“Is it so, BrotherCaius?”
Cai glanced up.Barda was listening,hands on her hips, her expression thoughtful.She was nursing asplit lip, which Godric would have cause to regret later on.“Yes.It’s so.”
“It’s verystrange.”
“Not as strange as what youpeople tried to do out here tonight.”He let Aelfric go and got up,trying to wipe the memory of his bony gullet off his hand.“I’masking you, as your friend…don’t follow Aelfric.Don’tfollowme.Just for God’s sake try to think for yourselves.Now, I have tofind Fen and see if you’ve managed to kill that old woman betweenyou.”
Eldra’s hoofprints lay crisp on thedamp sand.A direction would be easy, though the great, boundingdistance between each set of prints told Cai he might have a longwalk.And where would Fen have taken her?Back to the monastery andthe infirmary there, if he had any sense.But the deep-gouged markswere headed south, so unless he’d doubled back among thedunes…
The four-time drum began again.It wasso faint that Cai briefly wondered if Eldra’s prints had somehowretained their sound and were echoing it back to him.The uncertainmoonlight was illuminating a thin stretch of the strand, the placewhere the incoming tide was sweeping up the beach.The percussiongained a dimension—a wild splashing, flying hooves cleavingwater—and out of this premonitory sound-ghost came a shape, amoonlit vision of a man on horseback.Fen was comingback.
He was riding unburdened.Cai began torun towards him.It was too soon for him to start demanding wherehe’d put poor Danan, if she was dead or alive, but he raised a handand hailed him.Alive or dead, Fen had tried to save her.Had cometearing to the rescue when Cai had given up on him, had been stupidenough for one instant to think himself abandoned.His heart leapt.“Fenrir!Fen!”
Fen didn’t slow.He and Eldra sweptpast him, Cai getting one more glimpse of that mad, beautifulsmile.Then Fen bore back on the reins, his obedient warhorse oncemore responding, beginning the battlefield manoeuvre she’d learnedwith Broc’s chariot behind her and had used tonight to let hermaster get behind Danan, scoop her up and go.It was a trick torescue comrades cut off by a skirmish.Broc also used it to roundpeople up.
The horse was rushing down on him.Caistepped back, already knowing it useless, trying to get out of hertrack.Fen was leaning forwards past her shoulder, one armstretched out.“Blood and sorrow, monk,” he cried, his rich voicecracking with laughter.“Your turn now!”
“Don’t you bloody dare.”Caibacked up further, hands raised defensively.Once more Eldra passedhim, but slowing now, turning neatly to cut off his retreat.“Fen—Iam serious.You are not carting me off like a damn bag of flour…Fen!Donot!”
“Save your dignity, then.Jump.”
There was one moment when Cai could doit.The villagers were roaring with laughter.If he glanced atthem, took the time to tell them to shut up and be about theirbusiness, he would miss this ride.And he didn’t want to.Even lessthan being borne off from the scene like a struggling sheep by thisinsane Viking did he want to be left behind, alone on the sand.Heseized Fen’s arm.Fen hoisted him and he leapt.He landed with aball-jarring thud across Eldra’s rump and almost slid off over hertail.He seized Fen’s belt and hung on.
Fen took off with him into the night.Cai wrapped his arms round his waist.He had no idea of where theywere heading but he didn’t care—closed his eyes and pressed hisbrow to Fen’s shoulder to increase the feel of the unknown.LetEldra bear them off into the void.Theo had said the earth wasround, but that was hard to believe on a north-lands beach, wherethe moonlit horizon stretched out forever on a pure, empty plane.Let Fen drive Eldra on and on, and perhaps they would hurtle offthis world’s edge.Leave behind the place where it was possible forgood human creatures to set an old woman to burn, where knives ofguilt pierced Cai for not having somehow taught them better, as ifnot only Fara’s monks but her villagers too were burdens on hissoul… “No!”
Fen spared a hand from the reins.Herubbed his fingers over Cai’s tight-clenched knuckles.“Nowhat?”
“Don’t stop.Take usaway.”
“Too late, beloved.We’realready here.”
To come from a gallop to a dead stopwas also a battle manoeuvre, and Eldra was good at it.She proppedher forelegs and commenced a graceful skid, and for the second timethat night Cai was hurled down from horseback and into the dark.This time he landed in soft sand.He scrambled to his feet in timeto see Fen make an elegant warrior’s dismount and pat Eldra’s neckas if she’d done him proud.He was smiling broadly—beginning toshake with laughter.
“Fen, you…youarse!”That was no good.Cai’s own voicequivered.He tried to find the fury that should have been burninghim up.“You arrogant Viking savage!How dare you sweep in and graba…” He floundered for words, then took inspiration from his damp,sand-covered cassock.“A man of God, as if he’d been nothingbut—”
“A shrieking virgin nun?That’s what you think of us, isn’t it?”
“Oh—and that’s wrong?Aslander upon your good name?”
“Not at all.But not me.Not the Torleik.We only take such plunder as will be useful to us,and I chose to take a fine man.”
Cai stared at him.He hadn’theardTorleikin some time now.He’d been starting to think those ghostswere laid for Fen, exorcised by newer, brighter experience.Hehadn’t heard that proud, easywethat told him where his Viking’s blood loyalties still lay.His own blood chilled.But Fen gave him no more time to think aboutit.Chuckling, he advanced across the sandy crater in the dunes.“Look at you, my man of God—all on fire with outrage, your hair inspikes.You have seaweed in it.”He reached out as if to pick someout, then gave Cai the lightest shove, just enough to tumble himbackwards.Cai took the opportunity and seized Fen’s jerkin as hefell, dragging him down on top.They crashed together into thesand, laughing and scuffling.
“Puppies!”
The voice stopped Cai between oneplayful punch to Fen’s ribs and the next.He flipped over, dumpingFen off him.Extricating himself, he pushed up onto his knees.“Danan?”
“Puppies,” she repeatedsadly.“Supposedly men, and yet—puppies in a basket.It isn’tenough, you know, Caius of Fara.”
She was perched comfortably atop thedune.Her hands were folded in her lap, as if she’d come here andsettled down to watch a show.Cai undid the grip Fen was trying tofasten on his girdle.“Let me go, you fool.Danan—are you allright?”
“She’s fine,” Fen answeredfor her, giving up and helping him to his feet.“I don’t know how.But there’s not a mark on her.She’s a salamander, or a witchindeed.”
“That can’t be.”Cai ran upthe dune and knelt beside her.“Danan, my lady.You might think youaren’t hurt, but you’ve been breathing smoke.And—you’re burned, orscorched at the least.You must be.”
She sighed.Without warning shehitched up her skirts and stuck out her bony legs.“See foryourself, physician.If it will make you feel better.Your tameraider swept me off in time.”
“Impossible.”Cai inspectedthe gnarled toes with their goat’s-hoof nails, the ancient,calloused feet.He shot a glance at Fen.“And believe me, I wishthe bastard was tame.I don’t understand this.Your lungs should beburned.You were lifeless on that pyre when I gotthere.”
