The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1) by C.B. Currie

Author:C.B. Currie [Currie, C.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty-one

Wellstone was an isolated place and was intended to be so. The monks had built it on a promontory overlooking rough grey seas, where black gannets and herring gulls circled and few other creatures bothered to gather, save for the rock seals that barked from the violent shore below. The priory itself was made of heavy stone slabs, several large round houses with and over a dozen smaller huts stacked up the windy, seaward side of the slope and shielded with thatched dome roofs and shuttered windows. It was barren, with outdoor latrines, a few tiered gardens hemmed in by stone retaining walls, and a narrow track leading back inland to the fields where boys tended a small flock of scrawny sheep, and eventually the village of Wellstone and the road past Northwatch.

There were few trees and only a small creek to feed the fields and provide the monks with water. The place was desolate to the Northman’s eyes and Algas could not imagine why any man would choose to shut himself away in such a prison, away from drink and song; the laughter around the hearth, and the touch of women, all for the sake of belief.

Nor did he understand the knight Beland. Why would a warrior give his life and his sword to a cause so dull and immaterial? A man fought for more immediate rewards – silver, land, reputation and power. These were things worth fighting for, not some distant paradise in the afterlife. When he died, the Northman would die with sword in hand and go to the Hall of the Dead and drink and whore forever to the laughter of his fellow warriors. Just as he would in life, if only he could win his brother’s hearth and hall back.

It was clear upon reflection that his cousin Gerwulf had bought legitimacy by embracing the southlander faith and paying tribute to their king. The only question that gnawed at him was whether this had happened after the battle they’d lost or whether he’d betrayed Algas and his brother Gormir beforehand. He did not believe Gerwulf had truly found religion of course. It was what men did to secure favor with more powerful lords in these times. Gerwulf might visit the chapel he was said to be building on Shorha, and he might even stop making sacrifices, but he would never bend his knee to a dead holy man. It was simply the price paid to be made rightful lord of the islands he claimed.

Would he too have to pay that price someday to rule? His brother had refused.

The only way to fight wealth and power was with wealth and power. Algas would need money to pay for followers, perhaps even to lure back some of his cousin’s. He still wasn’t sure how he would do that. At least for now, the pious knight was paying good coin – several coppers a day. It was not the sort of money he could have earned plundering with a

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