“Quiet.You’re half-asleep.Let’s just go with this old lunatic and eat his fish, if he hasn’tdreamed it.”
The fishwas real, and one of the biggest Cai had ever seen.They ate itsolemnly by Addy’s fireside.For a long time silence held sway,made peaceful by the whisper of the flames in their stone pit andthe sense of a vast golden day beginning all around.The dawn mistshad cleared.The sea was returning pink lights to the roseate sky,as if neither had ever roared and convulsed and tried to consumethem whole.
Addy’scave lay in the shelter of a dune.No more than a deep hollow in arocky outcrop, its sole comfort was the well-made fire pit outsideit.Cai couldn’t see how the old man lived.Addy, a big chunk ofsalmon gleaming in his hand, returned his gaze tranquilly.If henoticed that his guests sat shoulder to shoulder while they ate, hedidn’t remark on it.He passed them a flagon of cold heather ale,and when they were done, produced a bowl of fresh water and a pieceof homespun linen so they could wash.“How is it with younow?”
Cainodded, wiping fish grease off his fingers.“Better.Thank you.”Hegave Fen a violent nudge, and the Viking stopped appreciativelytugging bits out from between the salmon’s bones long enough togrunt an acknowledgement too.“But how can you afford to share yourfood with strangers?And how do you come by the ale?”
“I have plenty.”Addy spread out his robes and settled himselfmore comfortably by the fire.“As for the ale, that old woman Itold you about brings it to me on her devilish visits.Mead fromFara too, in which I can still taste the good work of BrotherMartin, though he must be very old now.Is it so?”
“Yes.Martin’s still brewing, though Aelfric wants to shut himdown.”
“The Fara mead?”Addy chuckled.“He’ll have an uprising on hishands.Tell me more about him—this new abbot of yours.What does heprofess?”
Caihardly knew how to begin.Fen was warm and solid at his side,though, and not so occupied with his fish that he couldn’t spareCai a gentle shove.“That we’re all sinners, I suppose.”
“And didn’t Theo teach you the same thing?”
“Yes.Yes, if we did something wrong to one another.But withAelfric, everything’s wrong.Everything that comes from our bodies,that is.If we want it with our flesh, it’s sending us tohell.”
“He teaches you the doctrine of hellfire?”
Caihadn’t realised Aelfric’s grim vision was a doctrine.Belatedly henoticed that Addy’s robes were a cassock like his own, patched andworn almost beyond recognition.“I’ve heard of you,” he saidwonderingly.“When I was growing up.A crazy old hermit, a holy manwho lived on the islands alone.How long have you been outhere?”
“Long enough to gain a reputation, it seems.”Addy poked thefire and gave Cai a wry look from under his wiry brows.“I was amissionary, a priest in far west Hibernia.For a while I was atFara.Then I found that I could hear the voice of God much betterin the silences out here, and I stayed.The years have flown pastme—how many, I couldn’t say.Certainly more than your lifetime.”Hesighed.“And the truth is that my chosen seclusion has now becomenecessity to me.They want to make me bishop, you see.”
Cai, whohad just been about to apologise for calling him crazy, caughtFen’s sidelong look.“Bishop?”he echoed.“Who does?”
“The high men of the church.I prefer my solitude, though, so Iam in hiding from them.The beasts of the islands take care of me.As I’ve told you, the eagles bring me fish to eat, and the sealscome also, to receive my benediction and sing me theirsongs.”
Oncemore Cai nudged Fen, in warning this time.However insane this oldman might be, he had rescued them, shared with them his firesideand his food.“Wouldn’t it be better,” he said cautiously, “to comeback and live on the mainland?To have shelter andcompanionship?”
“In my lunatic dotage, you mean?”The old man grinned lucidly,making Cai blush.“Possibly.But the church I knew has altered somuch in her ways.”He paused and frowned, as if this was a puzzlehe’d tried to work out for himself many times before.“Not thatthey’re all bad ways.The word of God must reach the whole world,and you can’t do that with a handful of crazed Hibernian saints andvisionaries, can you?So the church—the Roman church, in her wishto reform our wild island ways—is sending out men like yourAelfric.And since the voice of the wind and the sea won’t make menbehave themselves, they bring with them doctrines like Aelfric’s,to hasten them into the fold.”
“Like sheep,” Fen said suddenly.“To frighten them intobelief—whether the creed be good or bad.”
“I’ve lived in this creed all my life.I have to believe itgood.But yes—like sheep, Fenrir the wolf.”
Theystared at one another—the holy hermit and the Viking, each on hisown side of a divide whose ancient depth Cai could sense almost asa physical thing.Into the crackling silence, he said, “Fen doesn’tsee men as sheep.Nor do I, and…nor did Theo.He tried to teach usto think for ourselves.”
“He was a good man.A Gnostic, if you understand what thatis.”
“Yes, thanks to him.One who finds God for himself throughlearning and prayer, not following in blind obedience.”
Addy’seyes gleamed in what might have been approval.“As good adefinition as any.Now, Caius—the monk who sits at the side of aViking wolf, and understands gnosis, and has no truck with sheep orbad shepherds—what do you want to ask me?What did Theo say to youbefore he died?”
Cai drew up his knees.Theo’s last behest had been such aweight on him, and yet now that the time had come, he was reluctantto speak.His abbot had been living proof to him that a man couldcombine deep religious convictions with sanity.Cai was quitecertain that Fara held no treasures, and it hurt him to think thatTheo had believed otherwise—that such a chimera had been his lastthought.“He said there was some kind of treasure at Fara.Asecret.Thevikingrbelieved in it too—it’s what they were raiding for thatnight.”
“That was all?”
“No.”Once more Cai hesitated.He hadn’t told even Fen thismuch.“He said this treasure would stop the raids, and I don’tthink he meant thevikingrwould just go away when they got it.I think hemeant it had some sort of power.And—he was delirious by this time,dying—he said that the treasure lies not in the book but in thebinding.”
Hewaited.His heart was thumping.He didn’t want to look at Fen,because something in his words had made a difference—Fen waslistening intently, all the weight of his attention suddenlybrought to bear.The old man too had leaned forwards, about tospeak.
Then helooked both of them over.His examination was compassionate, butunhurried and stripped of all sentiment.He released a long sigh.“I am sorry,” he said.“My poor Theo.He was a rational man.But heloved his books above all else, and I fear his last thoughts becametangled up in them.Were they all lost?”
“Yes.But he wasn’t worried about that—at least, not about theone he was writing.He said that was only a copy.”
“Theo’s book?What was it?”
