The brethren crowded round him.Cairesisted for a moment, trying to step back, but then he saw thatthe circle of chattering, smiling men had absorbed Fen into itsboundary too.Fen was wide-eyed, attempting to look haughty.Caidoubted he had ever been clapped on the back by a man half hissize, or told—as old Martin was telling him, beaming at himtoothlessly all the while—that he wasn’t so bad after all, for amurdering infidel pig.Brother Cedric, who had lain so deadly illin the infirmary after the first raid, came jostling up to grab Caiin his arms, and the small, unruly sea began to bear him and Fenoff.
Cai extricated himself far enough toget to Oslaf.Gareth stepped aside for him, allowing him to givethe stumbling boy his arm.“Oslaf.Forgive me for leaving you.Benedict—”
“Don’t, Cai.I can’t hearhis name.”
“I should have stayed andlooked after you.”
Oslaf shook his head.His face wascalm, but Cai had seen that deadly serenity before, in men triedbeyond their strength, their passions poured out into a well thatknew no filling.“He loved you,” Oslaf said.“I do too, and Iprayed so hard for you to be safe.Nobody can look after me now,though.Do you understand?”
Cai understood with painful clarity.To deny the boy’s despair would have been a further outrage, and hedidn’t argue—just put an arm around his waist and led him ongently.“All right.Where is he?”
“Aelfric wants him buriedon the north side of the church.He hasn’t done it yet—Gareth andWilf and Hengist have been watching over him.”
“In the crypt?”
“Yes.But I don’t know howlong they can keep watching.They’re afraid.”
Cai had heard of north-side burials.The need to place the dead in earliest morning sunlight to the eastwas older by far than Church doctrine, and doctrine rode easily onthose beliefs to assign the north to winter, darkness, a fit placefor suicides and lost souls.Theo had done his best to blow awaythe cobwebs of such superstition, but they clung, always thestronger in dark times.“The north side is sacred too.All earth isholy.”
“But how will he know whereto rise on the last day?And…he’ll be all alone.”
“Oh, Oslaf.”Cai tightenedhis grip.“I don’t believe that’s how it works.We’ll have himburied with his brothers, though—I swear it.Where isAelfric?”
“I don’t know.He came downto the church—he didn’t want us all together like this, praying foryou.But Wilf said we had to, and then one of his ownmen—Laban—came and joined us.”
“Did he?”Glancing back,Cai saw a black-robed figure being borne along with the rest,looking mortally embarrassed but not displeased with himself.“We’re making strange friends, aren’t we?”
“You made the strangest ofall.And yet your Viking shamed us with his courage, and when hedidn’t return, we grieved for him too.Look, Aelfric is there, downby the…” Oslaf stopped dead.He would have fallen without Cai’sembrace.His eyes opened wide.“Oh, God.No.”
An odd group had gathered by themonastery gate.On one side of the drystone wall—nominal barrierbetween the sacred and profane worlds, easily scaled by thesmallest errand boys but in general respected—Aelfric was standing,flanked by his clerics.They looked like four burned larch trees,black and bare of ornament, stiffly upright.On the gate’s farside, gaudy and chaotic by contrast, a stout old woman had plantedherself, fists bunched tight on her hips.She was dressed in brightnorth-village weaves, holding a donkey on a long, frayed rein.Ather shoulder, a young man in shepherd’s breeches and waistcoat wascasting a shadow to match his formidable height.She was red in theface, expostulating loudly with Aelfric.As Cai watched, sheunclenched one strong hand and poked a finger at his chest toemphasise her words.
“Oslaf, what is it?Do youknow them?”
“Yes, but it must be adream.My grandmother, Hilde.My brother Bertwald.What are theydoing here?Oh, no.He’ll hurt them.He’ll—”
Cai cut him off.“I know what they’redoing here.They made good time.And nobody else is going to gethurt.”He transferred Oslaf’s weight—not much, just grief-strippedbones and a cassock—to Fen, who was at his shoulder, waiting.Caididn’t have to look.He knew the Viking would be there, would makethe catch and follow him.Striding ahead of the group, he made hisway across the tussocky ground.He felt as if native Saxon sunlightwere springing back at him from the buttercups, dazzling flakes ofrelease and relief in the yarrow.Aelfric had put out the lights inOslaf’s life, and now his family had come, nature reassertingherself, rushing to fill the gap.“Aelfric!”
The abbot turned.He caught his heelon the hem of his robe and almost fell over, arms flailing to savehimself.Something had changed, shifted—not one of the obsequiousCanterbury clerics put out a hand.“You,” he snarled, when he’dregained his balance.“I might have known.Not even the ocean couldswallow your disobedience and pride.”
“That’s right,” Cai calledcheerfully into the breeze.“She spat me out, and here I am.Welcome,hlæfdige.You must have travelled all night.”
The old lady stopped in her diatribeat hearing a word of respect in her own language.Aelfric lookedfrom her to Cai.“You know this woman?”
“No, but I invited herhere.She’s come to take Oslaf home.”
“So she says.I tell her—and youlisten too, you serpent, striking at the faith that has fed you andsheltered you here—no man leaves.Tu es sacerdos—”
“Sacerdos inaeternum!”the old woman snapped, to Cai’s surprise.She didn’t look as if hergrasp of Latin was broad, but Cai guessed she might have heard thephrase a few times since beginning her confrontation with Aelfric.“A priest forever!”
“Yes.The truth of itpenetrates even to these vulgar ears.Those vows once taken, noman’s soul escapes the service of God.No matter where his bodylies—and I forbid any member of this community to take one stepbeyond its boundaries—his spirit belongs to the priesthood.”Hethrew out one hand in a gesture of banishment.“Be off.The boybelongs to me.”
“Sacerdos inaeternum…”Now that Hilde had a good hold on the words, she rolled them roundwith a kind of disgusted relish in her mouth.“He wasn’tanybody’ssacerdoswhen his mother squeezed him out of her belly and into myhands, wet and red and raw.”Aelfric blanched, but she ploughed on.“And in my hands he’d have stayed, if the wench hadn’t kittened offthree more and died and left them to starve.I sent him here to getlearning and his dinners.Why does a child bring me a message tofetch him home, if I care for his life?Where is myboy?”
Bertwald the shepherd suddenly came tolife.He seized Hilde’s shoulder.“Grandmother.Oslaf isthere!”
Shielding her eyes, Hilde searched thegroup of men on the hillside.She emitted a shriek.“That skeleton?No!”She tried to seize the gate out of Aelfric’s hand, and whenthat failed, dodged aside and started scrambling over the wall.Bertwald gave her an assisting shove from behind, and Cai, seeingthat nothing would prevent her from barrelling down the other side,darted to catch her.Bertwald followed her, and the two ran offupslope.
Cai was left standing with Aelfric.Alone?No, not quite, although the abbot seemed suddenly deserted,the clerics fading off into the background.Fen had left theothers.He had taken up position a few yards away and was watchingCai unfathomably.Cai remembered the sea, and the broad, windsweptmoors, and Eldra waiting in her paddock.He thought about freedom.Looking at Aelfric, but speaking more to Fen, he said, “I think themen here will obey me.They know me, and they know I mean themgood.I think they will do as I say.”
