“He called it theGospel ofScience.”
Addyalmost laughed.He caught the reaction, pushed it firmly down.Caisaw himself and Fen through the old man’s eyes—a dishevelled,faithless monk in fisherman’s clothes, and a barely tamed Vikingraider whose face had lit up at the idea of treasure.“A littleblasphemous of him,” Addy said, settling back.“Very typical,though.I wish he’d had time to complete it.And I wish I couldtell you his message means something to me, but I know of notreasure.No secret.Young men, I must think about this, and pray,and I must do so in solitude.You lost your boat lastnight?”
“Yes.She was smashed to pieces.”
“How you escaped the same fate is a mystery greater thanTheo’s.God cares for children and fools.”
“It was not God.”Fen clambered onto his feet, hoisting Caieasily up with him.Cai remembered how he’d blanched with pain onthe training ground just the morning before, and wondered if theshipwreck had been good for him.“It was me.I am an excellentsailor.”
Oncemore the old man fought laughter.“Well, whichever of you takescredit,” he said solemnly, “I’m glad of the result.Companionshipis rare for me, and I will gladly shelter you here for the night.But go away now.There is a stone hut down by the shore with theremains of some boats in it, perhaps belonging to the devils whenthey were still human enough to know how to sail.You may be ableto patch one together for yourselves.”He nodded, gazing into theashes of the driftwood fire, where spectral blue-green lights wereshimmering against the morning sun.“Yes.Yes, go awaynow.”
Fenleaned over the hull of an upturned boat.He braced, musclescording up and down his bare arm, and tore a length of plankingaway.He examined it critically.“Rotten at both ends, but soundenough in the middle.”
Cai putout a hand.Fen tossed it to him, and he fitted it into a gap inthe ancient fishing boat they were repairing.He hammered it intoplace with a rock, crushing the rotten ends tight into the goodwood.That would form a kind of seal, and the clay pit a little wayup the shore would provide caulking for the rest.He sat up.“That’s the last of the holes.The big ones, anyway—for the rest wecan just bail.It’s not a long trip, if we catch an incomingtide.”
“All right.Let’s haul her out and have a look.”
Cai gotout of the hull where he’d been working.He picked up the prow, andFen went to grab the battered stern.They dragged her out of thecrude drystone boathouse that had stopped her from eroding tosplinters and dust over the years.She was heavy, but Fen didn’tflinch, and he set her down on the runway outside with a dazzlinggrin.“She looks good.”
“Better than she has any right to.”Cai eased down his end,grateful that none of his repairs had snapped out of place.“Speaking of which…”
“Yes.I am better too.Your stitches came out somewhere lastnight, and beneath them I am healed.Maybe you were right,physician, about the benefits of salt water, or…ofsomething.”
Cai had begun to wonder ifsomethinghad been consigned to theseabed along with their boat.They had come down here in silenceand worked quietly, only exchanging the words they needed for theirtask.Maybe avikingrpirate could grasp at a brother-in-arms in a moment of danger,rekindle the fires of life with him, but afterwards… “I should comeand have a look.May I?”
“You never asked my leave before.”
“My patients have to do as I say.If you’re well again, I don’twield the same authority.”
Fenexamined him from the far side of the boat.The morning wasbrilliant now, a brisk wind dancing in the light.There wasn’t muchchance of concealment, for damaged vessels or for men.It didn’tseem likely to Cai that Fen had shared his doubts, but there was atrace of uncertainty on his brow, in the corners of his mouth.Hetook a couple of steps back and sat on the remains of the hut’sseaward wall.“Yes, then.You may look.”
Caiknelt in front of him.It felt natural, and it was the best placefrom which to undo his leather jerkin and the top strand of hisleggings.Lifting both garments far enough aside, he saw that thewound had closed, its edges ragged but clean.New flesh, pink andhealthy, had formed inside.“It’ll scar,” he said roughly.“I’msorry.”
“For what?Thor counts our scars in our favour when wedie.”
“No.That I did it to you.”
“We were in battle.And we were nothing to one anotherthen.”
Cai looked up.It had been on his lips—what are we to one another now?Buthe didn’t need to ask.Answers to questions he hadn’t even knownwere forming inside him were there in Fen’s eyes.Fen put a hand ontop of his, pressing it to the warm skin inside his jerkin, layingit over the wound.He leaned down, and Cai stretched yearningly up.They kissed with brief ferocity, then Cai sat back on his heels.Hetugged the front of the leggings open with his free hand.He’dnoticed in some lightning-flash instant the night before that Fenhad dispensed with thesubligaculumcloth, justas he’d left his own behind him with his cassock on the storeroomfloor.Easier to get to… He gasped and swallowed hard as Fen’sshaft rose, then without hesitation—the moment before memories ofLeof, of doing this for him, could rush in—he diveddown.
Fengrabbed the hair at his nape.Pulling away, not claiming him.Caisat up.“What’s the matter?”
“This…”
“What about it?”
“Among the Torleik, it’s…something a lesser man does for agreater.”
Caistared at him.In Leof’s case, that had probably been true.No,certainly true—as time went on, Cai understood more and more whatstrength had lain in that gentleness.What strength such gentlenesstook, to survive unsoured in a rough world.“Do you think,” hegrowled, “a lesser man is about to do it to you now?”
Again,that silent answer.Cai would never have believed that face couldsoften in surrender.The clasp at his nape became a caress.“No.Please.”
He wasbig, and Cai took him carefully.The small noises he made sent redpulses of arousal into Cai’s groin, but he kept his hands offhimself, stroking and grasping Fen’s thighs until he’d accommodatedwhat he could of the long shaft.Fen kept very still, electrical aspent-up lightning under Cai’s touch.What was it costing him not tograb, paralyse, thrust?The great hands released him and fastenedconvulsively on the stonework, a clutch that would have crackedCai’s skull.And now he did move—small shifts of his hips, themovements of Cai’s peaceful ocean yesterday before the storm,infinite power stored up and waiting.He braced his feet on thesandy floor and let go one desperate moan.
Thesound of it washed all of Cai’s caution away.He closed his mouthhard around Fen’s straining cock and let him slide deep into histhroat.He couldn’t breathe, but that mattered less than gettinghim inside, sucking him, making those half-anguished cries rip fromhim.Tears burned him blind.He hung on, twisting his fists intothe deerskin, the swollen shaft-head ramming further and furtherinto him—unbearable, perfect.
Fen wentrigid, muscles of his thighs locking tight.The pressure in Cai’sthroat became a rush, a melting heat, and he swallowed andswallowed to keep from drowning.Red haze threatened him, but hehung on still, pushing through it, wanting every wild pulse ofFen’s coming, meeting every one of them halfway.
