hundred or so oarsmen aboard each of the attacking ships. I thought of them against fifty strong but semi-drunken northerners – fewer if we were to keep any fighting ability on deck.
‘Piece of piss!’ The man laughed. ‘But why not just ram through them?’ He cleared his throat and spat appreciatively.
I thought about his suggestion. He knew more about his ship’s capabilities than I did. It was a heavy ship, and I had no doubt it could smash up even a big battle ship. But we’d be rowing into the wind. We were too heavy and hadn’t the oarsmen to keep up the required speed once we’d broken through the crescent. But we did have that big sail, and the wind was picking up by the moment. The battle ships, I knew, were good for sprinting and darting about. If we could get away, they didn’t have the means for extended chase. And in this sea, they’d take in a lot of water if they tried for speed over any distance.
But the wind was blowing from the west. If we raised the sail, we’d be hurrying further into a sea that I badly wanted to leave. If we did outrun it, that fleet would still be about, potentially blocking any further attempted dart to the west. If we did manage to get past it, we might still find ourselves chased from the east by another fleet. Then we’d be fucked for sure.
I strained to look into the dark skies to our west. That way was Richborough. All my plans had been based on a slow rowing into the wind. Once through the Narrow Straits, the northerners would be back in waters they knew and could manage with the sail. I’d been almost counting the days off to the moment when we could touch shore at Richborough and send word for Theodore to come down from Canterbury with his money bags. Now, that bastard fleet blocked the way. I sighed and nodded to the pilot. While I was helped back to my sodden daybed, the ship pitched and rolled horribly as the sail came flapping down and took the full power of the wind.
It wasn’t before time. Even as I looked up again, I could see the bright streak of flame against the grey of the sky. As the burning pitch bag came closer, I could hear its fluttering buzz through the air. It fell short – though only by a few dozen yards. But then I felt the shudder as one of the six-foot iron-tipped arrows crashed into our side. Had I left it too late with my dithering? If we didn’t pick up speed soon enough, or if the wind dropped down, there was every chance of a lucky hit. One hole in that bulging sailcloth, and the whole would split from top to bottom. With everything wagered on the sail and its already damaged mast, we couldn’t afford a lucky hit.
But if the ships on the arms of that pincer came closer and closer, the distance did eventually widen. Other huge arrows flew overhead or smashed into the side. More of those fiery bundles landed behind us – and I could hear the hiss as they struck the grey water. But now the great sail was filled with air as if it were an inflated bladder, and the mast held. It held for all the dubious upward looks, and for all the continued distribution of arms about the deck. One moment, the battle ships were so close that even I could see the little figures darting about on the upper decks, and the archers watching us from the rigging. Another moment, and the whole battle fleet was a receding blur.
The crew let up a ferocious cheer. Perhaps the largest man on board sucked his moustaches in as he took a great lungful of air for shouting something long and obscene back towards the failing pursuit. Someone sat me roughly forward and patted my back until I coughed. Someone else pressed a wine cup into my hands. Whatever might be said against the notion, I was their wizard. For the second time in two days, they somehow believed I’d got them out of trouble. Whatever lay in wait at the end of this dash to the east would need more than the magic I’d shown them so far. I’d have to think of something. But that huge, articulated pincer was half a mile behind us. It could open and shut as it pleased. We were beyond its reach.
‘Take me to my cabin,’ I called weakly in Latin. No one came to help me to my feet. I looked over to the stern of the ship. Just beside the tiller, Edward and Wilfred were locked in what looked like a tremendous row. I strained to hear them, but the flapping of the sail overhead drowned out the snatches of shouted argument that blew towards me. I waved at them, but neither paid any attention. Wilfred suddenly gripped his chest, and I saw his body shake with coughs. But he never let up his own side of the shouted argument. I turned to the man who’d given me the wine. ‘Take me inside,’ I ordered. ‘Also, do have the pilot attend on me before the celebratory beer is handed round.’
Chapter 14
‘What the fuck do you suppose you were doing?’ I snarled at the two boys. Holding on to each other against the continuous pitching of the ship, they stood before me in my cabin. Outside, the wind was raging, and great belts of spray crashed against the walls. ‘What little control I have over these animals depends on my pretence of calm assurance. Can you imagine the effect on this pretence when the two of you start a public shouting match and nearly come to blows?’ More for warmth than any hope of a youthful appearance, I clapped the wig on my head and glared at the boys.
A defiant look on his face, Edward stared back at me. Legs shaking from the effort of holding his place, Wilfred looked intently at a spot on the floor.
‘I tell you, it was him,’ Edward repeated.
I raised a hand to silence him. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I discount that you’re lying to put me off any return to England. If you think you saw him, that’s good reason in itself. I won’t question the sharpness of your eyes, or your ability to recognise faces when they aren’t where they ought to be.’ And I didn’t think it worth questioning either in Edward. I looked at Wilfred. He was pale and still trembling after his attack, but otherwise holding steady. ‘You tell me, boy, why you don’t believe it was Brother Joseph.’
His answer, if reasonable, was wholly unsatisfactory. He couldn’t deny that the man who’d stood on the prow of the battle ship, at one point not fifty yards from us, had looked like Brother Joseph. All he could say against Edward was that it couldn’t have been Brother Joseph. If we’d been discussing alleged miracles, the argument from common sense would have been decisive. But there was no need of any miracle for Joseph to have been looking at us from across the water and urging on a battle fleet that had been ordered to sink us. If we’d got this far from Jarrow, why not he also?
Of course, I was at one with Wilfred in hoping it hadn’t been him. It wasn’t that I shared any of his sense of scandal that a man of the Church could be urging on our destruction. Rather, it was the endless range of possibilities – all equally disturbing – that would be raised from admitting that Edward might not have been mistaken.
‘Very well,’ I said, trying to look unrattled, ‘let us allow that it might have been Brother Joseph. I know more of his background than you do, and he would not have been out of place where Edward believes he saw him.’ I was now thinking aloud. An audience even of boys made for more connected thought than if I’d withdrawn to my cot with a flask of heated wine. I motioned them into their now usual places at the table, and closed my eyes to fight off the returning tiredness.
‘Edward,’ I asked, trying to sound in control of things, ‘I will ask you again if your kinsman Hrothgar told you anything about the details of my abduction. I want you to think hard and tell me anything you know. Anything – no matter how trivial you may think it – may be of use in our present circumstances.’
‘He wasn’t really my kinsman,’ Edward replied slowly. ‘He took me on after my parents died of the sweating pestilence.’
I thought back. England is a wretchedly unhealthy place, and there isn’t a year without something nasty to thin the population. But the epidemic he mentioned had touched Jarrow two years earlier. That might in itself have been interesting. I sat forward. ‘Did you know him before he took over your care?’ I asked.
The boy shook his head. Hrothgar had arrived in the village a few days after most of the people there had died. He’d carefully inspected all the surviving boys before giving food and drink to Edward alone. He’d then paid for some kind of education from a drunken hermit before pushing him in the direction of our monastery.
‘Would it shock you,’ I asked again, ‘if I supposed Hrothgar had chosen you for a scheme he already had in mind?’
Again, he shook his head. Between beatings, there had been some regard between them, but no real affection. He accepted that his childhood had ended with that visit of the pestilence. From that moment, he’d been simply the instrument of a stranger’s will.
‘He promised me that I’d see the world,’ Edward told me. I let my face soften for a moment before pulling it back into my pitiless stare. ‘He said I’d see cities paved with gold and silver, where no rain ever fell, and where food
