Brothers of the Wild North Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

he could bear. It broke him to tears. He lay sobbing, eyes squeezed shut.
    He could hear bells. Disconnected thoughts flicked through his head. He would never know the voice of God, not if it depended on chastity. He’d better get the mattress ticking off, rinse it under the pump. Perhaps he should just leave Fara. A wolf from the sea…
    A bell, stirring gently on the inshore breeze now tugging at the wooden shutters. Wiping his eyes, Cai struggled out of bed. He went to lean on the windowsill, momentarily dizzy and weak. To climax so hard on his own like that—ah, he was hopeless, the very idea of losing Leof’s sweet services enough to drive him wild. From here he could see the church, its reed-thatched roof shining eerily under the moon. The bell in its small, squat tower was ringing passively. An inshore wind—Cai didn’t like those, in or out of raiding season. No northern coast dweller did. From instinct and habit, he looked out to sea.
    There was a sail on the horizon. A great square sail, pregnant with that breeze. In front of it—impossibly clear to him just for an instant—rode a dragon’s head.
    They would continue by. They were out of season. Even Theo had agreed on that, the wisest man Cai knew. Fara held nothing for them, not so much as a woman, a jewelled altar cross or a chalice of gold. Cai’s heart ached for the villages further north, and for the hundredth time he wished monastic life would stretch to a fast-paced horse such as his father kept. He would fling himself onto it and ride, ride faster than any damn Viking could sail to give warning to…
    The clouds shifted. The sea at the foot of the cliffs was suddenly revealed. Cai shrank back from the window, a choked cry dying in his throat. It wasn’t the sail on the horizon he needed to fear. It was the great dragon-prowed longship that had come in vulpine silence to the very shores of Fara. She was moored, rocking. Her crew was no longer aboard. That meant they were somewhere between the rocks and the meadows at the edge of the cliff.
    And that meant in turn that Cai had a minute. No horse, no real hope—just bare feet and a dead run. He seized his cassock and dived into it, pulling it hard over his head. He wouldn’t have spared the instant for that, except that he could fight better dressed than naked, hide up his sleeve any weapon he could find. Harsh laughter burned in his chest—a weapon? He’d be lucky to find a big enough chunk of rock in this sheepfold, this beautiful, soft-bellied refuge for peace-loving men.
    A rock would have to do. Cai shot into the passageway and began to pound on Benedict’s door. Only a horrified silence answered him, and Cai knew what that meant. Two naked lovers jolting upright in bed, paralysed like fox cubs in a den. “Ben! It’s me, Cai. Vikings!”
    Another silence, probably of disbelief this time. Cai banged his fists off the woodwork again, and Benedict pulled the door open, his face sleepy and colourless with fright. Behind him, Oslaf was scrambling upright, shielding himself with a discarded cassock. “Vikings? Cai, it’s too—”
    “I know it’s too damned early! Just wake up the others. And send Oslaf to get Theo. Now!”
    Cai tore off down the stairs. Moss slithered under his bare soles, but he was faster like this than in his cumbersome sandals. The air hit his lungs, full of nighttime sweetness. Had he really just seen a longship still rocking from the exit of her crew? The dream of the wolf-man had felt more real. Rounding the corner of the main hall, he saw that the refectory was empty, all his brethren gone to their rest.
    The church was made of wood frame, wattle and daub. Only the tower at the end was built of stone, to support the bell. Twenty yards of turf divided the church from the hall, a patch of ground Cai flew across without looking back. There was no point. He’d heard the first shouts, and the air he was hauling into his lungs was no longer pure but tainted by acrid