“Aye, and brought downAelfric’s curse on myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought I could be partof your world, your life here.I wanted your brethren to be myfriends, far more than I wanted the Canterbury men to be.”Hestopped fighting Cai’s grip and looked at him properly.“I grew upin a village like the one down the track.My church was a churchlike yours.Then I was sent to Rome, and…”
“Forget Rome.It’ll takeRome a long time to catch up with us here.”
“Less time than you think.The missionaries are coming, telling even the priests of Iona thattheir ways have been wrong.And they’re not cruel madmen likeAelfric.I’ve met them.They’re good.Oh, so good, so holy.Butthey don’t believe that common men should read, or think, or learnanything outside the Holy Bible…”
“Or the parts of it they’retaught, because they’ll never be able to read it forthemselves.”
“Yes.And they’ll win,these sacred demons.They’ll put out all the lights.”
Cai took his shoulders.He’d nevereven spoken to Laban, beyond the day’s civilities.And yet here hewas—intelligent, full of solemn anxiety, the same hopes and fearsas Cai’s own.“Stay with me, then,” he said.“Help me fightthem.”
“They can’t be fought.You’lllearn.”He detached Cai’s hold on him, gently, as if he’d muchrather have remained.“I don’t belong in your world, and I can’t bepart ofhis.Not now.”
“Aelfric’s?Why notnow?”
“Not now he’s doing this.You don’t understand, Caius.There’s only one way from now on.Andeveryone who doesn’t follow it will burn.”
The breeze shifted.It brought on itswings a scent familiar to Cai as his own flesh—wood smoke, resinyand pleasant, the promise of a warm hearth, a good meal.But allthe fires of Fara were shut down for the night and would stay thatway until Hengist set his baker’s ovens roaring at first light ofdawn.He turned.Far off in the darkness, a red glow was kindling.It wasn’t on the monastery lands, or in any of the scatter ofvillages that could be seen from here.Cai checked his innercalendar, the ancient wheel of ritual that had shaped his yearuntil he’d learned a new one from this new, strange church.Toolate for Lugnasadh, too soon for Samhain…
“What is Aelfric doing?”hedemanded.“What is that fire?”
But Laban was gone, the track as darkand empty as if he had never been there.
Chapter Twelve
Cai ran.He knew he wouldn’t be fastenough—not to close the distance between himself and that fire andstop whatever hellish thing was in the offing there—but his heartwas easy.Fen would aid him.Fen would find a way.His strength metCai’s own like the confluence of two rivers.Fen had saved himtwice now—pulled him up, body and soul, from the sea of his grieffor Leof, and the swamps and quicksand that men like Aelfriccreated, reminding him lustily every day that his flesh was not apunishable burden but a joy.There wouldn’t be time to harness upthe chariot, but Fen would help him catch Eldra, and togetherthey’d fly across the spaces of the night—she would bear both ofthem, they’d discovered, provided Fen took the reins, anarrangement Cai had argued then acceded to, laughing and chagrined.They would get there.
The stable was empty.The lamp stillglowed on the hollow in the straw where Fen had made himselfcomfortable and promised to wait—patiently, if not chastely.Hiscassock was gone, and there was no other sign of hisexistence.
Which meant nothing.Fen could havegot cold, or gone to humour Aelfric by locking himself up in thequarantine cell where he was still supposed to spend his nights.Perhaps he too had seen the fire and gone to investigate, in whichcase Cai would encounter him somewhere on the track leading outacross the salt flats.The light was brighter now, golden flashesdancing in the ruby glow.A massive bonfire, a waste of wood andresources where there was no need for it, out of season andfierce…
“Fen,” he called, feartrying to close his throat, but there was no reply.
Eldra wouldn’t come to him.He thoughthe could hear her, but the waning moon was cloudy, the field apatchwork of shadows.After leaning over the fence, whistling andjingling her harness for as long as he dared, he gave up and toreback to the stable.The pony would have to do, weary though thepoor beast was after their journey home.She eyed him in disbeliefas he unhooked her bridle again, but once he was settled on herbroad back, she caught his sense of urgency and clattered out intothe yard.
