Claimed by the Vikings

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Claimed by the Vikings

Other Books by Isabel Dare

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Claimed by the Vikings

by Isabel Dare

The sun slanted low through the windows of the scriptorium, spilling a reddish light on the manuscript page that Brother Leo was working on. Its rich colors glowed, making the tiny drawings almost come alive.

Very carefully, he dipped his goose-quill pen into the pot of ink and drew a long curve that turned into a thorny stem. It twisted around the red roses that spilled from the topmost corners of the page, curling around the giant initial A.

Despite his care, Leo had spilled a whole pot of ink over his desk last week, and the Prior had made him scrub the stone floors of the scriptorium for a whole week as a punishment. Brother Leo was young and fit, and his knees didn’t creak when he knelt for prayers, unlike those of the other monks, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed scrubbing floors.

Next to the roses, he traced the outlines of an angel’s face with his pen. It would be a noble angel, firm of chin, with strong features and a sensual mouth.

Brother Leo liked drawing angels. Most of the other scribes weren’t good at faces; they sometimes asked Brother Leo to take over, but then they complained that he was drawing the angels too masculine.

Angels weren’t supposed to look male; they were supposed to be sexless.

So was Brother Leo. Or at the very least, celibate.

That restriction of monastic life wasn’t something he wanted to think about; in fact, he earnestly tried to avoid those thoughts, but they crept up on him anyway.

He was the youngest monk at Culverston Priory, and he sometimes wondered if being a monk really was his calling, or just a convenient way for his overburdened father to get rid of a troublesome younger son. Leo certainly hadn’t been given any choice in the matter.

If God truly meant for him to live like this all his life, wouldn’t He send some sign? Or was it only saints who got signs and omens, and not ordinary mortals like Brother Leo?

At night, when Leo lay in his narrow bed in the dormitory, surrounded by snoring monks, he struggled with the urge to touch himself. That forbidden, sinful urge could be very strong, and sometimes he would wake from wicked dreams to find himself gripping his stiff cock, his hand already moving beneath the blankets.

Once or twice, when it was early enough that nobody else was awake, he gave in to the urge. It was too powerful to resist, he told himself as he moved his hand slowly, blissfully up and down, closing his eyes and trying very hard not to moan.

He would milk himself very slowly, so that the blankets barely moved, making no sound at all and pretending to be fast asleep until he felt release coming upon him. Then, when the delicious waves of pleasure washed over him, he would lie back and tremble with bliss, biting his lip to stay silent, hoping no one spied him in the throes of ecstasy.

When it was over, his young, eager body relaxed into a blissful indolence, and he would slowly move his wet hand up to his mouth and lick away all the traces of his sin.

His seed tasted bitter and salty, and yet he secretly rather liked it. It tasted like a forbidden thing
should
taste: strange and wild. The taste of sin.

Now, as Leo worked on his illuminated manuscript, he tried not to let his thoughts stray into that dangerous direction.

But in truth, the angel he was drawing was the embodiment of all his secret thoughts. The celestial being was so beautiful, with a dangerously lush curve to that sensual mouth, and Leo could not stop himself from wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips.

Leo had never kissed anyone, and the only loving hands he had ever known had been his own.

His pen scritched busily over the vellum, drawing every curl of the angel’s golden hair. Later, if the stern monk in charge of the scriptorium would let him, Leo would take slivers of precious gold leaf and fill in the hair with real gold.

“Another angel?” Brother Thaddeus said, leaning in over his shoulder. “And a very fetching one, too, I see.”

Leo rather liked Brother Thaddeus, who was portly and made jokes. He was perhaps not the ideal image of a monk, but he seemed younger than many of the others, less stern-faced and joyless and grizzled.

Brother Thaddeus reached out a hand to muss up Leo’s dark hair, cut short around his ears in the monk’s tonsure, and Leo grimaced in protest.

“Hey!” he complained. That was the downside of being the youngest monk at the Priory; the others had a tendency to treat him like a child.

“It’s nearly time for dinner,” Brother Thaddeus told him. “If Brother Marcus went to the market today, perhaps there’ll be something good. Goose pies, say.”

“Hope springs eternal,” Leo intoned, and they both laughed very softly, so as not to disturb the other scribes and risk a reprimand.

***

There were no goose pies at supper, just the usual boiled grains, greens and bread, with a very little watered-down wine. Culverston Priory was a strict and stern order, as Leo knew to his cost.

The meal was eaten in silence, except for prayers.

As he ate, Brother Leo fidgeted, turning his earthenware bowl this way and that. He wanted to go back to the scriptorium.

Soon the last of the sunlight would be gone, and he would be unable to finish his angel. He really wanted to touch its hair up with gold leaf; it would look so beautiful, and perhaps even earn him praise from the Prior.

Leo looked up at the magnificent leaded glass windows of the refectory, and his breath caught in his throat.

The setting sun had caught the leftmost window, the one that depicted the first Abbot of Culverston laying out the foundations of the Priory with his own hands.

The Priory in the window was on fire.

It wasn’t real, Leo hastened to assure himself; it was just the red light of sunset that made the painted buildings seem to catch fire. But the effect was uncanny, and he couldn’t stop staring at it.

It seemed so real. He could almost see the flames moving, and for a moment he thought he could smell the smoke.

Was it possible that God had sent him a sign, after all?

And if so, what could it possibly mean? Was there going to be a real fire? But it was spring, and by the Abbot’s rules, that meant there were no fires being laid to heat the cold stone of the Priory. There was only the cooking fire in the great hearth of the kitchens, and surely that could not lay waste to the whole of the Priory.

