‘She hates the distaff,’ Benedetta said. ‘So do I.’
‘Woman’s work,’ I said unhelpfully.
‘She is almost a woman now,’ Benedetta said, ‘she must think of a husband in a year or two.’
‘Ha!’ Alaina retorted.
‘You don’t want to marry?’ I asked.
‘I want to fight.’
‘Get married then,’ I said, ‘it seems to work.’
‘Ouff,’ Benedetta said and punched me. ‘Did you fight Gisela? Eadith?’
‘Not often. And I always regretted it.’
‘We’ll find Alaina a good husband.’
‘But I want to fight!’ Alaina said earnestly.
I shook my head. ‘You’re a vicious little devil, aren’t you?’
‘I am Alaina the Vicious,’ she said proudly, then grinned at me. I truly did hope to find her parents, though I had become fond of the girl, thinking of her almost as a daughter. She reminded me of my own daughter, now dead. She had the same raven-black hair as Stiorra, the same defiant character, the same mischievous smile.
‘I can’t think why any man would want to marry you,’ I said, ‘horrible little thing that you are.’
‘Alaina the Horrible,’ she said happily. ‘Yesterday I disarmed Hauk!’
‘Hauk?’
‘Vidarr Leifson’s son,’ Benedetta explained.
‘He must be fourteen?’ I asked. ‘Fifteen?’
‘He cannot fight,’ Alaina said scornfully.
‘Why were you fighting him?’
‘Just practice! With the wooden swords. The boys all do it, why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because you’re a girl,’ I said with mock sternness. ‘You should be learning to spin, to make cheese, to cook, to embroider.’
‘Hauk can learn to embroider,’ Alaina said briskly, ‘and I will fight.’
‘I so hate to embroider too,’ Benedetta said.
‘Then you should fight with me,’ Alaina declared firmly. ‘Is there a name for a girl wolf?’ she asked me. ‘Like a vixen? Or a mare?’
I shrugged. ‘She-wolf perhaps?’
‘Then we will be the She-Wolves of Bebbanburg and the boys can wind wool.’
‘You can’t fight if you’re tired,’ I said, ‘so the smallest she-wolf of Bebbanburg had better go to bed now.’
‘I’m not tired!’
‘Vai a letto!’ Benedetta said sharply, and Alaina meekly obeyed. ‘She’s a dear one,’ Benedetta said wistfully when the child had vanished into the hall.
‘She is,’ I said, and thought of my daughter dead, and Æthelflaed dead, and Gisela dead, and Eadith dead. So many dead. They were the ghosts of Bebbanburg, drifting through the smoke-sifted night to fill me with remorse. I held Benedetta with one arm and watched the moon-silvered waves sliding towards the shore.
‘You think they are coming?’ she asked, not needing to say who they were.
‘Yes.’
She frowned in thought. ‘Did you spit?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Spit?’
She touched my forehead where, in the chapel before I left for Burgham, she had smeared a patch of oil. ‘Did you spit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good! And I was right,’ she said, ‘the danger comes from the south.’
‘You’re always right,’ I said lightly.
‘Ouff! But will we be safe? If they come?’
‘If we work hard, yes.’ I expected a siege, and if my bishop son had spoken the truth then Ealdred was already close to Egil’s steading and would doubtless come south to Bebbanburg, though I doubted he had enough men to seal the fortress by land, let alone the ships to close off the harbour. I reckoned I would have to drive him away and then prepare the fortress for an ordeal which meant summoning my followers who held land from me, telling them to bring men, mail coats, weapons, and food. The harvest was still weeks away, but cheese, ham and fish would keep us alive. Herrings had to be smoked and meat salted. Forage had to be stored for the horses, shields had to be bound and weapons forged. In the spring I had purchased a whole cargo of Frisian ash staves and they must be cut to length and the smithy must hammer out new spear-blades. I had already sent scouts north and west to look for approaching horsemen, and to warn the closest settlements to be ready to flee to Bebbanburg for safety.
I expected Ealdred’s men in the morning, though when I climbed to the fortress’s highest point beside the great hall I saw no glow in the western or northern sky to betray men camping. I thought back to Domnall’s visit and how he had said I had no allies and that, I thought, was true. I had friends all across Britain, but friendship is fragile when the ambition of kings was fanning the fires of war, and if Æthelstan’s fears were right then it would be a more terrible war than any in Britain’s history.
The next morning, at daybreak, I sent Gerbruht and forty men north in Spearhafoc to discover what they could of Egil’s fate. There was a warm west wind that would drive the boat fast and bring it back just as fast unless the afternoon brought a summer calm. I sent a smaller ship to Lindisfarena where the mad bishop Ieremias presided over his followers. That ship brought back salt from the pans on the island’s shore and promises from Ieremias that food would follow. He wanted silver, of course. Ieremias might have been mad and he was certainly no bishop, but he shared with most real bishops a love of shining coin. We needed his salt for the newly slaughtered meat, and the fortress’s outer courtyard ran with blood as cattle that should have lived till early winter were pole-axed and butchered.
And maybe I imagined the danger. Had my bishop son lied to me? He had subtly encouraged me to flee Burgham to forestall Ealdred’s arrival, but what if
