Brothers of the Wild North Sea

by Harper Fox

  Those, the two horses, the black-faced sheep now terrorising Wilf’s three sorry survivors, and the lifesaving abundance piled up all around Cai’s feet. Cai stood frozen for a few seconds more, and then he ran after him.

  “Broccus! Broccus…” Cai couldn’t run far anymore. It hadn’t mattered until now. His lungs were too tight for him to throw his voice ahead of him, or at any rate Broc was affecting not to hear. Slipping on the muddy track, Cai forced his heavy limbs on. The wagons drew further ahead. Once they were on the flats, Cai would lose them. “Father!”

  Broc reined in. He didn’t turn or look down as Cai stumbled up to him, panting, grabbing at the cart shaft for support. “Father. These things you’ve brought…” A spasm of coughing seized him, and he tried again. “They’re the difference between life and death. I tried my best, but…we haven’t got enough. We’d have starved.”

  “Well? Am I taking them away from you?”

  “You’ve got a long trip home. Will you stay?”

  The old man’s shoulder twitched. His grip on the reins relaxed. “What—in your pigsties? No. We’ll bed down in one of the villagers’ barns for the night.”

  “At least eat with us.”

  “Lentils and scurvy grass?”

  “No.” Just as well you didn’t turn up yesterday, though. “A good fish supper tonight.”

  “Very well. Turn around, Gowan!” Broc held out a broad, calloused paw to his son. “You’d better climb up. What’s the matter with you, boy? You look like a ghost that’s been left out to bleach in the rain.”

  Only one cresset flickered in the church that night. The light was enough for the two men and the book they held between them. Cai had spared his brethren their lesson for that night, sending them off to their cells with an extra jug of ale in honour of Broc’s visit. Then he had awkwardly asked the old man if he would come to the church—not to meet God, or anything so injurious to digestion. Just to see the book.

  Broc was as uneasy as a bear, even in the stripped-back nave, which apart from its stark wooden cross now scarcely betrayed any signs of its function. He occupied old Martin’s chair as if it had been his hillfort throne, thighs splayed, only a vague notion of courtesy preventing him from propping up his feet on the stool in front of him.

  Cai sat on a bench at his side. “My abbot Theo brought this back from the East with him. He hid it with Addy—with Aedar, I mean, the new bishop—and Aedar gave it to me.”

  “From the East? Kent?”

  “Further even than that. A land called Arabia, beyond the Mid-Earth Sea.”

  “Why did he leave it with you?”

  “I’m still not sure. He told me I should learn and teach from it, spread light. And I will, as long as I’m able.”

  Broc’s attention had been on the book. Now he looked up thoughtfully at his son. “As long as you’re able? Why shouldn’t that be for a long time yet?” Cai didn’t reply, and the old man pursed his lips, brow furrowing. “You know, I’d thought there was no hurry, but…isn’t it time you had a child?”

  “A child?”

  “Yes. A boy, an heir—someone to carry on what you are. I will raise him, if you are… If you couldn’t keep him here.”

  Cai chuckled. “Well, I couldn’t sit with him in my lap while I talked to my monks about chastity. Broc, you have dozens of sons. Go and tell them to get heirs.”

  “None of them are firstborn,” Broccus returned grimly. Cai, who’d heard that sole argument for his value all his life, shook his head, and Broccus sighed. “I mean…none of them are my Caius. Could you not consider it, lad? If I sent you down the choicest of my women? I have one girl—good birth, willing, fertile as a springtime coney. Couldn’t you bring yourself to have her just once?”

  My Caius. Cai, who’d been about to snarl at the old man to mind his business, lost a breath as the words sank in. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I’m grateful. But…I couldn’t lie with a woman. Not now.”

  Broccus blanched. “Are those rumours true, then? What have they done to you?”

  “Nothing. No.” Frowning, Cai gave his father an amused, disgusted grin. “No! Not for that reason.”

  “What, then? Oh, is her place taken?” Broc exhaled noisily. “I see. And around here, not by a woman, I assume.”

  “No. Not by a woman.”

  A silence followed, broken by the crackle of the torch in its cresset. “Which one is he, then?”

