Free Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox Page A

to touch Oslaf,” Ben told him. Cai raised an eyebrow—nobody was touching anybody these days, not now that they all slept like frightened puppies in a barn. “No,” Ben said intensely, reading his thought. “Not like that. I am not to lay hand on him even in friendship. Nor am I to speak to him, go near him or have dealings with him at all beyond the absolute necessities of work.”
    “Dear God. Aelfric told you this?”
    “I wasn’t accorded that much dignity. It was Laban, his chief aide.”
    “Will you obey?”
    “For Oslaf’s sake—yes, I will.”
    “But…it’s brutal. Why?”
    “Because if I don’t, the punishment will fall on Oslaf, not on me.”
    Cai shook his head. He could see the crude cleverness of such tactics, but… “Punishment? Look at you, Ben. You could snap Laban over your knee like a twig. Aelfric too, for that matter.”
    “Yet I can’t shelter Oslaf from their condemnation. From being named a pervert, as I have been named. They’ll do it before everyone, Laban said. Stand him in front of all his brethren and…” Benedict’s voice scraped into silence. Then he looked up, meeting Cai’s gaze with hunted desperation. “I can’t say any more. What if he’s right, Cai? What if we are impure in the sight of the Lord? I would send my own soul to hell if I had to, but not his—not Oslaf’s.”
    Shards of broken glass seemed to move in Cai’s throat. He stood in miserable silence, trying to work out what had been impure about his love for Leof. “All right,” he said eventually. “Do what you think is best. You shouldn’t have come here, you know—if Aelfric scares you so.”
    “Well, he does. But I gave it thought, and the Vikings scare me more.” He smiled uncertainly and looked more like his old self. “Will you teach me to fight, Brother?”
    Cai smiled too. “Gladly. You present me with a problem, though—we don’t have enough weapons to go round.”
    Ben scanned the dormitory ruins. His gaze fell on the pile of half-burned rafters Eyulf had begun chopping up for firewood. “No, but by the grace of God we have plenty of big sticks. Where I come from, those are our weapons. Maybe I have something to teach you .”
    Cai followed him curiously. For all his size, Ben was such a gentle soul. Cai couldn’t imagine him wielding anything more deadly than a ploughshare. Still, those had been beaten into swords before now. Lifting a long, straight stick from the pile, Ben knocked ash off the end of it and handed it to Cai. “Here. Hold it with your hands apart, like this.”
    “Why me?”
    “I haven’t been forbidden to look at you —not yet, anyway. Or to beat you hollow.”
    There was a glimmer of challenge in Ben’s eyes. Deciding he liked that better than the pained anxiety, Cai hefted the stick. It couldn’t be that hard. “Oh, feel free to try.”
    Ben grabbed himself a length of wood and grinned at Cai disarmingly. “Well, with a beginner, I’d…”
    He moved, and Cai’s legs shot out from under him, swiped from behind by a blow he’d never seen coming. He landed on his backside in the dust. Another clatter of laughter arose from the monks, and he looked around him wryly. Well, he had been drilling them harshly. Maybe the sight of their tormentor knocked on his arse was refreshing to them. “Interesting,” he said, taking Ben’s hand and scrambling up. “Please. Show me.”
    “You know, at the very last instant you tripped over your robes. Try tucking them up into your belt—on one side, anyway. You could use the protection on the other. Whichever leg you lead with when you wield a sword.”
    Too intrigued to hesitate, Cai hitched up his cassock’s heavy hem and wrapped it once over his belt. Ben did likewise, and Cai nodded at his brethren, some of whom were copying the action. “Yes, you lot. Try it like that. And get on with your drills—no need to watch my humiliation.”
    Ben corrected his stance and his grip on the pole. Then the two faced