She returned his gaze coolly. Then she bent over her father. 'Bishop Ammanius, these two, Ulf and Wuffa, saved my father. Even while we looked away. But they are pagans. Isn't this proof that all souls may be redeemed by Christ's light?'
Ammanius looked into Wuffa's eyes. 'Is there really goodness in you, boy? And your Norse friend too?'
Wuffa took a step back and raised his hands. 'I'm not seeking conversion to your dead god, bishop.'
'No? But plenty of your sort are coming over to Christ. That's why Augustine led us here. You Saxons are easy to convert, you are such a gloomy lot! Your songs drone endlessly of loss. You don't know it, but your German soul longs for the glow of eternity, Wuffa.'
Ulf laughed. 'Eternity can wait.'
Sulpicia said now, 'Pagan or not, these two proved themselves a lot more use today than the mercenaries we hired to protect us.'
'Well, that's true.' The bishop stroked his long nose. 'And that could be useful.'
Ulf and Wuffa shared a glance. Perhaps there was an opportunity for them here. Ulf said, 'Tell us what you mean.'
Ammanius gestured at his flock of pilgrims. 'Do you understand what is happening here? I am leading these people to river boats which will take them down the estuary to the port of Rutupiae – Reptacaestir you call it, perhaps you know it. From there they will travel across the ocean to Armorica. But I will not travel with them. I have another mission, from my archbishop. I have to go to the far north of this blighted island. And there I am to seek out a prophecy said to have been uttered centuries ago by one Isolde…'
The Roman church was trying to assimilate its British counterpart. An element of its strategy was to acquire any British saints, relics and other divine material worth keeping. One such candidate was a strange prophecy of the distant future said to have been uttered by this 'Isolde', centuries before.
'It is guarded by one they call 'the last of the Romans',' Ammanius said. That phrase thrilled Wuffa. 'It will be a long and hazardous journey. I will need companions I can count on. You two have heathen souls, and yet today you stepped forward to save the life of an old man you had never seen before. Perhaps you have the qualities I seek. What do you say – will you come with me? I will pay you, of course.'
Wuffa would have to speak to his father. But Ulf grinned at him. Such an exotic adventure was hardly to be missed.
Ammanius gathered up his crook. 'If you are interested, meet me at Reptacaestir in seven days.'
Sulpicia helped her grumbling father to his feet. 'What an adventure,' she said wistfully. 'I wish I could come with you!'
Ulf grabbed the opportunity. 'Then come.'
She looked flustered. 'I can't. My father-'
'Do something for yourself, not for him,' Ulf said. 'You'll be able to find us.' And, without allowing her to argue, he turned to Wuffa.
Wuffa said, 'It will be quite a trip. Bandits on the road, the bishop snatching at our souls-'
'And the lovely Sulpicia grabbing your arse! I saw the way she looked at you, wolf-boy…'
The old man, Orosius, called after them, 'Do you even know the name of the city your kind is despoiling, you barbarians? Do you even know where you are?'
Wuffa looked back. 'This is Lunden. What of it? Who cares?'
The old Briton they had saved continued to shout insults, but the young men walked away.
IV
On Wuffa's last day before he set off for Reptacaestir, a scop, a wandering poet, called at his home village. Coenred welcomed the ragged wanderer, fed him meat and ale, and assigned him the village's one precious slave for his comfort.
The village itself was homely, a huddle of timber-framed houses with smoke streaming from their thatched roofs. To the wheeze of the smiths' bellows the people went about their chores, talking in grave rumbles about business, chasing children and chickens. The more substantial houses had doorposts carved with entwined decorations, brought over the sea from the old country, a reminder of home. Around the halls were rougher huts with sunken floors, workshops for weaving, iron-working and carpentry, and beyond that were pens for the chickens, sheep and pigs. There was no street planning, as Wuffa had seen in the ruins of Lunden; the houses grew where they would, like mushrooms.
The village of Coenred and his kin was one of hundreds of such settlements spread in a great belt around the walls of Lunden. There was still enough wealth flowing, through the old docks and the new trading area called Lundenwic, to make Lunden valuable to Aethelberht and his underkings – that and the prestige of owning the huge carcass of what had been the most valuable city in Britannia. So people were drawn here, to live and work.
As evening closed in, the village's largest hall filled up. A fire blazed in the hearth, and the people gathered on benches and patches of straw-covered floor, their faces shining in the firelight like Roman coins. Many had taken the opportunity of the scop's visit to dress in their best, in clean, brightly-dyed clothes adorned with brooches, with necklaces of amber and bits of old Roman glass, and silver finger rings. The men had their seaxes at their waists, the bone-handled knives that gave the people their name. Many of the older folk flexed fingers and joints riddled by arthritis. Coenred, at forty-four, was one of the oldest.
Wuffa was related to almost everybody here; this was his family.
As the ale circulated the mood mellowed, and the laughter began. At last the scop stood up, with his traditional command: 'Listen!' He looked a little unsteady on his feet, but when he spoke his voice was powerful and sonorous. 'Hear me, gods! I am crushed by longing and regret. I wake in mist-choked air, and labour the soil of a dismal island. For I have followed my lord across the sea, and my home lies far away. The fields of my fathers are drowned by the sea. My children grow stunted in murky dark. For I have followed my lord across the sea, and my home lies far away…' As he warmed to his theme, a typical Saxon lament of loss and regret, the adults, swaying gently to the rhythms of his speech, joined in the line of the chorus.
That bishop was right, Wuffa thought. The Saxons were a gloomy lot. Then the ale started to work on him, softening his thoughts. He drifted into the comforting, sombre mood of the hall, murmuring along with the other men to the scop's dismal chorus, and dreaming of the pale thighs of the British girl, Sulpicia.
As night fell the eerie whiteness of the comet was exposed, as flesh falls away to reveal bone, its unearthly light penetrating the warmth of the hall.
V
Reptacaestir was a Roman fort, with immense walls and curving towers laid out according to a cold plan. It was like a tomb of stone. A greater contrast with the warm village of Coenred could hardly be imagined.
Alongside Ulf, Wuffa led his horse cautiously into the bustling port. The land here, close to the east coast, was dead flat under a huge, washed-out sky. Wuffa could smell the sea. They dismounted and stood uncertainly among crowds of Norse and German traders. Huddles of British refugees sat quietly on the ground, waiting for their ships.
'Ah, here you are.' Bishop Ammanius approached, a calculated smile on his broad, well-fed face. He wore more practical clothes than in Lunden: a coarse tunic, leather trousers, sturdy boots, a cloak. He was accompanied by a couple of young monks, heavily laden with baggage, their tonsured scalps bright pink. Ammanius called them 'novices' and barely gave them a second glance.
With him, too, was the British girl Sulpicia. Wuffa couldn't take his eyes off her. The sturdy, almost mannish clothes she wore today set off the delicate beauty of her face. She looked strong, he thought, strong and supple. She was British, she was Christian, she was different- and yet his body cared nothing about that.
He approached her. 'So you came,' he said.
She returned his stare. 'My father is safely dispatched to Armorica. I have some skills in writing and figuring; I will be of use to the bishop, I think.'
'And you will be with us for fifty days, perhaps more. How lucky for me.'
'We have a holy mission to fulfil,' she said, faintly mocking. 'That should be uppermost in our thoughts.'
'Ah, but I'm no Christian.'