  More silence. Cai clasped his hands round the back of his head and curled over until his fringe was brushing the Gospel of Science, the page where a small man was standing on the surface of the moon to demonstrate her phases, and Cai dearly wished he could join him there.

  “I heard it said, not that I believed it, that you fought with a half-tame Viking at your side. I didn’t see that kind of fox in your chicken coop tonight. Is he gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is that why the bones of your back are sticking out like a starved hound’s?”

  How could the old man know that? Cai, returning from the moon, realised that for the first time in his grown-up life, his father’s arm was around him. “No. I’ve been ill, that’s all. I was wounded in the last raid.”

  “You took a blade?”

  The old sod sounded more delighted than concerned. Still, his arm was warm, and as he had pointed out to Cai, he had never pretended to be other than he was. “Yes, a sword. Right through my side.”

  “That’s a brave lad! Let me see the mark of it.”

  “Not here. I’d have to hitch up my robes too high, and that’s unbecoming…”

  “In the house of God.” Broc snorted. “I’m sure old Martius and Cernunnos wouldn’t faint to see your tackle. Never mind. Look at what that bastard Bren did to me in the last cattle raid!”

  He pulled open the neck of his tunic, and Cai saw a livid scar snaking up his throat. He gave a low whistle. “You were lucky. That one missed your carotid by an inch.” Broc beamed as if he’d been given a gift, and Cai remembered he had marks of battle he could show without getting undressed. “A Viking I was fighting slashed my arm. Look.”

  Broc whistled in his turn. “That must have gone to the bone.”

  “Near enough. And here, where I fell from the scriptorium onto the rocks.”

  “I can see grit in it still. This is where Edulf lobbed a javelin at me. That was a grand battle.” Broc rolled down his sleeve and sat nodding in satisfaction at the memories for a moment. “Next time you’re troubled with raiders, you should remember that I can raise an army. I have enemies all over these hills. They’d just as soon fight Vikings as fight me.”

  An army… Cai hid a smile. That would be Broc himself in a chariot, and a handful of old-timers like himself on ponies. “Thank you. But I’m not sure if I’d stand up to another raid. We’ve lost so many men, and our best warrior is… He had to leave.”

  “That damn Viking. Ah, you’d feel different once your blood was up.” Broc patted the open book, turned another couple of pages. “I bet you would fight for this, if nothing else.”

  “Perhaps. It’s a fine thing, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, fine enough. But your own Roman ancestors knew more than this. It’s these bloodless Christians who are trying to make such knowledge rare.” Stretching and yawning, Broc glanced at the night sky through the open rafters. “Still, it’s good that someone wrote it down. I must go while there’s still some light.”

  Cai accompanied him as far as the door. Once there, the old man surveyed the darkening hillside, starred all over with faint light from the beehive cells. “Forgive me,” he said—a low growl expressive of anything but remorse, but nevertheless a shock to Cai. “I have seen this place now. Your monks have told me how you built it up from less than nothing. You’ve done well. You should take care of that book, boy—and yourself.”

  The breeze snuffed Cai’s lantern in the doorway to his cell. He thought about lighting it again, but then set it aside in its niche. He was tired. That was g
ood. His one hope tonight was that he would drop into the profound sleep where all his memories of Fen seemed to be stored, fresh and vivid as if just laid down. Yes, tales with the ink still wet on them, of a monk and a Viking who met in combat and defied two worlds to live in love. Wild fantasy, of course, on a chill north-coast night with the wind moaning through every gap in the stonework. Awake, Cai was losing belief in the stories himself.

  He stripped off his cassock and fumbled in the dark for his woollen nightshirt. Barda had made a batch of the garments for the monks when the autumn nights began to cool. A true ascetic would have refused her, but Cai had been too glad of the gift to refuse it for any of his brethren, who spent their nights warmer if itchier for her generosity. He shrugged into his and lay down. He would say his prayers later, he told himself. He would have the strength for them once he’d visited his dreams.

  A shoulder touched his. Biting back a yelp of fright, Cai sprang out of his bunk. He retreated until the hut’s curved wall stopped him, reaching for the sword that lived in here with him now that the armoury was gone. “Who is that?”

