Ben dumped his burden without ceremonyonto the quarantine bunk.It was a comfortless wooden frame, bareof the mattress and blankets that might harbour sickness.“Theywon’t let you keep him here.Not Aelfric—your ownbrethren.”
“He won’t trouble them forlong,” Cai said grimly.He dropped his kit and the Viking’s weaponswith a clatter on the floor.He’d seen enough of death by now torecognise its coming—the stillness it set on a brow, the waxenstiffening of lips that looked made to smile and devour and laughat a world now lost to them.He knelt by the bunk.He pushed hisfingertips up under the young man’s jaw.The skin was damp,unexpectedly fine-grained and smooth.Beneath it was the faintestpulse, the throb of a tadpole cleaving water.“Not long.Fetch mecloths and some water.”
“No.”
Benedict had backed away and wasleaning by the door.As Cai watched, he crossed himself.“I won’thelp you treat him, Caius.Not one of his kind.”
“They’re not bloodydemons!”
“They are to me.To all ofus here.They surely were demons to Leof.Or do youforget?”
Cai couldn’t answer.He waited forTheo’s voice in his head, the voice that had bidden him to sparehis fallen enemy.But Theo had fallen silent, leaving him only withthe vision of Leof’s destroyed face.If not a demon, he’d at leastbrought scarlet-handed murder into his brethren’s midst.“I don’tforget anything,” he said.“Get the others back to bed, and…tellAelfric if you have to.Go.”
He didn’t look up as the door thuddedclosed.He couldn’t pull his attention away from the man on thebunk.Was he gone?After taking from his satchel a piece ofobsidian glass, Cai held it over the pallid mouth.He couldn’tdetect a rise and fall in the Viking’s chest, and he didn’t want totouch him again, to feel beneath his week’s growth of soft beardthat fine skin.He waited.After long moments, a faint cloudappeared on the glass.
Cai got up.There was a bucket ofwater in the cell already, and a pile of clean rags.He rememberednow putting them in here when he’d been treating the others afterthe fight.He washed his hands, scrubbing them afterwards with theessence of sage and lavender Danan had taught him would help killinvisible sources of infection before surgery.He had perhaps halfan hour before the effects of the poppy wore off.He drew up astool by the cot.“Stay asleep for your own good, demon.I am goingto save you.Or kill you, and I don’t care much which.”
The sword wound was deep.Dark bloodrushed from it when Cai pulled back the Viking’s leather jerkin.The bedframe was soaked with it, a black pool spreading on thefloor.Another sign of life, Cai noted bitterly, stemming the tidewith rags.Pulse after pulse of it, the heart still beating out thedance somewhere within that elegant chest, with its ribs sprung asbeautifully as timbers in the keel of a longship.
Stitching wouldn’t be possible yet—theedges of the wound were ragged and too far apart.Cai couldn’tremember twisting the blade as he’d dragged it back, but perhaps hehad.He’d never been confronted with his own battlefield handiworkbefore.Quickly he soaked the cleanest of his rags in the solutionof sage and lavender, wadded them up and began to pack them intothe gaping hole.Blood welled up immediately around them.Hegrabbed a dry cloth and pressed that on top, then another.Bothbloomed crimson, like the poppies that opened in one sunny houraround Benedict’s barley fields and faded as fast.Cai needed anextra set of hands.For want of them he began to unfasten the roughhemp girdle round his waist, then stopped.The Viking’s own beltwould do better.Three inches wide and secured on his lean belly bya savage-looking wolf’s-head buckle, it would hold the bandages inplace, and Cai could tighten it hard enough to hold pressure on thewound.
He undid the belt.The buckle wascleverly forged, the mechanism of it belying the crude silver wolf.Hands slipping on blood, he tried to tug the leather strap free,but it was caught behind the young man’s back.Cai reached underhim and lifted his hip.
