Oh, God.It was very distracting.Oslafbegan to moan, quietly but in explicit rhythm.The wooden frame ofthe bunk cracked off the wall, and there was a short-lived scuffle.Then a cry from Ben made Cai’s skin prickle tightly all over inresponse—the sharp joy of penetration, desire finding target inflesh.Not something he and Leof had ever done.Cai had feared tohurt him, and Leof had shown such confusion when Cai had offeredhimself in that way…
At least his two neighbours weren’tgoing to torture him for long.The thuds and grunts hadaccelerated.Then there was a silence that was somehow worse, and along whooshing groan of utter satisfaction from Ben.
Cai gritted his teeth.He was erectagain, much worse than when he’d been down in the pools.Heat likesummer lightning flickered all over the surface of his skin.Hetook hold of the edge of the thin mattress ticking and buried hisface in it until the lack of air became more urgent than the achein his cock.Eventually the miles of road he had covered that day,the hills and tracks and wild moors, came to his rescue, and hefell into a restless, haunted sleep.
He had a strange dream.In it, a wolfcame from the sea.Cai, standing on the moonlit beach, felt nofear.He’d met wolves before, during long winter journeys throughthe forest, and he knew that none would come near Fara at this timeof year, and never from the sea.Therefore he must be dreaming.Helet himself enjoy the creature’s beauty as it bounded from thewaves.
It stood still, shook off its fur andbecame a man.Disbelief held Cai in place.When finally he turnedand began to run, it was too late—his feet tangled in seaweed, andthe creature caught him easily, knocking him flat.Hot breathbrushed his ear.Wolf’s teeth sank into his shoulder, but there wasno pain.The weight that pinned him was all human.A human armlocked round his chest.A strength like nothing he’d ever feltbefore restrained him, and he shuddered in terror and pleasure.Rough words resounded in his head, a language he didn’t understand,but he knew what he was being told to do and did it, spreading histhighs, lifting his backside to his captor’s thrust.He waited tobe torn apart.
No pain.A living heat drove up intohis core.The creature—the human, the wolf—said his name, and thetenderness of it, the deep vibration, sent a melting rush intoCai’s very bones.He pushed up in longing, and there was no pain,only an overwhelming feeling of being owned, claimed, brought home.Thrust after thrust…
He awoke coming.His fists wereclenched on the bunk’s wooden frame, his body soaked in sweat.Rigid, he rode out his shaft’s helpless spending, sweeter and moredreadful than he could bear.It broke him to tears.He lay sobbing,eyes squeezed shut.
He could hear bells.Disconnectedthoughts flicked through his head.He would never know the voice ofGod, not if it depended on chastity.He’d better get the mattressticking off, rinse it under the pump.Perhaps he should just leaveFara.A wolf from the sea…
A bell, stirring gently on the inshorebreeze now tugging at the wooden shutters.Wiping his eyes, Caistruggled out of bed.He went to lean on the windowsill,momentarily dizzy and weak.To climax so hard on his own likethat—ah, he was hopeless, the very idea of losing Leof’s sweetservices enough to drive him wild.From here he could see thechurch, its reed-thatched roof shining eerily under the moon.Thebell in its small, squat tower was ringing passively.An inshorewind—Cai didn’t like those, in or out of raiding season.Nonorthern coast dweller did.From instinct and habit, he looked outto sea.
There was a sail on the horizon.Agreat square sail, pregnant with that breeze.In front ofit—impossibly clear to him just for an instant—rode a dragon’shead.
They would continue by.They were outof season.Even Theo had agreed on that, the wisest man Cai knew.Fara held nothing for them, not so much as a woman, a jewelledaltar cross or a chalice of gold.Cai’s heart ached for thevillages further north, and for the hundredth time he wishedmonastic life would stretch to a fast-paced horse such as hisfather kept.He would fling himself onto it and ride, ride fasterthan any damn Viking could sail to give warning to…
The clouds shifted.The sea at thefoot of the cliffs was suddenly revealed.Cai shrank back from thewindow, a choked cry dying in his throat.It wasn’t the sail on thehorizon he needed to fear.It was the great dragon-prowed longshipthat had come in vulpine silence to the very shores of Fara.Shewas moored, rocking.Her crew was no longer aboard.That meant theywere somewhere between the rocks and the meadows at the edge of thecliff.
And that meant in turn that Cai had aminute.No horse, no real hope—just bare feet and a dead run.Heseized his cassock and dived into it, pulling it hard over hishead.He wouldn’t have spared the instant for that, except that hecould fight better dressed than naked, hide up his sleeve anyweapon he could find.Harsh laughter burned in his chest—a weapon?He’d be lucky to find a big enough chunk of rock in this sheepfold,this beautiful, soft-bellied refuge for peace-lovingmen.