No sign of Fen on the slope downto the tidal flats.Still Cai disregarded the chill in his throat.He couldn’t have the Viking at his side all the time.Best if heremembered that now.His soul, his very thoughts, had begun toshape themselves to meet a shadowother, something outside himself, and what would he beif it was gone?A shadow too.Whatever was left after thesubtraction of Fenrir.
He slapped the pony on the rump, andshe surged to a choppy gallop.He focussed on the difficulty ofstaying aboard her, bareback, his cassock slipping underneath him.The tide was low, drawn out as far as it would go by the weakquarter moon, but the sand it exposed could turn to treacherousmud, requiring him to ride carefully from one pale stretch to thenext.Whoever had built that fire must have come this way too.Hewas beginning to make out hoofprints and footprints in the drierplaces.Who would brave the flats on such a night, and what fireneeded to be kindled so far from Fara and the villages?
The nebulous shape of the flamesresolved itself.On a broad sweep of turf at the foot of the dunes,driftwood had been piled high, and into the centre of it someonehad driven a single tall post.At the foot of the post—God, andthey could have made it shorter for so pitiful a captive—a shapebarely recognisable as human was huddled, bound round the waistwith crude fisherman’s rope.Its feet were invisible, hidden byflames.A cloud of white hair, drifting in the updrafts, haloed itsbowed head.Danan.
Cai began to shout.He was stilltoo far off for the men and women gathered round the pyre to hearhim, but one yell tore from him and then another, raw sounds he hadthought only Fen could rip from him.His lungs convulsed.He wastrying to hurl his voice ahead of him, make it do what his handscould not.He leaned close over the pony’s neck.Her mane whippedinto his face, stinging him, and he clasped her flanks with hisknees and drove her on at a speed neither of them had known she hadin her.She was snorting and flecked with sweat by the time she hadcarried him within earshot of the crowd.Cai kept on yelling, anincoherent roar that hadnoat its roots but made no more sense than that.
It didn’t have to.It only hadto make them see him.If they saw him, they would stop.Cai was inno doubt of this—the people in the firelit circle were villagers,the ordinary souls he met and dealt with every week.They knew him.More crucially, he knewthem, and not a single one among them would have done this.They were kind, flawed, human.If they saw him, they would breakwhatever trance was holding them.They would cut the ropes and letDanan go.
Not one of them turned.The thunderoussplash of the pony’s hooves must be reaching them by now.Desperately, in flashes between the blinding whisk of the pony’smane, he tried to make out what was fixing their attention.Not thehelpless little figure in the fire, as if she were somehowunimportant… Cai caught his breath on a sob.Had they alreadykilled her?Tied up her body to burn, for God knew what hideouspurpose?They weren’t even watching her.They were watching a darkshape perched halfway up the side of a dune.
Aelfric was preaching.Cai had neverseen him in full flight before.He’d never had the rightcongregation—only a bunch of half-heathen monks, their mindscorrupted to rebellion by Theo’s rule.No, he needed men and womenlike the ones before him now.Theo had never tried to teach thevillagers.Cared for them, answered their questions, but even inhis enlightenment believed that some men were born to be priests,and others to tend cows, and best if each remained in his station.And so the villagers of Fara were here, their eyes and minds—and,Cai could see quite clearly now, most of their mouths—wideopen.
Preaching or not, the abbot was readyfor Cai.He didn’t glance at him or break off his monologue untilthe pony was within twenty yards of the group.Then he ceased tostab the air with his claw, and pointed it straight at Cai.“Stophim!”he screamed, his voice a thin blade that sliced the night.“Stop the profane consort of the witch!”The finger swung toFriswide.“You, woman—take your children and stand in his path.Hewon’t run them down.”
She actually did it.She had one dirtyinfant by the hand, two others, half-asleep, hanging on tight toher skirts.Without a flicker of change in her vacant expression,she swung around to plant the whole fragile group of them directlyin the pony’s way.
Cai hauled back on the reins.The ponychucked her head up and bunched her hindquarters.They were tooclose—Cai’s momentum bore him on and he pitched over her shoulder,narrowly missing one child while the pony veered off to the otherside.He broke his fall with his hands, ducked his head and crashedonto the turf at Friswide’s feet.
