Brothers of the Wild North Sea

by Harper Fox

  The oarsmen stopped their efforts and brought the boat to a smooth halt in the shallows. One of them promptly leapt out and held up his hands. The old man accepted his aid but waved off the attentions of the guardsman who was trying to hold his cloak and cassock out of the water. Once out of the boat, he hitched up his garments for himself, gave his escort a friendly nod and began to splash through the wavelets, digging his crozier into the sand for balance.

  Cai wanted to run to him, but something held him still. Fen too was motionless beside him. They waited until Addy was right in front of them, and then the three stood and looked at one another, all of them stilled with wonder at the changes. Addy broke the seagull silence at last. “You see,” he said sadly, “it’s as I feared. They’ve come for me at last.”

  “Against your will?” Fen glanced at the soldiers, assessing his next fight. “Just make a signal. Caius and I will assist you.”

  “No, no.” Addy chuckled and patted Fen’s muscular arm. “What a wolf it is! No, I am here of my own will, if not of my own desire. They came in this great ugly boat of theirs. I tried to refuse, but the young man with them was insistent—quite insistent. He agreed to let me stop and say goodbye to my friends at Fara, but I fear he’s anxious for my return. I mustn’t keep him waiting long.”

  Cai followed Addy’s swift glance back over his shoulder. Standing at the rail of the ship was a slender, fair-haired man. He was dressed quite differently to the soldiers, in a gorgeous cloak of scarlet, richly embroidered all over in gold. It was fastened at the shoulder with a brooch whose jewels flashed visibly even from this far away. He didn’t look like a man much accustomed to having to wait.

  Fen’s distance vision was better than Cai’s. “That lad in the prow,” Cai said. “Is he wearing a crown?”

  “Not by vikingr standards. Our chieftains have better than that. But…”

  Cai racked his brains for a name. News came slowly to Fara, and borderlines and monarchs changed fast. “Addy—did King Ecgbert of Bernicia come to fetch you?”

  “Aye, it seems so. A pleasant young man. He took my spade from me—I was digging my garden—and gave me this staff. Put this cloak on me with his own hands. Still I would have refused him. I love my solitude, my seals and my birds. But men like your new abbot are springing up everywhere, and I can’t defeat them from here. So I shall go among them as a teacher and a leader, take up arms in my own way, and try what that will do.” He adjusted his cloak, one-handed and awkward, as if it weighed more heavily on him than he could bear. “Oh, Caius. Tell your brethren to stand—the occasion doesn’t warrant this.”

  Cai turned. Behind him on the sand, Hengist and Cedric and the others—even Eyulf, his mouth wide open in amazement—had drawn together into an orderly group and fallen to their knees.

  “Some of them know of your legend, sir,” Cai said hoarsely. “And all of them recognise the signs of your authority. It’s what they wish.”

  “Well, it seems strange to me, but…” The old man fell silent. His attention focussed on the cliff and the green shoulder of Fara’s great rock. “Caius. What happened here?”

  “There was a raid. The worst we’ve ever known, and Aelfric was killed in it. So you don’t need to worry about him anymore, but God help the rest of us—everything is gone.”

  “My son…” Addy tottered as if he would fall, but he gently rejected Cai’s supporting hand. “There are so few of you. Who else has died?”

  “Wilfrid, our goatherd. Marcus, one of Aelfric’s men who fought bravely with us. Demetrios, our shepherd, and a brother called John, who was hurt in the first raid this spring and was meant to be protected. But I couldn’t protect him.” Suddenly his failure, and the tally of the dead, was too much for Cai. He covered his face.

  “My son, I can’t comfort you. I can’t bring back your dead. All I have to give you is my blessing. Will you kneel for it—even though you are a soldier and the new leader of these men?”

  Cai hesitated. It wasn’t pride—he didn’t have an ounce of pride left in him—but it seemed so strange, to be asked this under the clear northern sky, in the sunlight that shone on all men equally. Addy, who had entered his mind as a creature at one with wind, sun and rain, wouldn’t have asked it. Perhaps it was part of his new work—and, after all, a king was watching. Cai wouldn’t let him down. He dropped to his knees on the sand.

