I walked to the stern where the lowering sun cast a long rippling shadow behind Spearhafoc. I sat on one of the low steps that led to the steering platform. A swan flew northwards and I idly worried it was an omen that we should also go north, but there were other birds, other omens. Sometimes it is hard to know the will of the gods, and even when we do know we cannot be certain they are not toying with us. I touched the hammer again.
‘You believe that has power?’ a voice asked.
I looked up and saw it was Benedetta, her face shadowed by the hood she wore. ‘I believe the gods have power,’ I answered.
‘One god,’ she insisted. I shrugged, too tired to argue. Benedetta stared at the slow passing bank of East Seax. ‘We’re going to Lundene?’ she asked.
‘We are.’
‘I hate Lundene,’ she said bitterly.
‘It’s a lot to hate.’
‘When the slavers came …’ she began, then stopped.
‘You told me you were twelve?’
She nodded. ‘I was to be married that summer. To a good man, a fisherman.’
‘They killed him too?’
‘They killed everyone! Saraceni!’ She spat the word. ‘They killed anyone who fought back or anyone they didn’t want as a slave. They wanted me.’ There was a terrible savagery in the last three words.
‘Who are the Saraceni?’ I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
‘Men from across the sea. Some even live in my land! They are not Christian. They are savages!’
I patted the step beside me. She hesitated, then sat. ‘And you came to Britain?’ I asked, curious.
She was silent for a while, then shrugged. ‘I was sold,’ she said simply, ‘and taken north, I don’t know where. I was told this is valuable,’ she touched a finger to her skin, which was lightly brushed with a golden darkness, ‘it is valuable in the north where the skin is pale like sour milk and in the north I was sold again. I was still just twelve years old,’ she paused to look at me, ‘and I was already a woman, not a child.’
Her voice was bitter. I nodded to show I understood.
‘A year later,’ she went on, ‘I was sold again. To a Saxon from Lundene. A slave-trader. He paid much money and his name,’ she was speaking so softly that I almost could not hear her, ‘his name was Gunnald.’
‘Gunnald,’ I repeated.
‘Gunnald Gunnaldson.’ She was gazing at the northern bank where a small village came down to the water. A child waved from a decaying wharf. I watched the oars, dipping, pulling, then rising slowly with water dripping from the long blades. ‘They brought me to Lundene where they sold their slaves,’ Benedetta went on, ‘and both raped me. Father and son, both, but the son was the worst. They would not sell me, they wanted to use me, so I tried to kill myself. It was better than being used by those pigs.’
She had said the last few words very softly so she could not be overheard by the men on the nearest rowing bench. ‘Kill yourself?’ I asked just as quietly.
She turned to look at me, then slowly, without a word, pushed back the hood and unwound the grey scarf she always wore about her neck. I saw the scar then, a deep scar across the right side of her slender neck. She let me look for a moment, then replaced the scarf. ‘I did not cut deep enough,’ she said bleakly, ‘but it was enough to make them sell me.’
‘To Edward.’
‘To his steward. I would work in his kitchens and in his bed, but Queen Eadgifu rescued me, so I serve her now.’
‘As a trusted servant.’
‘As a trusted slave.’ She still sounded bitter. ‘I am not free, lord.’ She pulled the hood back over her raven black hair. ‘Do you keep slaves?’ she asked belligerently.
‘No,’ I said, which was not strictly true. Bebbanburg had many estates where my household warriors farmed and I knew many of them had slaves, and my father had kept a score in the fortress to cook, clean, sweep, and warm his bed, and some of those were still there, aged now and paid as servants. I had taken no new slaves because my own experience as a slave, when I had been condemned to pull an oar through wintry seas, had soured me against slavery. But then, I thought, I did not need slaves. I had enough men and women to keep the fortress safe, warm and fed, and I had enough silver to reward them. ‘I’ve killed slave-traders,’ I remarked, knowing as I said it that it was only spoken to attract Benedetta’s approval.
‘If we go to Lundene,’ she said, ‘you may kill one for me.’
‘Gunnald? He’s still there?’
‘He was two years ago,’ she answered bleakly. ‘I saw him. He saw me too, and he smiled. It was not a good smile.’
‘You saw him? In Lundene?’
She nodded. ‘King Edward liked to visit. The queen liked it too. She could buy things.’
‘King Edward could have arranged Gunnald’s death for you,’ I said.
She sneered at that. ‘Edward took money from Gunnald. Why kill him? I meant nothing to Edward, rest his soul.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘What happens to us in Lundene?’
‘We meet with Æthelstan, if he’s there.’
‘And if he’s not?’
‘We go to meet him.’
‘And what will he do to us? To my lady? To her children?’
‘Nothing,’ I said flatly. ‘I’ll tell him you’re under my protection.’
‘He will honour that?’ She sounded sceptical.
‘I have known King Æthelstan since he was a child,’ I said, ‘and he is an honourable man. He will send you under escort to my home at Bebbanburg while we fight our war.’
‘Bebbanburg!’ She pronounced the name in her strange accent. ‘What is at Bebbanburg?’
‘Safety. You’ll be under my protection there.’
‘Awyrgan says we are wrong to accept a pagan’s protection,’ she said flatly.
‘Awyrgan doesn’t have to go with the queen,’ I said.
I thought she would smile for
