by Harper Fox
Only one horseman was able to keep up with him. The beautiful horse he was riding kept perfect pace with the chariot. The contrast between him and Sigurd could not have been greater—the one a solid wall of muscle, flesh and fur, the other a lean, graceful shape whose flag of copper hair seemed to take light from the sun.
Cai saw and understood. The burgeoning faith in his heart snapped out, a candle snuffed in brutal fingers. Clover sensed the change in him and lost momentum, and he let her falter to a halt right in the middle of the plain.
“Caius! Damn you, boy—get the hell out of my way.”
Cai didn’t move. He couldn’t turn his head—not even for his father. He had let Fen go. The sorrow of that had eaten him alive. But nothing in his loneliness had taught him what it would be to see him return as his enemy. Despair seized him, colder than death.
And Fen had seen him too. He peeled away from Sigurd’s side, his magnificent russet-red cloak floating out behind him. Briefly the sight of him wiped Cai’s mind clean of anything but his beauty. Cai had fallen in love with a Viking, a warrior. The warrior had taken on a cassock and gone about his duties at Fara as a monk, but he was a Viking still, and now for the first time Cai saw him restored. His throat went dry as dust. Fen was heading straight for him. So be it. Cai wouldn’t so much as draw his sword. Even now, a voice of unbreakable trust told him Fen would strike neatly, end his life fast and cleanly.
“Gleipnir! Bring back Gleipnir!”
That wasn’t Broc’s voice or Fen’s. It wasn’t in Cai’s own tongue, but the words of the Dane Lands were part of his heart’s language now. Sigurd’s troops were slowing up, all of them gazing after Fen. And Fen was holding at arm’s length a thin banner, a streamer flying behind him on the wind.
“Fenrisulfr!” Sigurd was hauling his chariot to a stop. His mouth was open, his face a blank of outrage and dismay. “Fenrir, you devil—bring Gleipnir back.”
“No!” Fen rode Eldra full tilt to Cai’s side. He didn’t stop there, but reined her in hard so that she made a circle round him, one then another, as if seeking to shield him not only from Sigurd but from someone behind him. At last Cai broke his paralysis and saw Broccus pounding down on him, howling with rage at the sight of his son in league with an enemy soldier. “No!” Fen yelled again, brandishing the ribbon. “Hætta! All of you stop!” And then, in full view of his warlord and his Viking comrades, he held out the ribbon to Cai.
“Take it,” he said quietly. “Take it now, beloved. Can you translate to the Celts for me?”
If I can speak at all. Cai took the fluttering strip of leather in a numbed-out grasp. “I will try.”
“Hold that up. Let them see I’ve given Gleipnir to you. Sigurd!”
A roar like an avalanche came back. Cai could barely pick out words from it, but Sigurd’s livid face gave him the gist. Still, not one of the Viking men moved. Cai didn’t understand. He and Fen were an easy target out here. If Sigurd wanted Gleipnir, he could come and get it, unless… He lifted the ribbon as Fen had told him. He gestured with it, letting the wind make it fly.
The Viking men fell back.
“Fen. What’s going on?”
“Tell the others what I say. Sigurd, stop this fight! There won’t be a battle here today.”
Strong, simple words. Lost in disbelief, Cai turned to his father and the mismatched group of chieftains and farmers hauling up to a disorganised halt all around him. He could translate easily. “Stop,” he cried, the beginnings of a grin tugging at his mouth. “Stop the battle. Nobody fights today.”
“Sigurd, I couldn’t stop you from coming here. But no Torleik warrior will lay hands on the man who saved my life. Who became to me more than a brother. Nor will they harm his tribe, or his…” Fen looked quickly from Broc to Cai, making the connection, “…or his family.”
These words were harder to convey, but Cai did his best, blushing with pleasure at the sound of them. “Fenrir forbids the Torleik to harm me. I am his… More than his brother. So they won’t harm my tribe either. Not even you, old man.”
“Caius, you whelp. Is that Viking on my bloody horse?”