  “And will even Fenrisulfr, the fierce warrior, kneel?”

  Cai held his breath. Fen had changed, but could still flash out like a thunderbolt when occasion called. But Fen thumped down beside him, and the two knelt like their brethren, awaiting the old man’s word.

  Addy looked them over. Something about them seemed to please him. He smiled unsteadily and gave another awkward tug at his cloak. “Not boys anymore,” he said. “Not the rolling pups who washed up on my island a few months ago. How did that come to be, Caius? From fighting your fellow man?”

  “No. It came from fighting with myself.”

  “Aye. And so are all our lonely, worthy victories won. I don’t have a faithless rebel monk and a murderous Viking here with me now. I have battle-forged men who…” he paused, long enough to push a strand of red hair back from Fen’s brow, “…who have both understood the nature of sacrifice. Thank God.”

  Now Addy in turn fell to his knees. He went down hard, as if beneath the weight of something. “Thank God,” he repeated. His back was turned to the guards and the king on the ship. “At last I can get this damned treasure of Fara out from under here and into worthy hands—quick, before anyone sees.”

  He reached into his cloak. Something tumbled out into his lap—a box so heavy that he barely caught it before it slid into the sand. Cai had no idea how he had carried it or even stood upright. The box—no, a casket, with hinges and elaborate fastenings—was made of solid gold. Not Hibernian or vikingr… Danan the magpie had taught Cai to recognise both, and this was richer than either, a deep buttery yellow that glowed in the sun. It was beautifully worked. All around its edges little creatures danced, beasts that might have found their way from Leof’s imagination, when he was drawing things Theo had described to him but he had never seen. Horses with long noses and awkward-looking humps to their backs, another breed whose neck had stretched to monstrous length, and glimmering all around this fantastic bestiary, jewels in colours Cai could never have dreamed of, let alone believed could be captured in stone. He put out a hand to touch the marvellous thing. He found Fen’s hand in his way, and instead of finishing the gesture, turned his palm up. Fen seized it, grasping tight.

  Addy watched them, his expression hard to read. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Worth a vikingr raid or two in itself, though greater treasures are to be found nearer to home, as you’ve found out. Listen to me carefully. This is not the secret Theo told you of while he was dying. The treasure lies inside. Don’t open it now—wait till I am gone and you’re alone.” He shifted, drawing the edge of his robe across the casket to conceal its rainbow fires. “It is a lovely thing. It holds a book. Theo had travelled to the east, right to the ends of the Mid-Earth Sea, and he found a place where rebel pagan priests were guarding a small library, barely more than a cellar. In it were relics—brands snatched from the burning of a temple called the Serapeum, which in its turn had held the ancient treasures of the greatest library of all. Did Theo ever speak to you of Alexandria?”

  Cai cast his mind back. He grasped Fen’s hand, his one anchor in this strangeness. “Yes. Not often, though—it seemed to give him pain.”

  “He was a man who minded such things. Alexandria burned too, and scattered the learning of centuries to the four winds. The Christian Roman emperors needed to wipe out such scholarship. Much of it came from the Jews, from Arabs, from pagan Greeks, and by Theo’s time—our time—it had all been deemed heretical. And Theo himself was under suspicion of heresy. That’s why he was banished to his post on the world’s western edge, and why you monks of Fara got such a splendid abbot for a while.”
r />   Addy sighed, patting the box. “He was a saint, a holy fool with little thought of his own safety. He bought as many of these forbidden books as he could afford, and when he was exiled he chose just one to carry with him, as much as he could conceal about his person. The rest were destroyed. When I met him on my voyage back from Rome, he was still grieving, clutching this one relic to his breast as if it had been a child. We spent weeks aboard that ship, and by the time we parted, he trusted me. He had heard of the raids on the north-coast monasteries, heard to his sorrow that Christianity even in these far-flung lands was beginning to fear science, mathematics, astronomy, all the wisdom of the ancient world. So he left the book, and this glorious casket, with me. I buried it on my island, Fenrisulfr, and you slept within yards of it. You were quite right—there are hidden tunnels at the back of my cave. How could I trust either of you then, even if Theo had told you part of the truth? You were nothing but flotsam, thrown up on my shores by the wind and the sea.”