A rock would have to do.Cai shot intothe passageway and began to pound on Benedict’s door.Only ahorrified silence answered him, and Cai knew what that meant.Twonaked lovers jolting upright in bed, paralysed like fox cubs in aden.“Ben!It’s me, Cai.Vikings!”
Another silence, probably of disbeliefthis time.Cai banged his fists off the woodwork again, andBenedict pulled the door open, his face sleepy and colourless withfright.Behind him, Oslaf was scrambling upright, shielding himselfwith a discarded cassock.“Vikings?Cai, it’s too—”
“I know it’s too damnedearly!Just wake up the others.And send Oslaf to get Theo.Now!”
Cai tore off down the stairs.Mossslithered under his bare soles, but he was faster like this than inhis cumbersome sandals.The air hit his lungs, full of nighttimesweetness.Had he really just seen a longship still rocking fromthe exit of her crew?The dream of the wolf-man had felt more real.Rounding the corner of the main hall, he saw that the refectory wasempty, all his brethren gone to their rest.
The church was made of wood frame,wattle and daub.Only the tower at the end was built of stone, tosupport the bell.Twenty yards of turf divided the church from thehall, a patch of ground Cai flew across without looking back.Therewas no point.He’d heard the first shouts, and the air he washauling into his lungs was no longer pure but tainted by acridsmoke.Cai felt a flash of love for the drab little buildinghunched beneath its thatch, an affection he’d never known onfreezing mornings, shivering his way through dawn prayers.He ranthrough the nave, his shadow leaping round him as the flame fromthe sanctuary candle danced, grabbed hold of the bell rope andbegan to pull with all his strength.
The bell rang out into the night.Itsvoice seemed weak over the roar of Cai’s blood in his ears, awhisper when he wanted it to scream.He counted off the tolls.Onedozen, two.He wouldn’t be allowed much longer.Something thuddedonto the roof, like the landing of a heavy bird, the sound followedinstantly by several more.The door flew open.Cai tensed to run,but he wasn’t worth the confrontation.The soft thumps he’d heardoverhead had been firebrands, and the figure in the doorway onlypaused long enough to toss another inside, this one landing almostat Cai’s feet.
The thatch was dry as dust after arainless spring.The brands on the roof burned straight through.The timber rafters caught alight, one beam crashing down to cut offCai’s route to the door.Dropping the bell rope, Cai leapt out ofrange of the sparks.The tower had one window, little more than ahole in the wall to let in light.It would have to do.He jumped,grabbing at the sill, got his head and shoulders through andtumbled out onto the turf.
Straight into the path of his firstViking.Cai had a moment to be glad he’d drawn a short one, andstartled him by his sudden appearance.He got an impression ofanimal skins—of a twisted, grinning face beneath a cap-likehelmet—hair in a great, thick braid, and then the firelit flash ofan axe.He twisted aside, and the blade which would have split hisskull in two bounced off the tower wall instead, flying from itsowner’s grasp.
Cai forgot he was a monk.He grabbedthe Viking’s plait, whipped him around and smashed his face intothe stonework.He didn’t stop to look at the result—let the limpbody fall and snatched up the axe.
He was his father’s son.Broc had beenpleased with his prowess.It was part of the old man’s rage uponCai’s defection—to lose a warrior child.But Cai hadn’t cared abouthis father’s fights, had gone in swinging at his side only fromhabit and lack of choice.He cared now.He began to run.“Leof!Leof!”
Predictably, Theo and Leof weredefending the scriptorium.Cai cannoned into the blazing room,whose parchments and vellums were already burning, the desksknocked to the ground.Leof was grabbing armfuls of books off theshelves, clutching them like children to his chest.A huge shapeemerged from the flames, rumbling with laughter, and seized him bythe hair.Leof howled but hung on to the books, and Cai solved theproblem for him—this one—with a well-aimed slice of the axe,catching the vast raider just at the base of the skull, the gapbetween his helmet and tough leather jerkin.
“Leof,” Cai gasped.“Getout of here, beloved.Just run.”
“I can’t!I must helpTheo!”
“I’ll help him.Run!”
Too late.Three more raiders pouredinto the red-black chaos.Cai didn’t take a moment tothink—launched himself at them, blood like fire in hisveins.
He didn’t stand a chance.He hackedand grabbed, gouged and bit like the beast he was beneath hisrobes, but the flat of a blade slapped his face and he went down.Through a roaring wind he heard Theo, who was yelling back in Latinat grunted demands from the Viking holding him at sword point.Caididn’t understand.His darkening mind tried to grasp at the words,forge from them a chain of sense to pull him back to thesurface.
Stop this!Stop it.There’s no secret here, no treasure.We have nothing!Stop!