The Viking stirred.It was much toosoon for the effects of the poppy to have worn off, but he wasbuilt like a young oak tree, his vigour manifesting in every lineof his body.Nevertheless he was blind.Cai knew that when theamber eyes opened and searched for a focus, their pupils immense inthe lamplight.Quietly, hampered by the rattle in his throat, heasked a question.
Cai almost understood him.Thelanguage was like trying to look round a corner in his mind.Theohad taught that the narrow sea between here and the Dane Lands hadonce been dry, nomad hunters following the herds freely across it,bearing their words and ways with them.
Where am I?Who is herewith me?
Cai ignored him.He ripped thesheepskin hook that secured the belt at the back, jerked it up farenough to cover the wound and drew the strap tight through thebuckle.The Viking arched and groaned.Blood gleamed on his lips.The words came again, two out of five familiar to Cai’sears.Who ishere with me?Who?
Cai sat back.He folded his arms andpushed his hands into the sleeves of his cassock.He wanted tostroke the dying man’s hair back off his brow.He wanted to leanover him, ease his head up and cushion it on his arm.He clenchedhis fingers tight round his own wrists to hold himself still—hewanted to kiss this enemy’s bloodstained mouth, hold him and bearhim gently into death.
Who is with me?
“Gunnar,” Cai said softly.He clutched his arms harder, holding himself fiercely still.“I amhere with you.Gunnar.”
The Viking took a fever from hiswounds.Despite Cai’s herbs and hand-washing, poisons had enteredhis blood.By morning, although breath was still rasping in and outof his lungs, his skin was dry and papery, burning beneath Cai’stouch.The fire inside released a terrible last strength in him,and he lashed out howling at Cai, knocking a flagon of water fromhis hands, then lurched upright on the bunk to seize poor Oslaf,the only one of Cai’s brethren who had consented to enter thequarantine cell, let alone help.
Cai scrambled up off the floor.Hedetached the hand that had clenched on Oslaf’s robe, narrowlyavoiding a blow from the other.The Viking was flailing around forhis sword, now safely stowed away in the armoury.
“Stop it,” Cai ordered.“Oslaf, fetch me the straps from the surgical tables.”He held theyoung man down by brute force until Oslaf returned, then pinned onewrist long enough to secure it to the frame of the bunk.Oslafnervously did the same on the other side.The Viking thrashed onthe bed, his eyes alight with delirium and hate.He fought hisbindings wildly, then suddenly collapsed, expression draining fromhis sweat-soaked face to leave it serenely beautiful once more.Caistraightened up, breathless.“Best strap his ankles too.I’vepacked that wound as best I can, but it’ll open up if he thrashesround too much.”
Oslaf nodded.The raider was stillwearing his hide boots and thick deerskin leggings.Cai could havestripped him down while he slept the night before, and for anyother sick man he’d have done it—washed him, tended unflinchinglyto the inevitable bodily mess of near-death injury.Cai was ashamedof himself for leaving him dressed and filthy, but Benedict’s wordshad twisted together with his own loathing.To save the brute’slife was one thing.He couldn’t treat him as he had John orWilfrid, men who had deserved from him a brother’stenderness.
He helped Oslaf tie the straps overthe leggings, then glanced up at the younger monk.“Thanks.Youshould go now, though.Don’t make Benedict angry withyou.”
“It might be too late forthat.I know what you told me—that I ought to play the game, but…”Oslaf paled, absently patting the Viking’s ankle as if he had beena friend.“I’m not sure it is one anymore.Ben won’t let me nearhim.”
“But lastnight…”
“He pushed me away.Sent meoff to pray with the others.”Tears suddenly clouded Oslaf’s gaze,and he put out a hand to ward off Cai’s sympathy.“Do you thinkhe’ll live, then?This demon of yours?”
“I don’t understand howhe’s still alive now.”
“My grandmother used to saythe hair saps strength in fever.She cut mine off when I wasill.”
Cai looked at the raider’ssweat-darkened mane.“That’s nonsense, though, isn’t it?Asuperstition.”