  Cai swallowed hard. “I still don’t understand. This book—no matter how marvellous it is… Theo said it would bring peace and stop the raids. How can any book do that?”

  “I’ve wondered the same thing. I had hoped—I still do hope—that Theo saw in you a wisdom that would grow to interpret his words. What else did he say to you?”

  “That the secret wasn’t even in the book. That it was in the binding.” Cai drew a rough breath. “Oh, I have failed him. My wisdom didn’t grow. I’ve tried all I can to be like him, but…”

  “Hush. Who could be like him? Who could ever be like you? Each of us has his path. They run close together sometimes—for life, if we are fortunate—but they never cross. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Cai said miserably. He was faint and sick, the hole in his side aching fiercely. Fen disentangled his hand and put an arm round his shoulders instead, and Cai leaned gratefully into his warmth. “No.”

  “Poor boy. You’re sick, and I have kept you talking out here in the cold. I must go now and be…” He paused, gathering up his staff and using it to push onto his feet. “Aedar, Bishop of Hexham, it seems. Understand this one thing only. I love my faith and my church, and shadows are falling upon it. Only men like you can keep a light of knowledge burning till the darkness has passed. Will you try?”

  “I’ll try. I don’t know how, but…”

  “It’s enough. You won’t be hindered by any more abbots from Canterbury, I believe. These north lands are considered beyond salvation now, and Rome won’t throw good men after bad. Fara is yours.” He straightened up, lifting his crozier high so its ivory curve caught the light. “I will bless you and your brethren now. They’ve waited long enough. Er, Caius, that boy…”

  “Which one, sir? Eyulf?”

  “The one who seems weak in his wits, unless he knows some benefit to eating sand… You should bring him to me. Not now, but the next time we meet.”

  “Will there be a next time?”

  “Of course. Creation being eternal, all things must happen in time.” He raised his free hand, extending it towards the gathered men. “Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus…”

  Cai closed his eyes and tried to take the blessing in good part. Creation might be eternal, but he was only flesh. With a few exceptions, men did not live long in the harsh north. He had seen more than twenty summers. Broccus, barely sixteen years older, was considered an old man, and Cai knew the wound draining strength from him now would take its toll in years at the end of his life. Perhaps that was the nature of the blessing. Cai was certain he had seen his finest days, his hottest, sweetest hours.

  He opened his eyes and found twenty golden ones staring back at him. A flock of the black-and-white ducks who haunted the Fara isles had gathered out of nowhere and waddled close to Addy until they formed a kind of honour guard, their faces at once comical and solemn. One was so close that its beak had gone under his robe.

  Addy finished his blessing. He looked down and gave a groan of exasperation, as if this was a regular problem for him. “Ah, you fools—found me out here, have you?” He gathered up his hem and gently shooed out the intruder. He turned and began to walk away, and they followed him, sea-gilded rumps swinging. “You fools,” he continued, addressing them as if no one else existed, his voice fading into the breeze. “Didn’t I tell you? I am not really going away. Or, if I am, I will be back. If not, I never was here, or I always was and always will be—sometimes I can’t remember which it is.” He reached the water’s edge. The king in the ship looked up eagerly, and the soldiers jumped down to assist him, but he hitched his robes up and waded out alone, the Addy ducks swimming in his wake.

  Cai sent his brethren back to their work. At first he felt like an impostor, as he always did when ordering men older, better, longer-serving than himself, but then despite his pain and weariness, his voice firmed. These north lands are considered beyond salvation now. Perhaps he need not be so afraid, if Fara was already lost. Perhaps the lost souls who lived there could do worse than him as a leader. They went without a murmur, as if his commands were what they expected and desired.

