Conqueror

three, gave 397, rounded down, or thirty-three years and one month. That had to be reckoned from the beginning of the fifth great year; the fourth began in Anno Domini 684, and was 907 months long…

Boniface sat still, eyes closed, as Belisarius worked this through.

At last Belisarius had his result – and he was stunned. He turned to Aelfric. 'Tell me today's date, novice.'

Aelfric said, 'May the twenty-fourth.'

'The year! Tell me your Popish year, according to Bede's calendar.' '793, the Year of Our Lord,' said Aelfric. And her eyes widened when she saw Belisarius's shock. 'Is that the date of the fifth stanza?'

Belisarius could not deny it. In fact the prediction was even more specific: the dragon's claws would be unsheathed in the month of June, in this very year. Next month. Belisarius felt a faint whisper of fear, like a rumble of thunder from far across an ocean. He was a rational man, he liked to believe, in the tradition of Aristotle and others of his forebears. Though a Christian, he preferred to keep angels and demons in a separate corner of his mind, away from the business of real life. But now, in the body of this prophecy, that separateness was breaking down, and some impalpable threat was breaking through. Boniface's eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping, but a slight smile lingered on his lips. Belisarius had the feeling that Boniface the computistor had known all along exactly what the prophecy would reveal – and when this threat was due.

He straightened, trying to think. 'Our safest course is surely to assume this stanza is as true as the earlier verses, that this threat is looming. We must seek protection. Who can help?'

Macson shrugged. 'The King commands the fighting men. But how could we reach him?'

To Belisarius's surprise, Aelfric said, 'I know how.'

XIII

In the morning Belisarius and Macson rose early – though later than the monks – and impatiently waited out the latest service, after which they hoped to speak to Boniface again.

Macson complained of a growling stomach. 'These monks might fill up on the word of God, but my belly needs something more.' He jogged down to the village.

Hunger wasn't Macson's problem, Belisarius knew. In the end Belisarius had relented, and pointed out the obvious truth about Aelfric: that he was a she, that this boy monk was a girl. Suddenly Macson's helpless attraction to the novice made sense to him, but he was humiliated, and angry. Belisarius was careful not to mock him.

Macson returned with some heavy last-winter bread. Standing in the chill morning light amid the huddled buildings of the monastery, as birdsong competed with the high, thin chanting of the monks, they both chewed at the hard bread until it was soft enough to swallow.

When the monks filed out of the little wooden church to continue their day, Aelfric came to find the two of them. 'Dom Boniface is resting. He has a dispensation from the abbot not to join in the opus manuum in the middle of the day. He will speak with you then.'

Macson sneered at her. 'How good of him.'

Aelfric turned on him. 'Are you angry with me? Why?'

Belisarius said, 'I had to tell him you are female, which he couldn't work out for himself. You have muddled up his flinty British heart, Aelfric-or is that not your true name?'

'My father christened me Aelfflaed.'

Macson blushed. 'You are a liar,' he spat. 'Your whole life is a lie. Is that the way Christ and your Saint Benedict would have you live?'

Aelfric shot back, 'What's it to you?' In her anger she looked more feminine than at any time since Belisarius had met her, despite her grimy habit and the ugly tonsure cut into the crown of her hair. 'Perhaps the truth is you're disappointed I'm not a pretty boy after all.'

Belisarius said, 'I'm intrigued to find you here, Aelfric. Why is a girl hiding away in a monastery full of men?'

'There is nowhere else for me to learn. And my father thought I would be safe here.' She said that her father, called Bertgils, was a thegn of the current King of Northumbria, Aethelred. 'They call him Aethelred the Butcher,' Aelfric said gloomily. 'He is Northumbria's twelfth king in a century, of whom four have been murdered. Indeed Aethelred was once exiled, but won his throne back. And then to secure his position he put to death the infant sons of his rivals.'

Belisarius could see that for a thegn like Bertgils, to be close to such a king as the Butcher gave a chance of advancement, but was also supremely dangerous. And this father certainly seemed to have the measure of his daughter. 'I'm getting the impression Bertgils is a wise man. And it is through your father that you will win us an audience with the King?'

'My father is on the witan. The King's council.'

'So,' Macson snapped, 'he sent you to masquerade as a man inside a monastery. Your husband should protect you.'

Aelfric's nostrils flared. 'I have no husband.'

'Why? Are your legs withered, your womb dry?'

Belisarius interrupted quickly, 'Aelfric, you should understand that it is no accident we are here. Macson has come all this way because he is descended from one of the protagonists of the legend which spawned your Menologium in the first place. Or at least he believes he is.'

Her eyes widened. 'You are a grandson of Wuffa? Or Ulf? But you are British.'

'One of those brutes – yes,' Macson spat back. 'I am descended from Sulpicia, the British woman who was raped by one or both those barbarians.'

'There was no rape,' Aelfric said. 'Wuffa loved Sulpicia. Ulf tried to take her from him, and the prophecy. They fought.'

'Who told you this story?'

'It comes from the descendant of Wuffa who brought the prophecy here in the first place.'

'We will surely never know the full story,' Belisarius said emolliently. 'Perhaps these are all partial truths.'

Aelfric seemed fascinated by Macson now. 'So your family kept this story alive. Did your grandfathers write it down?'

'We were illiterate,' Macson said with a kind of perverse pride. He tapped his forehead. 'We remembered, man-woman.'

'And now you've come here for what? Revenge?'

'It is as good a motive as any,' Macson said coldly.

'The British are good at nursing grudges,' Aelfric said. 'Even now they call this country the Lost Land in their tongue. Boniface says its loss was a punishment from God for wickedness and corruption. Easier to blame the Germans than to accept your sins!'

Macson glowered, and stalked away.

XIV

The dragon ship was fifteen paces long. She was laid down on a keel cut from a single oak timber, its curve so gentle the centre was only the length of a forearm lower than the end points. It was this carefully shaped keel that gave the ship the shallow draught that made her so easy to beach, and also gripped at the water when underway to balance the pressure from the sail and keep her from capsizing. The ship's hull was of oak too, thick polished planks laid down so they overlapped each other, and held in place by wooden pegs.

Gudrid had sailed in such ships all her life, of course – but only in the fjords, or around the coast. Never before had she sailed into the open sea, and out of sight of land; never had she taken the sail road.

In the days before the raid Gudrid helped scrub the boat clean, scrape her hull and repair its caulking, and