The cousins sat facing each other across the table of Ragnall’s hall, swilling down mead plundered from Hawkshead Abbey. Ragnall tried not to stare at Sitric’s right eye, but his gaze involuntarily kept returning. The organ in question was closed and swollen, and an angry red patch spread from the eyelid down to the cheekbone. Ragnall felt sure that his cousin had lost the use of that eye forever. He thought back to the episode. The only satisfaction he gleaned from it came from the memory of his sword transfixing the culpable monk as Sitric screamed and grabbed at his face.
The incident returned to him in vivid detail. They had decided to raid in Cumbria where a new abbey stood not far from the coast in a dell at Hawkshead. They had little trouble forcing entry and causing panic among th
