If I become a monk, all this will change.
Flann enjoyed his privacy. He liked that although he spent his days working hard, he held a freedom the monks did not.
Do I really want to take my vows?
Ten years ago he had. He had wanted to lose himself in a monk’s life. But the years had healed his pain; his uncle had been right about that. Sometimes of late, he had even caught himself feeling restless. Iona had started to feel restrictive. His thoughts often drifted to his kin in Éirinn. How was Daragh faring? His cousins would likely be wedded now and beginning families of their own. Sometimes he missed them.
Deep in thought, Flann made his way along the path, toward the low-slung wattle and daub hut. His gaze traveled the view he had seen every day over the past decade: a windswept, treeless landscape surrounded by a wide blue sea.
It was then he saw the boat.
The craft was crossing from the mainland to the southeast, a low, dark shape in the sparkling water.
Flann halted and watched it approach—a longboat, propelled by oarsmen.
He frowned. As far as he was aware, the brothers here awaited no visitors.
Turning on his heel, he strode back down the path, returning to the monastery. The monks had gone back to their gardening. They bent over their tasks like brown storks, their bald pates gleaming. Behind them rose the thatched roof of the church, and beyond that the scattering of low buildings of the rest of the complex.
“Father!” Flann called out as he approached.
The prior looked up, a bunch of carrots in his dirt-encrusted hands. “Aye?”
“We’ve got visitors.”
The change in the prior was instantaneous, as was that in the monks surrounding him. Iona was a lonely isle. They’d had problems with raiders in past years. The prior’s face turned grim. He dropped the carrots into the wicker basket at his feet and dusted off his hands. “Let’s see what they want.”
Flann followed the group of monks down to the shore. The Brothers of Iona lived peacefully and went unarmed. However, Flann scooped up a hoe from the garden before he joined them. If these strangers had come with ill intent, someone needed to help defend the monastery.
Last autumn a boatload of raiders had alighted upon these shores. Flann had rallied the monks and forced some of them to fight, for the raiders had been intent on pillaging their storehouses. The monks had been shocked by how Flann had handled himself: he had broken one raider’s jaw and crushed the nose of another.
The approaching longboat contained half a dozen men. Their leather vests, fur mantles, and gleaming armrings marked them as Angles from the south. His father’s people. Reaching the shallows, four of the men jumped overboard and dragged the boat to shore.
Flann, who was taller than most of the monks, peered over the heads of his companions, his gaze settling on the dark-haired, robed figure sitting amidships. A priest. Behind him there appeared to be a large object shrouded in leather.
“There’s a man of God with them at least,” one of the brothers muttered. “They haven’t come to rob us.”
Flann did not answer—there was something about the intense way the priest was surveying them that put him on edge. The man’s sharp blue eyes tracked over the group, moving from brother to brother.
He’s looking for someone.
The newcomers pulled the boat out of the water onto the beach. Three of the warriors heaved the object they had brought up onto their shoulders and waded through the sand toward the waiting monks.
The priest led them, his face somber.
The prior stepped forward to meet them. “Good morning. I am Aiden, prior of this monastery. We welcome you to our isle.”
The priest dipped his head. “And morning to you, Father. I am Oswald of Bebbanburg.”
Now that the group stood close to them, the sweet odor of rotting flesh drifted over the shore. One of the younger brothers gagged, and Prior Aidan frowned. “What have you brought here?”
The priest Oswald’s face tightened. “We bring the body of our noble king: Ecgfrith, ruler of Northumbria. We have carried him here for burial, and to see his half-brother, Aldfrith.”
Aldfrith.
Flann tensed, the name slamming into him like a punch to the gut. He had not heard it in years. His mother had been the last person to call him by it, and even then, it had been in anger as she ranted at him of his father’s cruelty. That name was part of an identity he had always denied, one he wanted no part of.
A silence settled over the beach, and Oswald cleared his throat. “He goes by the name of Flann Fina. I must speak with him.”
