred beneath blankets, and Brother John, who hadnever emerged from the twilight world into which a Viking’s swordhad plunged him, staggered up from his cot, face contorting inbewildered horror.
He tried to block Cai’s way.Pushinghim gently aside, Cai directed Ben into the little cell off theinfirmary.Not many diseases survived long in the salty north-coastgales, but this was where Cai watched over fever cases until he wassure they would turn into nothing worse.He shoved the door shutbehind him with his foot.“Set him down there.”