“No. On mine, since you gave her to me. She’s called Eldra now.” Cai stopped, distracted by a rumble of hooves and wheels. Sigurd had finally broken rank. “Fen, is he frightened of Gleipnir? Take it back.”
“No. I have to make him frightened of me—it’s long past time.” Fen waited. He manoeuvred Eldra so that she stood fearlessly between Sigurd’s oncoming chariot and Cai, and as Sigurd tried to rush past him, seized his rein. A sound of disbelief rose from the vikingr troops, and Cai understood that this was Fen’s challenge—a head-on contest for leadership, one warlord to another. “Sigurd, I have given Gleipnir to this man, to do with as he wishes. He is worthy.”
“Worthy? You have given our power to him, you traitor.”
“This poor strip of leather? You believe that?”
Sigurd’s face suffused with rage. He tried to jerk the rein free, but Fen held fast. “Of course not. But they all do, and so I can command them.”
“Not anymore. I give my allegiance to the Britons, and they aren’t easy prey, not now. There will be resistance…” Fen paused, glancing in amusement at Broc’s army. Some looked like fierce Roman soldiers. Others were brandishing pitchforks. “As you’ll find out, if you start a fight. Go back and tell them that. Now.”
Cai braced. Sigurd’s brow lowered until he looked ready to spit thunderbolts. Fen was going to lose this standoff, surely. Cai would live with the results. He wrapped Gleipnir round his wrist and reached for his sword. It wouldn’t be a bad end, to vanish fighting underneath a wave of vikingr wrath. To drown there with Fen by his side.
“Traitor,” Sigurd repeated, but his voice rasped on it. He shook his rein again, and this time Fen let him go. Cai watched in disbelief as he pulled his horses round and began to retreat.
Fen brought Eldra snorting and prancing to Clover’s side. “Holy gods almighty,” he declared, swallowing audibly. “I never thought that would work.”
“You never did…”
“Oh, Cai. Listen to me, please.” He laid a hand on Cai’s arm, and Cai put his own hand on top, heat rushing through him at the touch. “When I left you… I promise you, beloved, I thought I could help my people. I thought I had to. For nothing less would I have…”
He faltered. Cai squeezed his fingers. “I know.”
“But when I got there, Sigurd wasn’t in exile. He’d come back, and he was rousing an invasion force to come here and ravage this country for everything we need at home. I tried to stop him. I told him the only way to mend things was to mend our land. But winter is coming. The Torleik are starving.”
“And he wouldn’t listen to you.”
“No. When he knew I had Gleipnir, he put all his faith in it and set out here. So all I could do was ride with him, then take my chance once I got here. I’ve backed him down in front of his men now, and given you Gleipnir.”
“What happens now?”
“He’ll obey me. And you, if you’re strong enough.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Speak to them—my men and yours.”
Cai nodded. Fen was so close that he could catch his longed-for scent in the air. He would have done anything. “I will. What else?”
“What else?”
“Something more you want to ask me, love. I can see it in your eyes.”
Fen shivered. “Breath wasn’t worth drawing for me once I’d left you behind. I want your forgiveness. To stand once again at your side.”
“Yes. Always. Go back to Sigurd now, though.”
“Oh, gods. Why?”
Cai raised the hand he held. He pressed its knuckles to his lips, in full view of Broc’s warrior’s and Sigurd’s. “Because if I’m going to speak to him, you’ll have to translate for me.”
Caius held the sacred relic high. It was like a powerful wave, he thought, rushing up a wide, lonely shore. The vikingr warrio
rs shifted like kelp in the currents, leaning towards it yearningly, shrinking back when the wind made it swing round towards them. Only Fen sat proud and still. He had taken up a place by Sigurd’s chariot. The warlord was waiting. He looked tired, as if some vital essence had passed out of him. Off to Cai’s left, Broc was waiting too. It was time.
Cai rode Clover slowly into the middle of the sun-blown turf. When he moved, he felt invisible shapes move with him in the wind, keeping close to him, casting no shadows. Leof, he thought, for the first time with no pain. Theo—now I know how the treasure of Fara can bring peace.
