The catcalls began after only a few lines. And as the bones and lumps of bread began to fly, Belisarius got to his feet and put his arm around the frail monk, sheltering him from the greasy storm. 'Get him out of here,' he murmured to Aelfric.
Aelfric led the bewildered Boniface away.
The Butcher was angry and mocking. 'Where's my little monk? I want to hear him sing!'
'Perhaps, my lord,' Belisarius said smoothly, 'you would prefer to hear a song from my own country.' And, without waiting for agreement, he launched into a gloomy old lament of a refugee from Rome, on the eve of its terrible sacking by Alaric the Goth. "'Great were the cries of the maidens of Rome… Even the statues of the forum shed marble tears…"' He did his best to translate the lyrics into German; the scansion was terrible, but he doubted this audience would care about that.
He got the reaction he expected. At first there were catcalls, a few flying bones, and cries of 'Bring back the monk!' But then the repetitive dolefulness of the tune cut into the thegns' drunken consciousness. Some of them swayed to the rhythm, and tried to join in the chorus: "'Rome! Rome! When will you rise again?"'
As the verses unwound, the listeners got restive. In the end they seemed relieved when he finished and sat down. The feasting mob turned to other matters.
Bertgils handed Belisarius a cloth to mop the grease from his face. 'You did well. That barrage would have been dreadful for poor old Boniface.'
'Yes. And I would wager none of them would even remember having done it, the next morning.'
'None but the Butcher,' murmured Bertgils, 'who sees everything.'
'How soon do you think we can get out of here?'
From the far end of the hall there was a roar, a clatter of flying dishes, a splinter of an overturned bench.
Bertgils grimaced. 'The fighting has started. Now would be a good time.'
'Well, it's been charming. We must come again.'
Bertgils grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
When they emerged from the hall, though the drunken feast was still in progress, a cold pink light was seeping reluctantly into a cloud-strewn eastern sky. With relief Belisarius gazed at the sea, and filled his lungs with clean salty air.
And he thought he saw something sliding across the far horizon.
Macson said, 'You didn't speak to the King about the prophecy.'
'Bertgils can use his own judgement in what he tells the King.' And besides, Belisarius wondered if this King would lift a finger to protect monks about whom he spoke so cynically.
Macson murmured, 'We don't have to stay around for this, you know. The dragon attack, however it manifests itself. This isn't your country, these aren't my people.'
'You would run away? Besides, you came here for the prophecy.'
'We could simply take it,' Macson said coldly. 'It won't even be theft, if it is destined only to be burned by the dragon's breath.'
Belisarius smiled. 'Interesting sophistry. You might make a good lawyer, or a theologian.'
Macson glared. 'I'm tired of your games. I think we should go and leave these fools to their fate, their wyrd.'
'I'm afraid it's already too late for that,' Belisarius said sadly. And he pointed to the eastern horizon, where a sail was clearly visible now, just a scrap of colour, black and red. 'We must hurry,' he said to Macson.
XVII
When Elfgar woke, the light of morning was already seeping through the chinks in the mud-coated walls of the hut. He yawned and stretched. Once again his head was sore and his belly over-full of the villagers' filthy ale. He should stick to the monks' mead.
A round arse pressed against his leg, belonging to the slave girl – what was her name? – who he had tupped during the night. The girl stirred, annoying him, and he threw her a random punch in the kidney. Then he pushed aside the heap of woollen blankets, rolled off the pallet, and pulled on his pants and habit.
He stumbled out of the hut. The sun hung huge on the horizon over the sea. Probably the monks were coming out of Matins by now. He sighed, lifted his habit, and pissed against the wall of the hut. His aching pipe sprayed hot fluid all over his legs and bare feet. His servicing of Dom Wilfrid always left him sore, and he liked to soothe his aches away in the easier hole or mouth of a slave girl or two. Got you clean of Wilfrid's blood and shit as well.
At the sight of the misty sun, and the sea birds that wheeled before it, something in Elfgar's soul reluctantly stirred. Funny thing was, while he was burying himself up to his hips in the grunting girl last night, he kept thinking of Wilfrid and his woolly arse, and the old man's foolish words of love and shame. Maybe his own taste was changing.
A shadow passed across the wall before him. He turned, his cock still in his hand.
He didn't recognise the big man standing over him. He had a lean, hard, weather-beaten face, bright blue eyes, and a shock of yellow-grey hair pulled back from his brow. He carried some kind of axe, and he smelled of the sea. The deacon was vaguely aware of more men behind him, and a couple of the villagers watching curiously.
The big man smiled at Elfgar.
His hand still clutching his crotch, Elfgar scowled. 'Travellers, are you? Pilgrims, come to see Cuthbert's bones?'
The big man spoke. His tongue was strange, but to Elfgar it sounded as if he said, 'My name is Bjarni.'
'Good for you, Bjami. You need to see the abbot at the monastery. He'll tell you the tithes to pay.'
Bjarni seemed to think this over. Then he said, 'I'm sorry.'
'What for?'
'This.' And he drove his axe into Elfgar's face.
On the causeway the tide was rising. Belisarius and Macson had rushed back from Bebbanburh. Now, hurrying to Lindisfarena, they had taken off their boots, but the clinging sand sucked at their bare feet, and the water, steadily rising, lapped at their shins.
'This is ridiculous,' panted Macson. 'Dangerous. We should go back.'
'We go on.'
Macson, defiantly, stopped dead. 'We'll get ourselves killed! And for what?'
Belisarius paused, breathing hard. He knew Macson had a point. Though he and Macson had ridden hard from Bebbanburh, those ships with the checked sails had beaten them here. He had seen for himself how they had pulled in to a shallow sandy beach near the village. And he had seen their carved prows, the snarling dragons' faces – dragons, just as in the prophecy.
He should have known, Belisarius told himself. East Romans knew all about the dragon ships of the Northmen, which came raiding down the great rivers of Asia. He should have put the pieces of the puzzle together; he should have known what the Menologium meant. Then perhaps he could have saved lives, fragile, grumpy old Boniface and his flickering candle of literacy, and Aelfric, young, so eager to learn she was prepared to hide her own sex to do it. And then there were the books-including his own stock, still sitting in their wooden chest in the monastery's library.
As Macson kept saying, this wasn't his fight. But remarkably, all around him, the prophecy was coming true, a tapestry of omens and numbers that had somehow tangled him up. He was part of this now and felt he could not leave, not until these darkly foreshadowed events had played out.
'We go on,' he said grimly. 'We swim if we have to. But we go on.' And he marched on towards the island, splashing in the deepening water. He didn't look back. Macson was engaged in his own conflicts, a war between his greed for the Menologium and his urge for self-protection. At last Belisarius heard a curse, couched in an obscure mix of Latin and British, as Macson came wading after him.