  They hadn’t seemed to expect him to dismiss Fen too, any more than they’d intruded on their privacy in the makeshift shelter. Perhaps they thought an abbot could do as he wished, keep whoever he wanted close to him. Pushing back that bitter thought, Cai went back to Fen’s side. He settled on the sand beside him and turned the precious casket in his hands. He and Fen were alone. It was time to open up the treasure of Fara. He turned the box so that its hasps were facing Fen. “Will you? I’m almost afraid.”

  Fen smiled, shook his head. “No. This is your abbot Theo’s gift to you.”

  “The man I once knew was ready to kill for this.”

  “The man you once knew would have killed for just one of its jewels.”

  Cai looked up. Fen was gazing at him through strands of windblown hair, his eyes bright with sorrow and mischief. In some ways he was transfigured—in others just the same, unapologetically the man he had always been. With unsteady fingers, Cai unfastened the clasps. No fleck of rust could corrode the magnificent gold, and the box opened easily.

  By contrast, the book inside was plain. Its cover, though made of good leather, was worn thin in patches that corresponded to fingermarks. How many hands must have lifted and opened it, over how many centuries, to wear away that thick hide? Lifting it out, Cai found how easily his own fingers fitted into the same gaps. Yes, the cover was almost worn away. A dirty leather strip was wrapped round the whole book to prevent it from falling apart. It was only loosely knotted—cradling the volume in one arm, he undid the strip and let it fall. A little sand went with it, skittering in the breeze for long enough to show its deep red tint, then flying off to vanish in the pale north-lands gold. Desert sand… Cai remembered now that Theo had talked of the hump-backed horses depicted on the casket’s sides, not horses at all but beasts of burden called cameli. Maybe this book was a bestiary, an account of desert travels, or…

  No. Nothing to do with palm trees or beasts. The first page was a diagram, beautifully laid out and labelled—first in a strange foreign scrawl, and then in crisp Latin—of the three heavenly bodies. Sol, Terra, Luna. Sun, Earth and Moon—with the sun at the centre, and the moon going stepdance around and around the round Earth. The next page showed a man in exotic robes kneeling at the foot of a building such as Cai had never seen before, nothing but four triangular faces that met at an apex. The man had a compass like Theo’s, and he was busy taking measurements from this apex to a brilliant overhanging star.

  Cai closed the book. He couldn’t see for tears. Fen’s arms went round him from behind, and he clutched him, hard enough to bruise, still keeping the volume held tenderly close to his chest. “Fen, it’s Theo’s book. The one he was copying bit by bit from memory.”

  “The Gospel of Science?”

  “Yes. Oh, God—all his learning. All here.”

  “I’m glad. Is it what you imagined
?”

  “A thousand times more. But I still don’t understand.” Cai struggled round, leaned his brow against Fen’s. It was a gesture of tenderness from the earliest days of their short time together, when words had almost failed, when two heads were better than one, when words and thoughts alike were both about to melt into a kiss. “I don’t know how it can bring peace.”

  “Have you looked into the binding? Theo said the answer was there.”

  “Yes. Not in the book but in the binding… It scarcely has any left. The pages were all held together by…”

  The dirty leather ribbon was still fluttering on the sand. The wind was about to take it. Fen shot out a hand and pinned it down, catching its tail at the last instant. “This?”

  “Yes. It was tied round it, binding it all together.” Realisation hit. “Oh, Fen. The binding.”

  It was nothing but a dirty ribbon, more tattered than the book itself. A cloud had passed before the sun, and not until it was gone did Cai make out the markings. He’d seen something like them on grave-marker stones in the older Saxon villages. A series of straight lines burned into the leather—mostly vertical, easy to carve into stones, broken by angles, horizontals. “This looks like lettering.”

  “It is. Runic. My people use a pure form, the Saxons a degraded one.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  “This is pure.” Fen took the ribbon, passed it slowly through his fingers. “It’s old, though—older almost than I can translate, and the first few letters are gone. Wait, though. I have it. The cord…” He turned the ribbon, held it to the light. “The cord that binds the wolf where fetters fail.”