Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox Page B

cassock. He wanted to stroke the dying man’s hair back off his brow. He wanted to lean over him, ease his head up and cushion it on his arm. He clenched his fingers tight round his own wrists to hold himself still—he wanted to kiss this enemy’s bloodstained mouth, hold him and bear him gently into death.
    Who is with me?
    “Gunnar,” Cai said softly. He clutched his arms harder, holding himself fiercely still. “I am here with you. Gunnar.”
     
     
    The Viking took a fever from his wounds. Despite Cai’s herbs and hand-washing, poisons had entered his blood. By morning, although breath was still rasping in and out of his lungs, his skin was dry and papery, burning beneath Cai’s touch. The fire inside released a terrible last strength in him, and he lashed out howling at Cai, knocking a flagon of water from his hands, then lurched upright on the bunk to seize poor Oslaf, the only one of Cai’s brethren who had consented to enter the quarantine cell, let alone help.
    Cai scrambled up off the floor. He detached the hand that had clenched on Oslaf’s robe, narrowly avoiding a blow from the other. The Viking was flailing around for his sword, now safely stowed away in the armoury.
    “Stop it,” Cai ordered. “Oslaf, fetch me the straps from the surgical tables.” He held the young man down by brute force until Oslaf returned, then pinned one wrist long enough to secure it to the frame of the bunk. Oslaf nervously did the same on the other side. The Viking thrashed on the bed, his eyes alight with delirium and hate. He fought his bindings wildly, then suddenly collapsed, expression draining from his sweat-soaked face to leave it serenely beautiful once more. Cai straightened up, breathless. “Best strap his ankles too. I’ve packed that wound as best I can, but it’ll open up if he thrashes round too much.”
    Oslaf nodded. The raider was still wearing his hide boots and thick deerskin leggings. Cai could have stripped him down while he slept the night before, and for any other sick man he’d have done it—washed him, tended unflinchingly to the inevitable bodily mess of near-death injury. Cai was ashamed of himself for leaving him dressed and filthy, but Benedict’s words had twisted together with his own loathing. To save the brute’s life was one thing. He couldn’t treat him as he had John or Wilfrid, men who had deserved from him a brother’s tenderness.
    He helped Oslaf tie the straps over the leggings, then glanced up at the younger monk. “Thanks. You should go now, though. Don’t make Benedict angry with you.”
    “It might be too late for that. I know what you told me—that I ought to play the game, but…” Oslaf paled, absently patting the Viking’s ankle as if he had been a friend. “I’m not sure it is one anymore. Ben won’t let me near him.”
    “But last night…”
    “He pushed me away. Sent me off to pray with the others.” Tears suddenly clouded Oslaf’s gaze, and he put out a hand to ward off Cai’s sympathy. “Do you think he’ll live, then? This demon of yours?”
    “I don’t understand how he’s still alive now.”
    “My grandmother used to say the hair saps strength in fever. She cut mine off when I was ill.”
    Cai looked at the raider’s sweat-darkened mane. “That’s nonsense, though, isn’t it? A superstition.”
    “Well, I’m alive. His hair looks the most living thing about him now.”
    It was true. The tangled curls seemed to have a vigorous existence of their own, glowing rich russet in the delicate early light filling the cell. “All right. It might be worth a try. I’ll go and find some shears. Will you stay with him till I get back?”
    Cai made his way quickly down to the barn where Brother Petros had kept his shears and shepherd’s crooks. He tried not to look about him. The barn was silent now, cobwebs already drifting from its timbers. The Fara flocks were out at emergency pasture under the care of any brother who could be spared to