Brother Thaddeus nudged him. “Get up,” he whispered without moving his lips. “Prayers.”

Brother Leo hastily shoved his chair back and leapt to his feet; he was the last one to stand up for prayers, a terrible rudeness.

The old Abbot gave him a mildly reproachful look, his milky eyes barely focusing on Leo. He paused for a heartbeat to let his offense sink in, then began to say the closing prayers.

There was no point in telling the Abbot what he had seen, Leo thought with an unhappy sigh. The old man could barely see his own hands in front of his face, and would not believe him in any case. The old Abbot was stern and strict, living his life by his own harsh rules, and he would not tolerate what he called ‘flights of fancy’ from his youngest monk.

Leo answered the prayers by rote, and as the other monks shuffled off down the hallway, he took the stairs that led back up to the scriptorium.

A strange urgency filled him. His heartbeat thudded against his ribs, even though there was no sign of calamity. Everything was quiet, and the Priory was still whole, the stone steps solid under his feet. But he knew the fire in the window had been a sign, and he had to do
something
.

The only thing he could think of was to save his manuscript. It was a glorious work, perhaps the finest illuminated gospel that the Priory had ever produced; it was the work of many hands, not just his own, and he had to save it from the fire.

He ran up the steps, earning a frown from one of the older monks, and entered the scriptorium.

It was deserted. After dinner, most of the monks had one of their rare hours of leisure, and nobody chose to spend it sitting stiffly at a desk, especially since the light was already fading into the purple-gray hues of twilight. Candles were another luxury that the Abbot would not condone; they were only burned in Church, not for monks to read or write by. They had oil lamps, but their dim, flickering light was not strong enough for drawing.

Leo hurried to his own desk. He lifted the manuscript, checking that the ink was dry, then closed it slowly, careful not to crease the pages. It was heavy, bound in leather, a substantial weight.

Where could he put it, so that it would be safe? Then, almost as an afterthought, he wondered where he could hide to be safe himself.

Full of worry and doubt, he clasped the manuscript against his chest and ran downstairs.

Still everything was quiet. The only sound was the echo of his own hurried footsteps, but the stillness only increased his sense of urgency. He nearly cannoned into one of the oldest monks, who gave him a deathly glare.

“I’m sorry,” Leo panted and kept running, not wanting to hear what the old man had to say to him.

He made it outside the stone walls of the main building, the heavy side door clanging shut behind him.

Wildly, he looked back and forth, his heartbeat thudding heavily.

Where could he go?

He could not just run away from the monastery. Like all the other monks, Leo had sworn a vow that he would never leave the monastic life. If it turned out that there was no disaster about to happen, and his omen had been a trick of the Devil, he would be breaking that vow, and be punished severely. And even if he was willing to take that risk, there was nowhere he
could
go; his father would not welcome him, and he had never traveled anywhere else.

No, he had to find a place to hide within the walls of Culverston.

As Leo passed by the stables, he thought for a moment of hiding there, but there were too many people about, and the horses seemed nervous, whickering loudly as he walked by. He wondered if they, too, could feel that something was about to happen.

Finally, he found himself a hiding place in the wash house, a small building near the gates that was used for washing the monks’ linen, their habits and underclothes. Today wasn’t laundry day, and it was empty, except for the huge copper kettle and the wooden clothes press.

Hugging the heavy manuscript to his chest, Leo sat down in a corner with his back against the damp stone wall. The wash house smelled like soap and lavender, and that familiar scent helped to calm him down just a little.

He felt very alone. He wished he could have told someone what he had seen, but he did not think that even Brother Thaddeus would have believed him.

Suddenly, a loud pealing broke the silence. It was the priory bells, ringing from the clock tower. Leo recognized the sound immediately, since the bells rang for every church service throughout the day, but there was something strange about them now. There was no melody to the ringing, no order.

Were the bells ringing for Vespers? No, it was still too early, Leo thought.

The ringing went on and on, the bells jangling wildly, discordantly.

Now he could hear yelling, a loud roar of voices that didn’t sound like any of the monks he knew.

Leo huddled against the stone wall and pulled the hood of his robe over his head.

He didn’t know what was happening, and he was scared.

Outside, many people were running around, but Leo couldn’t make anything of what they were yelling. When he did catch words, they didn’t sound like Saxon, or even Latin.

It was still dark. He inched closer to the wash house’s tiny, grimy window, but the only light he could see outside was torches.

No fire, then. But why was everyone running around?

Someone yelled nearby, a desperate wordless cry that ended in a horrible gurgle.

Leo shrank back from the window, his heart racing.

That was a death cry. He had seen animals slaughtered often enough, he knew what it sounded like when their desperate bellowing ended, their cries choked in blood.

But this cry didn’t come from an animal. This was a male voice, a human voice; it had to be one of the monks.

One of the monks, dying.

Calamity had come upon Culverston Priory, and it was much worse than a fire.

“O Lord, save us,” Leo whispered. “O Lord, deliver us from evil…”

The words sounded stifled and powerless. Leo hoped they would reach God’s ear, but he doubted it.
O Lord, hear my voice crying unto thee…

But the Lord’s grace could not reach him here, not now. Brother Leo had failed. He had been given a divine warning, an omen that could have saved the Priory, if only he had known how to do it. And now his brothers were being slaughtered all around him, while he cowered here alone, trying to avoid his fate.