“There is no treasure.Notreasure, no secret.We barely have food to put in our mouths sincethe last time you savages burned us.Don’t you think we’d havesurrendered anything we had?”
“Sigurd had to kill manymonks before he found one who would teach him.You are strongbeneath your skirts, or stubborn anyway.Stubborn and stupid.Bewise, physician.Give it up.”
The Viking’s eyes flickered shut.Caireached to ease him over onto his back, but he reanimated.“I amcalled Fenrir,” he rasped, the effort bringing blood to his lips.“Fenrir, after Fenrisulfr, the great wolf of our legends.You mustmake me well again, monk, and then you have to set me free.I am aprince in my own land—second heir to Lord Sigurd’s Torleik realm,and Sigurd and my brothers and my comrades will be back for me.Youmust let me go.”
“Happily.I’d dump you backon the beach in a heartbeat, your majesty.”
“A prince in my own…” TheViking writhed, fresh sweat breaking on him.“Oh, gods.Kill menow, monk.I have soiled myself.I am disgraced.”
Pity went through Cai like a blade.Onits heels came a weird surge of laughter, which he bit backfiercely, bewildered by it.“No, you’re not.Your body is tired andweak, that’s all.Will you let me clean you up?”
“The work of a menial.Aslave.”
“Well, you’ve establishedthat’s all we Christians are good for.”
“I stink like apig.”
“You certainly do.I’veneglected you.I hoped you would just die.”
Their eyes met.The faintest glimmertouched the Viking’s pain-filled stare.“You’re honest, at anyrate.What is your name?”
“Caius.”
“Caius?”On the raider’slips the word came out like the call of a seabird, and Cairepressed a shiver.“My father’s father met a Roman general by thatname, a century or so ago.He stuck his head on aspike.”
“My ancestors did worse toyours, I’m sure.My father is a chieftain, descended from the Romanarmy here.”
“A chieftain… Then you tooare a prince in your own land.”
“All five muddy acres ofit, yes.”
“Very well.I will permityou to tend me.”
Cai shook his head.He brought twopails of water over to the bunk and set about his task.The stenchin the cell was bad, but Cai had nursed the whole community of Farathrough a bout of cholera flux, and not much could turn his stomachnow.He only felt sick at having left the Viking—Fenrir, had hecalled himself?—to lie like this in his dirt.First he cleaned andrepacked the sword wound, which was bleeding again after Aelfric’sministrations.Fenrir moaned and passed out during the process,which made the rest easier.
Working as swiftly as he could,Cai stripped him of his boots and deerskin trousers.Underneaththem he wore a subligaculum like Cai’s own, countering the legendthat thesevikingrpirates had parts so monstrous they had to be strapped upinside a bull’s horn.The long strip of linen was stiff withexcrement and blood.Cai unwrapped it briskly from round Fenrir’ships, distractedly noting as he pulled away the strip that ranbetween his legs that the beaten-bronze loin guard stitched into ithad protected a splendid, shapely length of cock.
He threw the subligaculum aside forburning, then added to the pile the ruined shirt beneath Fenrir’sjerkin.The jerkin itself was good of its kind, well crafted, andwould serve again despite the slash through its sheepskin-linedleather.The trousers too.Cai folded these to be cleaned, thinkingwith a pang of how poor Brother Blacksmith would have exclaimedover the riveted lace-holes and that neat cock-piece.
The Viking was naked, and as finelymade as any of his trappings.Just for the length of one indrawnbreath, the man in Cai took over from the doctor.Skin a shadebetween bronze and ivory, marked across the shoulders and chestwith coiling blue-black serpents, needle-pricked designs such asDanan’s ancestors had used to bear as signs of their warrior caste.A frame of such lean, tensile strength that even half a breath fromdying it was beautiful.“Fenrisulfr,” Cai said softly, suddenlyassailed by memories of a fire-and-shadow dream.
Cai washed him scrupulously, from thecrease of his backside to his armpits, and then with a fourth orfifth clean rag took the dust and the traces of tears from hisface.He worked quickly, closing the cell’s lead-framed window assoon as the air was clear.A fine spring day was rising outside,belying all the torchlit horrors of the night, but still the breezewas fresh, and he shook out two blankets from a wooden chestagainst the wall.
Fenrir shifted and moaned as the woolsettled over his limbs.His fever was mounting again.Cai felt hisbrow and reluctantly fastened him back to the bed.A wolf in thefold was bad enough, but a delirious one with axe skills didn’tbear thinking about.He looked at the curtain of hair streamingdown off the end of the bunk.It seemed to be coiling all the morevigorously as its owner lost strength.Well, superstition or not,it was doubtless full of lice, impossible to wash without chillingthe Viking to death.
Cai retrieved the shears from thecorner where he’d hurled them out of temptation’s reach.He sat onthe edge of the bed, his thigh pressing gently against Fenrir’sribs.Carefully, untangling each strand as far as he could withouttugging, he cut the fox-red mass away.
The mask of a savage archangelemerged.Maybe this creaturewassome kind of royalty in his own world.His brow was broadand capable, his cheekbones sculpted, delicate in their contours asthe corners of his mouth.His nose had been broken at some pointbut not badly reset, its slight irregularity lending a charm to aface that would otherwise have chilled with its aristocraticperfection.Unable to help himself, Cai ran a hand across the shornhair.
“Gunnar,” the Vikingwhispered, shifting to find the caress.
Cai shivered.This raider—this demon,this archangelic wolf—must have his own Leof, his own belovedbedmate and companion, somewhere in the Dane Lands.
“Gunnar… Bróðir.Bróðirminn.”
Bróðir…The word was almost the same in thelanguage Cai had shared with Leof, the familiar rough dialect ofthe northern coast.Not a bedmate, then—a brother.Gunnar, mybrother.Oncemore, unwanted pity assailed Cai.He couldn’t understand it.Andmuch less could he comprehend his own brief, blood-hot rush ofpleasure and relief.
Chapter Five
