“That stuff would bung up a bull.Maybe youshouldleave.I don’t see what a decent soldier’s doing amidst allthese eunuchs anyway.But I for one am glad you were here on thenight I arrived.Now—do you think you could take me for my dailywalk?”
Closing up the cabinet, Cai turnedaway.He didn’t dare meet Fen’s eyes.There was a painful pricklingbehind his own.He was lost, if he let words of kindness from thisenemy—however rough and fleeting—touch the loneliness gaping underhis ribs.One of the blankets on the cots was rumpled.Cai snatchedit off, shook it out hard and threw it back into place.“Go and puton your sandals, then.”
Cai had negotiated with Aelfric thatthe Viking prisoner should have an hour of exercise each day.Hewould get better sooner that way, Cai had argued, and then Caiwould no longer have the flimsy excuse of protecting him as hispatient.After that, Aelfric could do what he wished with him.Caihad enjoyed the furrow that had crossed the abbot’s brow at thethought of dealing with a six-foot Viking restored to full health.All the Canterbury clerics combined would be like gnats on the hideof a warhorse.Cai had to escort Fenrir personally during theseoutings, and any trouble that came from them would be visited—asusual—not on Cai himself, but on one of his friends.
Aelfric had wrapped chains around Cai.They were thin and meagre as the abbot himself, but he had chosenthem well.They could tighten like wire, and none of Cai’s strengthcould avail him.Remembering poor Benedict moaning in the firelitdark, Cai realised that Aelfric knew how to choose the right chainsfor each man.Yes, it was time for Cai to go.Not back to hisfather’s stronghold but somewhere free.He’d take his chances amongthe robber bands who roamed the sunlit uplands of Cheviot andTraprain Law if he had to, shake off the shame and dust of thisplace forever.
“Cai.I need you to slowdown.”
Cai had set off blindly across thecourtyard and continued from habit along the track that led to theclifftop.Fine rain and sea fret were blowing into his eyes.Normally Fen walked beside him on these trips, his air one ofresigned, almost exaggerated obedience—Cai’s prisoner, even if hecould have picked his captor up and slung him off the cliff withbarely an effort.Now he was lagging behind, one hand pressed tohis side.
“What’s thematter?”
“You’re meant to beguarding me.I can’t keep up with you.”
“Oh.Sorry.”Cai slowed upand waited until Fen had limped to his side.Fen’s breath wasrasping in his throat, his lips tinged with blue.Cai hadn’tintended to offer his arm, but the gesture came naturally, and Fentook it easily, as if their bodies had been made to fit togetherlike this.They stood in the rain, both surprised by their suddenproximity.“Are you all right?”
“Yes.I thought thatperhaps the next stage of my healing was…a route march.”
“No.You should still takethings slowly.Lean on me.”
They set off again down the track.Thenorth coast was wearing her wild summer face this morning, sealskingreys fighting it out with green and startling violet among thebreeze-whipped waves.The wind was fierce but not cold.The sea metthe sky with such purity here, and for all its austerity, its vividscents and colours had pierced Cai’s heart from his first hourwithin Fara’s walls.He couldn’t imagine life anywhereelse.
“If such a man as yourscarecrow had been set in charge of the clan of Torleik,” Fen said,his voice still ragged, “we would have taken him and pulled hislungs out through his back.It is called the bloodeagle.”
Cai frowned in disgust.“I’ve heard ofit.Charming practice though it is, it’s not my solution toAelfric.”
“Why not?Because of yourfaith?Your Christian convictions?”
“More than that.Myconvictions as a man.”Even as he spoke, Cai wondered if he wastelling the truth.If he had Leof’s murderer in front of him, theheat of battle upon him and an axe in his hand…
“It wasn’t the Torleik whocame here.That night—when your abbot was killed, and your boy—itwasn’t my men.A different tribe.”
Once more it was as if Fen had pulleda thought from Cai’s skull.This time Cai felt it as a violation,and he dropped Fen’s arm, striding on ahead.“Who told you aboutmy…about Leof?”
“Your brethren are gossips.I hear many things in my cell.Many reasons why you’d just as soonpoison as heal me.But it wasn’t the Torleik.”
“What difference do youthink that makes to me?Would your lot have treated them anybetter—Leof and Theo?”
“No.Perhaps not.I onlywish you to know, because…”
Whatever Fen’s reasons, they were lostin a rumble of hooves.Reflexively Cai drew Fen to the side of thetrack, out of the path of the monastery’s single overworked ploughox trotting determinedly towards them with her broken harnesstrailing in her wake.Normally the most stolid of creatures, shewas moving like a compact landslide, the earth vibrating under herfeet.Behind her ran Benedict, his face distraught.
“Catch her,” he yelled, assoon as he saw Cai.“Something scared her.She bolted.”Benedictstumbled and fell, then dragged himself upright and staggered on.“I couldn’t stop her.I can’t do anything.I am useless—a sinner—aworm.”
Cai caught Benedict, and Fen caughtthe ox.He seized the beast’s trailing harness as she passed, andwithout seeming effort pulled her head round, forcing her to asnorting halt with her great-horned head leaning into his chest.Cai dropped to his knees with Benedict.“Ben!For God’s sake,what’s the matter?”
“I am nothing.All theworks of my hands fail me.Aelfric said it would be so.”
“What has he toldyou?”
“Enough.Enough.A life ofsin here, and an eternity in the fire.”
He was shuddering, sobs racking hisbig frame.Cai rocked him, clasped him roughly.“You know betterthan that.How often have you helped me in the infirmary?You’veseen what happens when men die.All pain of that kind—burning,hurting—it stops when the body does.None of it could possiblyfollow the soul.”
“But what if it can, Cai?What if it’s true?In that case I’ve not just damned myself toeternal torment…I’ve damned Oslaf too!”
“I swear, Iwillmake a Viking eagle out of thatscrawny…” Cai fell silent, fire rising up in his throat.He lookedover Benedict’s shoulder to Fen, who was now watching from a fewfeet away, the ox standing tamely at his side.What could he say towipe off Aelfric’s dirt from his poor friend’s soul?He wasn’tTheo, with philosophical arguments at his fingertips for anyoccasion.
