Theo fell silent.Cai struggled overonto his back, and Leof dropped down beside him—limp, discarded, awheat sheaf tossed on the threshing-room floor.One side of hisbeautiful face was nothing but blood.
Cai surged to his feet.He locked hisarm around the nearest Viking’s neck—braced and pulled as Broc hadtaught him.A terrible, glorious crack of bone rewarded him.Hisvictim fell.Cai whirled to find the next and hit him square on, aroaring, stinking fury in leather and fur.Huge hands clenched onhim, a grip beyond evasion.Expecting nothing but a sword throughhis guts, not caring when it came, Cai fought.The Viking bore himbackwards through the flames.For a moment there was a mad beautyto their dance.The burning spaces of the lovely room whirled pastCai’s fading vision.He had only ever seen it lit by sunshine,brilliance cloud-muted, coolly reflected from the sea.Ripplingpatterns of sun on golden sandstone…
The lead was melting in the panes.When Cai and the Viking hit the eastern window, the rough glasscracked.This was Theo’s window, from which he’d kept a benignfather’s watch over his realm.The only large one in the place—itburst outward, hurling Cai into the dark.
There had been nights—just a couple,when joining his father’s revelries had been easier than hidingfrom them—which might explain such an awakening.There was a bodyunder his.It was large and smelly, clad in animal hides.Thereseemed to be a lot of blood and hair.The halfwit Eyulf was sittingnearby, rocking himself and keening.
The body he was lying on was cold.Cailurched up.Eyulf gave a squawk and hurled himself into his arms,his cries turning to crowing laughter.
“Eyulf, the kitchens,” Caimuttered—all the poor lad understood, and usually enough to sendhim on his way.But Eyulf clung.Struggling to sit upright, Cailooked around him.He was on the rocks below the scriptorium.Around him, mist and smoke were drifting in pallid dawn light.Hecouldn’t see more than a few yards into the miasma.There weresmells in it he recognised and didn’t want to, smells that caughtin his throat and made him gag with horror.Burned sheepskin—no,burned vellum, subtly different.Behind it, under it and runningthrough it like a shriek was charred flesh.He tried to push Eyulfoff him.One of his arms was reluctant to work, though, and everybone in his body hurt.
He’d fallen from the scriptoriumwindow, five men’s heights above.Pieces of the thick, cloudy glasswere shattered in a wide fan around him.He’d survived because he’dlanded on the huge, fur-clad body of his assailant.
Voices echoed in the mist—a rattle ofangry Greek, and then a great ploughman’s shout.“Demetrios?Demetrios!I can hear Eyulf.This way.”
Cai waited.Eyulf had him pinned, andanyway he couldn’t summon up the will to move.If he moved, memorywould come.For now he was only a part of the rocks, barely morealive than the crushed flesh and bone that had broken his fall.Hislungs filled with pale grey fog.He tried to let it into his mind.He tried not to breathe.
“Caius?Oh, God bepraised—Demetrios, Caius is here!”
“He knew it.He said so.Cai, come quickly—he’s hanging on for you.”
Two shapes coalesced from the mist.One of them prised Eyulf off him and set the poor boy on his feet.The other rolled the dead Viking away far enough for Cai to realiseone of his legs had been trapped beneath the corpse.Sensationsweren’t registering properly with him.As a physician and as Broc’sson, he’d observed this happen to men who’d been frightened pasttheir nature’s boundaries.For a while they were numb, distant,slow to respond.Cai had considered it a merciful thing, the soul’semergency poultice.He didn’t try to fight it inhimself.
“Cai!Caius!”
That was Benedict.He was waving ahand in Cai’s face.Cai nodded to show that he’d heard.He was veryfond of Ben, and even of Demetrios, who had been some kind ofprince in the land of Theo’s banishment and drove the brethren neardemented with his lordly airs.Cai was glad they’d both survivedthe night.Then a thought pierced to the heart of his detachment,and he sucked in one raw breath.“Benedict!Oslaf?”
“Alive.”Ben gripped hishand, and they exchanged a glance.“He’s hurt, though.He needsyou.We all do.”
“Ben, who’s holding on forme?Leof?”
Ben closed his eyes.“No.Theodosius.He wants to speak to you.”
Cai allowed himself to be hoisted ontohis feet.He could walk, he discovered, once blood had beenrestored to his crushed limb, and he dispensed with Ben’s support.He didn’t look to left or right, clambering up the steep path.Thecries he was hearing from the burning ruins each had their claim onhim, but he kept moving, his eyes fixed on the ground.
No one had tried to carry Theo out ofthe scriptorium.Cai understood why at a glance—the Viking’s swordwas still buried deep in his chest.The angle was awkward, the haftjammed up against the charred remains of a desk.Brother Wilf thegoatherd was kneeling behind him, propping his head andshoulders.
“My friend,” Theo saidcalmly, as soon as he set eyes on Caius.“Come and kneel byme.”
Cai obeyed.He had to—his legs hadfolded under him.“Let me send to the infirmary.I can get yousomething for the pain.”
“There’s no need.Thiswon’t take long, and I want to be clear.”The abbot’s voice wassteady, but Cai could hear on every in breath the telltale hiss ofa wounded lung.“You mustn’t worry, dear Caius…about the book.It’sonly a copy.”
Cai nodded.There were a thousandthings he could think of to worry about, and not one of them was abook, not even the precious vellum pages drifting in ashy ragsaround the room, from which Theo had taught him so much.Had beengoing to teach him the distance to the moon.“All right.”Gingerlyhe probed the ragged edge of the hole in Theo’s cassock, in thepale flesh underneath, but there was no chance.“I won’t worry.Don’t you worry either.”
“You have to find Addy.Addy will give you the treasure—the secret of Fara.”
The secret of Fara.In jagged echoes Cairecalled the abbot shouting those words at an enraged Viking face.“Yes, my lord abbot.I will.”
“Don’t…humour me, youknuckleheaded son of a Roman hill-farmer.Find it.Thevikingrwill raid again andagain until you do.Only the treasure can stop them—stop the darkfrom coming down.Addy has it.”
“Who’s Addy?Can you tellme?”
“Remember, Cai—the secretisn’t in the book.It’s in the binding.In the binding.”
Theo couldn’t speak anymore.Alonely panic seized Cai.How long would this death take?Theabbot’s lips were moving in silence, bloodstained now, repeatingthe words that meant nothing to Cai, no matter how hard he tried tofocus.Inthe binding…
“Please,” Cai whispered.“Rest now, my lord.”How long?