  Silence. Had Broccus somehow made good on his offer to send him a girl? Perhaps he’d intended it all along, brought the poor lass with him, hidden under sheep or sacks of grain. With an effort Cai stopped the wild rush of speculation. “Speak, or you’ll be sorry for it. Who is there?”

  “Caius, it’s…it’s me. Oslaf.”

  Cai let go the sword along with a pent-up breath. The weapon thudded onto the earthen floor. “Oslaf? What in God’s name are you doing here?” He grabbed at possibilities and found one that didn’t make his hair stand on end. “Are you sick? Did you come here to find me?”

  “I should say that, shouldn’t I? That I felt ill, came here and…fell asleep on your bunk while I was waiting?”

  Crouching, Cai sheathed the sword. He hung it up again, then retrieved the lantern from its niche and re-lit it by feel, his flint striking sparks before the wick caught. A soft glow filled the cell, revealing Oslaf sitting upright in the bunk, his hair dishevelled, his pallor lending credence to his story. And if it was true, he had kindly undressed in readiness for Cai’s examination. He was an attractive lad, skinny but no longer starvation-thin. His skin was smooth and unmarred, a hazelnut brown in the lamplight, scattered with freckles.

  “Oh God,” Cai whispered. “You’d better tell me the truth.”

  “Not if you stand there like Judgement. I can’t.”

  “Like Judgement?”

  “As if you’re about to point at me, call me an abomination and throw me out, like—”

  “Oslaf!” Cai slung the lantern over a hook. He knelt on the bunk and took the boy into his arms, pulling up the blanket to warm him. “Of course I’m not. How can you?”

  “I’m sorry. But you’ve been different lately. You know you have.”

  “Aye. And if you don’t know why, no one does.”

  Oslaf laid his head on Cai’s shoulder. Cai knew the nature of the convulsion that went through him—the heave of a grief too deep for tears, dry and terrible. He held him until it had passed. Oslaf said, “I do know.” His voice was worn to rags. “I do know. I’ve been watching you, and I’ve seen you dying inside your skin, just like I did after Ben. When your father came tonight, I thought he was going to pick you up and take you home, like my grandmother did when you summoned her.”

  “Not Broc’s style.” Cai rocked the boy, pressed an absent kiss to his brow. “Still, he was kinder than I’d thought.”

  “Yes. He’s like you. And you’re so like him. I can see how you’ll be when you’re older—strong and tough, but compassionate too, and shining with your learning. I want to be with a man like that.”

  Cai frowned. This view of his resemblance to the old man was too startling to take in all at once. “You will be with me. As long as the Fara brethren are together—”

  “No. With you as Benedict was with me. As you were with… Cai, I’ve grown afraid to say his name to you.”

  Cai knew why. He’d been walking around with his grief held before him like a frozen shield, deflecting all attempts at human kindness. “I’m sorry. Say it.”

  “With you like Fen was, then. What can be the harm? Yours is over the sea, and mine is…” He choked faintly. “Mine is under the earth. We can comfort each other. You don’t need to show it in the daytime, Cai, not to the others. But I can come into your bed at night, and you can touch me—warm yourself on me, lose your pain for a while in my flesh. And…I can lose mine.”

  “No,” Cai said softly. “You can’t.” Oslaf had lifted his head. He was nose-to-nose with Cai now. His lips were parted, his breath sweet with the mead that had given him the courage to come here. To kiss him would have been easy—the easiest thing in the world. But Cai knew he could lay him down here, wring pleasure from both their bodies from now until dawn, and make no real difference to either of them. “You can’t lose it. You can only learn to live with it, and that’s not the way.”

  Oslaf thumped a fist off his shoulder. “Why not? What is the bloody way?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to think…time. Only time.”

  “That’s no use to me. I want you now.”

  “Lie down.”

  Oslaf sucked a breath. Despite his declarations, he was rigid in Cai’s arms. Fear as well as arousal rolled off him in waves. Cai turned him so that he was lying with his back pressed to Cai’s belly. Once more he adjusted the blanket to cover the poor naked limbs.