“Hear me!” he called. For a moment he wanted to laugh. Who was he, to stand between armies and demand that they listen to him? Then the breeze caught Gleipnir, and it tugged in his fist like a living thing, a sea serpent coiling. He let it fly out like a banner. The runic words burned into it seemed to swirl and dance around him. The cord that binds the wolf…
“Hear me. I wield Gleipnir. No man will fight here today.” He waited for the roar of derision, but none came. Sigurd was frowning, listening to Fen for translation, and as for Broccus… Once more Cai swallowed down laughter. He’d never seen such a face before. One of Broc’s hounds could have spoken and astonished him less. “I wield Gleipnir, and…I command you to look around you. Look at the men gathered here—vikingr and old Roman, Saxon farmers, and…” he patted himself on the chest, then gestured at the looming rock of Fara, “…and my kind too, the soldiers of Christ. Each convinced the land belongs to them. At least these vikingr pirates know they’re invaders. The rest of us have forgotten—we are too.”
A rumble from the hillfort warriors. Cai turned to them—to Broc, meeting the dark eyes that were so like his own. “Yes. The waves of change break on this shore, over and over again. There never was such thing as a pureblood Briton, and…” He paused. Maybe Danan’s draught was working on him still. He seemed to stand on a brink. There would be a time when conflicts like this one would devour a whole nation. A world. “And there never will be, Broc. Not even you.”
The flickering visions faded. All that was left was the light, the sea air, the vast sky above him owned only by the wind. “Look at this land,” he said. “It’s huge. It’s empty—I can walk for days and not meet another living soul.” Clover shifted, and he let her turn so that he too could see the great wide spaces of his home. “There’s room for every one of you here—for settlers, not raiders. Men who will come to build houses and farms, sustain themselves by work, not theft and plunder. No, Broc—listen. We too came here as conquerors. Our Roman fathers tried to seize the land and…and they found they could only become a part of it. At least—the only ones left are men like you, who did, who stayed and had children and…”
Cai jerked his head up. He had started to speak to Broccus only, and the Vikings were waiting. “And now I tell you, men like me—Christians, who say they serve the word of Christ but have gone deaf to its meaning—are starting to put out the lights of learning and freedom. I won’t let anyone—vikingr or Saxon, Roman or Celt—bring down that darkness. Not while I have a breath in my lungs.”
Gleipnir stopped its dance. It fluttered down and lay tamely over Clover’s neck. If there had been any magic in it, the power was spent. And Cai was finished too. He sat quietly, letting Clover shake her head and snort. Whatever would come next would come.
“Caius!”
Cai turned. Fen was looking up from low-voiced conference with Sigurd, and he was smiling. Cai knew that smile. Good luck with this one, monk…
“Sigurd has something to say to you. He says…” The grin widened. “He couldn’t care less about learning and freedom. But he’ll take the land, if you’re giving it away.”
Cai shook his head. His answering smile rose up. “Not mine to give. If it’s anyone’s, it’s my father’s. I’m sure he’ll be willing to step forwards now and deal with Sigurd for it—by negotiation.” He shot a glance at Broc, who was puce, his mouth hanging open. “Or they could fight. They’re pretty well matched up, aren’t they—his farmers and your pirates. They’d do a grand job of wiping each other out.”
Caius left the battleground. He touched his heels to Clover’s sides and turned her head towards the sea. Was it a battleground that lay behind him, or a chamber of council, roofless and open to the light? For himself, he couldn’t care anymore. He was done. He had all his work cut out to stay aboard his rocking mount as she surged to a choppy gallop and took him away.
Other hoofbeats, faster and lighter. Cai cared about those. Still he didn’t look back. No plough horse could make such a sound. He risked closing his eyes for a moment. Instantly vertigo grabbed him and he opened them again, and it had been enough—Fen was right there at his side. Eldra fell into effortless pace, a swan beside a hard-swimming Addy duck.
Fen put out a hand. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. The dunes. Just…away.”
“Yes. Good.”
“Not too fast. Clover can’t keep up.” And nor can I. Why is it so hard to breathe?
