Cai let him run on.His voice wassomehow consonant with the wind and the splash of the water, and ifit helped him to complain and lay down his warrior’s laws while hesubmitted to having his legs rubbed with sand, so be it.Caiallowed his mind to drift.These beautiful limbs were longer thanLeof’s, carved with a strength Leof’s quiet life had never demandedof him.Badly scarred from what looked like untreated axe wounds.The big, tense muscle that ran up the back of the thigh made Cai’sache in sympathy—and something darker, a vibration of longing.Butall that had died in him, hadn’t it?Cai was glad that Leof hadbeen his last, that he’d bear onwards into his life with himmemories of such purity.
“Who is Theo?”
Cai looked up.Fen was regarding him,his gaze like sea-light through honey.Salt had caught his lashestogether, and his shorn hair had grown out enough to spike as thesun dried his crown.
“You wouldn’t beinterested.”
“Theo who makes you bathe.Theo who thinks man’s flesh is a beautiful gift fromGod.”
Surprised that he’d remembered, Caishrugged.“He used to be our abbot here.BeforeAelfric.”
“Aelfric thescarecrow?”
Cai almost smiled.“I didn’t think youwere listening then.Yes, Aelfric the scarecrow.”
“I shouldn’t think you evercalled your abbot Theo names.”
“No.He was a good man.Hetaught us about the movements of the stars, and how to treat oneanother well.I loved him.”Suddenly Cai recalled who he wastalking to, and he finished the rubdown ungently, making Fen wince.“Much good it did me.Your lot killed him in the raid before theone that bestowed your gracious presence on me.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.He died defending ourlibrary and scriptorium.He was armed with a book.You can get outof the water now.”
Fen couldn’t.Cai watched him strugglefor long enough to satisfy the new surge of pain and hatred in hisheart, then went to give him a hand.He thrust Fen’s discardedcassock at him, and bent to pick up his own.
“Is that why you took upthe sword, warrior priest?”
Cai couldn’t read Fen’s stare.It wascomprehensive—taking him in from the top of his head to the solesof his bare feet, paying thorough attention to those places wherehe was much less priest than warrior.His shoulders, themusculature of his arms, as if any moment he might be recruited forsome lightning raid up the coast…
“That’s right,” he saidcoldly.“The only throats that will get slit around here will beViking ones.Fara is defended.Tell that to your brother, if heever comes looking for trouble here again.”
Chapter Six
Dark of the moon, a month after thesecond raid.The church was completed, and Cai knelt on itsstone-flagged floor between Benedict and Brother Martin.This wasmidnight office, the most ungodly, to Cai’s mind, of all the newcanonical hours.He’d stopped objecting to them.He could see howthey might work and be beautiful, in a monastery with plentifulresources and time on its hands—a kind of circle-dance of prayer sothat no hour would pass without praise of God’s name.
Matins, prime, terce, sext, none,vespers, compline, midnight office.The names had their own music.They blended with Laban’s plainsong chant and the flickeringtorchlight.No one needed Cai’s attention in the infirmary, and noless than three men had been set to watch the coast for raiders.Freed for once from anxiety, Cai felt the tug of sleep.Subtly heeased his hood forwards.Beside him, Martin emitted the tiniestsnore.Theo had used to provide a chair for him during mass, butthe old man had learned the art of sleeping on his knees whilstmaintaining an attitude of perfect devotion.
On Cai’s other side, Benedict kneltwith spine erect, tension radiating off him.These days he spentmore time with the Canterbury clerics than amongst his brethren.Aelfric spoke to him often, too quietly for anyone else to hear,and Ben would listen, head bowed.Oslaf kept bewildered distancefrom him, lost weight and grew pale.Cai opened his eyes again.He’d never be free from worry, would he—not at Fara, notnow.
The chanting stopped.That was thesignal for the monks to rise and return to their bunks until matinsthree hours later, the real start of the monastic day.Cai put ahand to Martin’s elbow to wake him and help him up, but Aelfricstepped forwards from the shadows.“No,” he commanded, his voicemore like a crow’s caw than ever.“Remain on yourknees.”
Cai bit back a groan.Three hours waslittle enough time to prepare for a day of farming, weaving,rebuilding and all the other duties that fell upon the brethrennow, with their reduced numbers, and no Theo to point each man tohis right task and ease the labour.Normally even Aelfric releasedthem without a further sermon.
“Remain on your knees.Itis thus you must hear God’s word on the ultimate fate of yoursouls.Your former abbot, thinking to spare you, never taught youthe one truth that could bring you to salvation.He knew his ownheresy, and so he kept silent on the truth of hellfire.He knows itwell enough now.”
Cai tried to lurch to his feet.Bengripped his arm, and he subsided.Why should he care?Theo wassafe, far beyond the reach of the carrion crow.The more Caiobjected, the more of Aelfric’s grim attention he drew to himself,and he wished only to slip unnoticed through his shadowed days.Those were the terms of his uneasy truce with the abbot—silence andcooperation, in return for Aelfric’s blind eye to his variousprivileges.He was still allowed to train his men to fight—to keepa warhorse and chariot, and a wounded Viking raider in a quarantinecell.He lowered his head.
“Each one of you here willhave undergone pain.Perhaps you have broken a bone, or had a colicfever in your guts, or burned yourselves with hot fat from thekitchen fires.Is it not so?”
Martin suddenly stirred.“Aye, aye.But we have our Caius to mend all of that for us.”
A ripple of laughter went through thecongregated monks.“Hush, Martin,” Cai whispered, giving the oldman’s hand an affectionate squeeze.“Just listen.We’ll be out thesooner.”
“The brother is old, andtherefore we forgive him, although I see no need for a band of holymen to keep a brewery, and it is my intent to shut it down.Imaginethe worst moment of your pain.Bring it back to mind and feel itnow.What made you endure it?”
Silence fell in the church.Most ofAelfric’s questions during sermons were rhetorical, but he seemedto want an answer to this one.An owl hooted off among the ruins,and the torches rustled.Cai couldn’t think of a thing tosay.
“Because it passes, my lordabbot.”
