Broccusslowed up in a flurry of mud-splash outside the monastery gate.Caino longer kept it closed, his friends all being welcome and hisenemies unstoppable now by means of any barricade.Nevertheless theold man halted.He raised a hand.Cai returned the gesture,wondering if he were still asleep.For once in his life, Broc hadasked for permission.
Herattled up the track and came to a stop outside the church, theother drivers flanking him.Cai went to meet them.He had pulled uphis hood against the sharp autumn wind, tucked his hands into thesleeves of his cassock.Broc looked down at him from the seat ofhis cart.He gave a derisory chuckle, much more familiar to Caithan the show of politeness at the gate.“Well, freeze my balls ifit isn’t my firstborn, looking every inch the monk.”
The lasttime Broc had seen him, Cai had been wearing his travellingclothes.He’d never set eyes on him in his cassock.“What did youexpect?”
“From the stories I’ve been hearing—chain mail perhaps, and asword.I heard my godly son became a warrior.Took up arms andfought off Viking marauders—saved this place, for what it’s worth.I heard they made you abbot.”
Caipushed back his hood.He didn’t want to be angry.He didn’t havethe strength for it, and he hated the dull surge of rage the oldman could make him feel.“Nobody made me anything.What do you wanthere?”
“I thought I’d come and look at my son’s domain.See what madehim give up a kingdom.So far I see a church with no roof and whatI hope are your pigsties.”
Caibegan to walk away.A cold, thin rain was falling, and he couldsmell Fen in the folds of his damp robes.Laundry was less of apriority these days, though Hengist did his best.The scent was areality.Broc had to be a bad dream.He’d vanish if Cai ignored himfor long enough.
“Caius!”
Something different in that voice, as alien as the hesitationat the gate.Remonstrance, and a rasp of—what?Fear?Unable toimagine it, Cai turned back to see.But Broc was leaping down fromthe cart, his face hidden.
“Here!”he shouted, dragging down a sack and hefting it as ifit weighed nothing.“Barley grain for your bread and your nextplanting.Half a dozen of those, and…” He gestured to hiscompanions, who also began unloading their carts.“Where is yoursheep pasture?”
MutelyCai pointed uphill to the enclosure where three lonely beasts nowgrazed, the only remnants of Wilf’s runaways.Broc’s second wagonseemed to burst apart in a surge of bleating life, and Cai foundhimself knee-deep in the hardy little black-faced crossbreeds whothrived on the hillfort’s bleak slopes.Before he could speak, Brocnodded to his companion, who whistled to a grizzled herding dog andturned the flock into a river, flowing away uphill.“Ten ewes and atup, to restart your stock.Half a dozen sacks of corn.Half adozen oats.Two decent-sized horses, fit for plough orcart.”
“Why, Broccus?”
“Why what?”
“This.Now.”
Brocballed his hands into fists.He braced them on his hips and lookedabout him.“I heard the last raid cleaned you out, that’sall.”
“I can’t give you anything to pay for these.”
“If I’d wanted barter, I’d have taken them to Traprain market,not this ruin.When I heard how boldly you’d fought, boy, andtrained other men to do likewise…” Broc hesitated, then went on asif being forced to confession at sword point.“I was proud ofyou.”
Cai came to stand in front of him.His heart was beating fast,the shrieks of dying friends and enemies resounding in his ears.“Proud of me?”He swallowed.“I came here a raw, ignorant brat.Ihave learned to read, write, speak Latin.I can doctor men andteach them.And now—now when you hear that I’ve broken my everyvow, grabbed a sword and learned how to hack men to bits withit—nowyou’reproud?”
Brocstared at him blankly.His face was Cai’s, sculpted by a few morerounds of summer light and winter hail, a mirror of the future Caihad come here to avoid.“I should load these wagons back up and go,you brat.”
“If you wish.”
“Caius—what do you expect ofme?”
Caiblinked.The old man sounded bitter, but the anger had vanishedfrom his voice.“What do you mean?”
“When I said you looked like a monk, you asked me what Iexpected.You were right.It was a foolish thing to say.”Broc rana hand through his hair so that it stood up in a perplexed crest.“What do I look like to you?A saint?A priest?I am the man youhave known all your life.I steal cattle, swive women, defend myhillfort.My boy ran away from me to become everything I am not.Forgive me, that my heart burned with joy to hear he had become awarrior.”
Heunhitched the two horses from their leading rein, tethered themwith a wooden ground spike, and clambered back into the cart.Heshouted at his herdsman, pointing off down the track to indicatethat he should catch up with him there, and shook his pony’sreins.
Caiwatched his retreat.Dusk was falling, and it wouldn’t take longfor the mist to swallow him up.There would be no evidence for hisexistence, apart from some tracks in the turf.
Those,the two horses, the black-faced sheep now terrorising Wilf’s threesorry survivors, and the lifesaving abundance piled up all aroundCai’s feet.Cai stood frozen for a few seconds more, and then heran after him.
“Broccus!Broccus…” Cai couldn’t run far anymore.It hadn’tmattered until now.His lungs were too tight for him to throw hisvoice ahead of him, or at any rate Broc was affecting not to hear.Slipping on the muddy track, Cai forced his heavy limbs on.Thewagons drew further ahead.Once they were on the flats, Cai wouldlose them.“Father!”
Brocreined in.He didn’t turn or look down as Cai stumbled up to him,panting, grabbing at the cart shaft for support.“Father.Thesethings you’ve brought…” A spasm of coughing seized him, and hetried again.“They’re the difference between life and death.Itried my best, but…we haven’t got enough.We’d havestarved.”
“Well?Am I taking them away from you?”
“You’ve got a long trip home.Will you stay?”