“You called your warhorse Clover?”
“It was short notice. Just ride.”
Off the coastal plain and into the hills, where earth turned to sand beneath the turf, where marram whipped freshly in the wind. Where salt and the manes of white horses made the air crackle with life, sustaining Cai a little longer—long enough to gallop after Fen deep into the maze of crests and sandy troughs.
“Here,” he called, when his hold on Clover’s reins began to slip. “Fen, stop here.”
Eldra came snorting to a halt. Fen turned her neatly and brought her to stand beside Clover. “Is it far enough?”
“Yes. It’ll have to be.”
“Cai…” Fen took hold of his shoulder once more. He looked into Cai’s face. Cai didn’t dare look back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Can you see them from here—Sigurd and my father?”
“If I ride back up this crest. Wait a moment. Yes.”
“Are they fighting?”
“No. They’re still where we left them. They’re…talking, I think, if you’ll believe it.”
Cai chuckled. “Just barely. If you’re here, though—who’s translating?”
“Does Broccus speak Latin?”
“A little.”
“Well, Sigurd speaks a little less, but maybe it’s enough. Your father seems to be drawing something on the ground.”
“Partitioning his lands, perhaps.”
“Does he really own them?”
“Not an acre. But if that’s what it takes…”
“Yes. Sigurd won’t ask to see his deeds. Cai…?” Fen leapt off Eldra. He came running down the dune and took hold of Clover’s bridle. “Why are you so pale? You were mending when I left, weren’t you?” He reached up. Cai began to dismount. Fen would help him down, and then he would be fine. But something went wrong between Clover’s broad back and the sand. The noise of the sea had got inside his head. When he tried to tell Fen about this—to lean down and find his embrace—his eyes filled with salt water too, blinding him. And then the sun went black.
My only grief is that I can’t deceive you. Cai lay listening to the thud of a heart that was now so much stronger than his own. He was curled up with Fen in the sheltering arm of the dunes. The wind was growing chilly as the dusk came down, but he could scarcely feel it. He had awoken wrapped in a beautiful cloak, its soft red wool drawn closely all round him. Fen had been holding it there, holding him. Briefly he had tried to lie. But the damn cough had started, racking him, for the first time bringing blood.
“Why is it happening?”
“The wound’s healing badly, I think.” Cai was calm now. His words no longer came in crimson rags. His head was on Fen’s shoulder. “Binding up one of my lungs.”
“What can I do? I will bring you a physician.”
Cai smiled at the imperious tone. “Knock one over the head and bring him to me hogtied?”
“If necessary.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“It did until today.”
Fen took his face between his hands. He brushed back Cai’s fringe, wiped a trace of blood from his lips with the pad of his thumb. He was so lovely to Cai in the fading light—his haughty features softened, the breeze blowing his hair to kestrel’s-wing feathers across his brow. “But it will get better?”
Cai couldn’t deceive him. He could hold his peace, though. He buried his hands in the heavy, warm hair, kissed the sculpted profile where the setting sun was limning it in gold.
Fen shuddered deeply and moved to lie over him, bearing his weight on his arms. “Tell me the truth,” he growled. “I’ll take your silence for your answer otherwise.”
“Don’t. Just touch me. I have been hungry for you.”
“And I for you. I have starved. Why did we do it?”
“We thought we had our duty.”
“Yes. But I missed weeks of you, months of…”
Months of whatever I have left. Cai captured Fen’s mouth before the words could come. “Never again,” he whispered, between one fervid kiss and the next. “My only duty is to you.”
“And mine to you.”
Solstice to solstice, hand to hand… Their rough interchange called into Cai’s head the words of the vow, the chant Danan had begun for them and then stopped when she caught sight of their futures. She had been right—Fen hadn’t had a year and a day to give, and now neither did Cai. And yet here they were. He wrapped his arms round Fen’s shoulders, and something tugged at his wrist, restricting him. “Fen, I’ve still got… Look. Gleipnir.”
“Bury it. Chuck it in the sea. It took me away from you.”
