Brothers of the Wild North Sea Read Online Free Page A

volumes, his power and authority, he had been shipped off to the far west—where, according to the beliefs of his masters, he might well tumble right off the planet’s rim and trouble them no more.
    He had noticed Leof’s involuntary twitch. Cai tensed. A man of sublime patience, a father to his flock who would help Cai bathe their wounds with his own hands, he could still fly out in rage at wilful ignorance and superstition. “Does my choice trouble you, child?”
    “Yes,” Leof said bravely. “The gospels are the words of Christ, not…arrows and dots, and long strings of numbers fit to bewilder all God-fearing men.”
    Theo smiled. “Well, I do hope not all of them. Not forever, anyway.” He resumed his climb, making room beside him on the path for Leof to walk at his side. Cai, bringing up the rear, looked at them both in affection. “Remember, Leof. All I am doing is trying to recall and write down a fragment of the books that were lost. My gospel—we can call it something else for now—will only ever be a copy, a shadow, of that great wealth. I use mathematics and diagrams because, in their neatness, they can convey what an army of monks writing all day and night could not teach. You, the best and most godly of my brethren, need not be disturbed by it at all.”
    “Yes, my lord abbot. Thank you.”
    “And although it would distress me, I will give you dispensation from illuminating my heresies—if you wish.”
    Leof jerked his head up. Cai could have laughed aloud at his open-mouthed dismay. “Why—no, sir. Please not that.”
    “Good. Because I value them, your vines and grapes and little dancing stoats.”
    “Those are foxes, sir.”
    “Ah. Well, nonetheless. You’ll carry on?”
    “Of course. I wish I saw what my plants and my beasts have to do with your—your gospel, however.”
    Theo put an arm around his shoulders. “Science makes an error,” he said, the gentle laughter fading from his voice, “in cutting itself off from nature. In thinking of itself as separate. I feel a chill inside my heart when I imagine where such an error might lead. So, my clever painter, though your vines and foxes may not illustrate the turning of the Earth upon its axis, or the distance to the moon, I hope they will remind the men of some future day that foxes, moon and Earth are one, and all the work of one great hand. Yes—I do believe that, for all my blasphemous ways. It’s not so hard, as a doctrine—even for the likes of Brother Cai.”
    Cai, who had been dreaming, surfaced at the sound of his name. “The distance to the moon?” he echoed longingly.
    “Indeed. We do it with mathematics, and that triangle whose sides are three, four, five. I’ll show you all tonight, after our feast.”
    “Are we feasting?”
    “As far as our duties and our resources allow. A chapter’s end deserves a celebration, don’t you think? I only wish we had some of old Danan’s cure for sore heads in the morning.”
    “Ah, we do. I ran into her on the trackway coming home. I traded her some jewellery for comfrey, poppy, tonics—everything we need.”
    “Good boy, good boy.”
    “Danan told Cai that the Vikings are coming,” Leof said suddenly, as if he’d been dreaming too. “It was one of her prophecies.”
    Theo patted him. “The Vikings always come. We don’t need to worry yet, though. It’s still too cold and rough for raiding.”
    “Yes, I know. That’s what I told Cai.”
     
     
    Cai left them outside the scriptorium. By then the two were arguing contentedly over the relative virtues of vellum and non-calfskin parchments, and they barely noticed him go.
    Shaking his head, Cai made his way straight to the infirmary, to see that his precious supplies were being properly stored away. He glanced in satisfaction round the sunny room, one of the few in the monastery that were glazed, allowing his patients the benefits of warmth and light at once. All but one of the narrow cots were empty, assuring Cai that