  “When I lie here at night,” he said, “I have so many stories about Fen that go through my head. I can’t seem to get at them during the day.” Oslaf had lapsed into listening stillness, and Cai stroked his hair. “I certainly can’t tell them to anyone else. That’s why I’ve been…such a block of ice, I suppose. Is it like that with Benedict too?”

  “Yes. But I don’t want to think about it. I just want—”

  “You do.”

  “No! Why can’t you be like the others? They’re afraid to say his name to me, and I don’t want to make them weep and pat my head and not know what to do with themselves by saying it to them.”

  “It’s always so when someone dies or…goes away. Death is too big for us. We jump to get out of its way.”

  “Not you, though.”

  Cai held him tight. “No, not me. Tell me a story about Benedict. Just one.”

  “If you will tell me one about Fen.”

  Shrugging, Cai nodded. Oslaf’s hair was soft. His body was lithe, coming to a fine, strong maturity. Everything about him was sweet and good and right, and utterly wrong. “Very well. You first.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “From the beginning, if you like.”

  “The beginning…” Suddenly Oslaf twisted over onto his back, pushed his fringe out of his eyes and looked into the long-vanished world beyond the stone hut’s roof. His head was pillowed comfortably on Cai’s arm. “I remember. My brother Bertwald brought me here. He hated you lot, you know—he thought you were going to whip me or crucify me for the good of my soul. And as I was half-dragging him up the track, this fine tall man—not even in a cassock—it was a hot day, I remember, and Theo must have let him work in a shirt… This fine tall man pulled his ox to a halt in the field and asked us if we were all right. Well, Bertie’s a farmer too, and I had to stand there in the blazing heat for an hour while the two of them talked about how Ben got his plough rows so straight.”

  Oslaf chuckled. “Bertie was almost a convert, though I’m not sure he knew what to. And my first night here, when I had bad dreams and woke up shouting for my grandmother… Ben had the cell next to mine. I hadn’t really looked at him at supper or during prayers. He knocked on my door, and I was so surprised to see my ploughman there. He sat on the edge of my bunk and talked to me until I fell asleep—all about Theo, everything I’d learn to be and do…”

  In the first faint silvering of dawn, Cai left the hut. He paused for a moment in the doorway. Oslaf w
as curled up tight in the blanket, sleeping with the thoroughness of exhausted grief.

  Cai hadn’t told a single story about Fen. He smiled, pulling the willow screen over the door. Oslaf had talked all night. After a while he had forgotten Cai was there and begun to address something or someone beyond the hut’s confines, and he had confided to that vast and merciful unknown the whole history of his time with Ben, from their first awkward kiss to the alien misery of Ben’s estrangement from him, a deeper hell than any Aelfric could have devised. Cai had let him run on. He had taken the boy’s drooping head on his shoulder when finally he had lapsed into sleep, and lain wide-eyed himself.

  Maybe it was just lack of sleep that was gilding the sunrise, but Cai had never seen a more beautiful one at Fara. The silver was turning to a fresh rose gold. The eastern horizon was clear, a thin arc of sun already poised over the water. Once the whole orb had risen, Cai’s duties would begin—leading his brethren in prayers, seeing they all got a sufficient breakfast, assigning them their labours for the day. Such a sunrise should be seen from the dunes. He had just enough time.

  The tide had swept the beach clean. The only marks on it were those of the water’s pure dance, ripples and sandbanks whose crests were beginning to dry out already and catch diamond light from the sun. This was Cai’s earliest memory of it. Benedict had been instrumental in his own first days here—had brought him down to the sands to show him that his new life was not all self-discipline and Latin verbs. Cai, itching for exercise, had run like a lunatic along the shoreline, splashing his new cassock to the waist. The sand had been like a blank canvas and so had he, for all his turbulent upbringing with Broc. Now when he settled among the long grasses and looked down, every inch of the strand was marked for him in event. Here the sea had brought Fen to him. Here they had fought, and once boldly fucked in the open, a thick sea mist keeping their secret. Here Fen had taken Gleipnir, the cord that could bind when fetters failed, and kissed Cai on the head and walked away.