‘You serve a queen. You should demand respect.’
‘I do demand it! But that does not make me liked or make me safe.’ She paused. ‘Edward looked at me too.’ I said nothing, but I suppose the question was written all over my face. She shrugged. ‘He was kinder than some.’
‘How many men do I have to kill for you?’
She smiled at that. ‘I killed one myself.’
‘Good.’
‘That one was a pig, a porco! He was on top of me, and I put a knife into his ribs while he was grunting like a pig.’ She turned to look at me. ‘Will you really let me kill Gunnald Gunnaldson?’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘That would be good,’ she said wistfully. ‘But how can I kill the porco if you send us to your home in the north?’
‘We don’t know what we’re doing yet.’
‘If Gunnald Gunnaldson lives,’ Benedetta went on, ‘then I think it is not far from here. It is by the river, I know, because the smell was always there. A big building, dark. It had a private place where their ships tied up.’
‘A wharf.’
‘A wharf,’ she repeated the word, ‘with a wooden wall. And two ships were kept there. And there was a courtyard with a fence, another wall. He would show the slaves there, or his father would show us. I thought I was in hell. Men would laugh as they fingered us.’ She stopped abruptly. She was staring towards the house and I saw the glint of a tear. ‘I was just a child.’
‘Yet the child went to a palace,’ I said gently.
‘Yes.’ She stopped after that one word and I thought she would say no more, then she spoke again. ‘Where I was a toy till the queen wanted me to serve her. That was three years ago.’
‘How long ago—’ I began, but she interrupted me.
‘Twenty-two years, lord. I count the years. Twenty-two years since the Saraceni took me from my home.’ She looked upriver to where the gaunt storehouses stood above the wharves. ‘I would enjoy killing him.’
The house door opened again and Finan appeared. Benedetta started to stand, but I put a hand on her arm to keep her seated. ‘Finan,’ I greeted him.
‘Æthelstan’s men are here,’ Finan said.
‘Thank the gods for that.’
‘But Æthelstan isn’t. They think he’s still in Gleawecestre, but they’re not sure. Is that ale?’
‘Wine.’
‘Devil’s piss,’ Finan said, ‘but I’ll drink it.’ He took the beaker from me and sat at the angle of the wall. ‘Your old friend Merewalh commands here.’
And that news was a relief. Merewalh was indeed an old friend. He had led Æthelflaed’s household warriors, he had fought beside me many times, and I valued him as a sober, sensible and reliable man.
‘Only he’s not here either,’ Finan went on. ‘He left yesterday. He took most of his men to Werlameceaster.’
‘He took them to Werlameceaster! Why?’ It was as much a protest as a question.
‘God alone knows why,’ Finan said. ‘The fellow I talked to just knew Merewalh was gone! Didn’t know why he left, but it was all done in a hurry. He left a man called Bedwin in command here.’
‘Bedwin,’ I repeated the name. ‘Never heard of him. How many men did Æthelstan take?’
‘Over five hundred.’
I swore, briefly and uselessly. ‘And how many did he leave here?’
‘Two hundred.’
Which was not nearly enough to defend Lundene. ‘And most of those,’ I said bitterly, ‘are probably the oldest and weakest men.’ I gazed up, seeing a star wink between two hurrying clouds. ‘And Waormund?’ I asked.
‘The devil only knows where that bastard is. I saw no sight or sound of him.’
‘Waormund?’ Benedetta asked with alarm in her voice.
‘He was in the house when we arrived,’ I explained.
‘He is a devil,’ she said angrily and made the sign of the cross. ‘He is vile!’
I could guess why she spoke so fiercely, but did not ask her. ‘He’s gone,’ I reassured her instead.
‘He’s disappeared,’ Finan corrected me grimly, ‘but the bastard must be lurking somewhere.’
And Waormund only had five men, which surely meant we were safe from him. And he had evidently taken the women ser-vants from the house, which suggested he had other plans for the night rather than attacking us. But why, I wondered, was Waormund even in the city? And why had Merewalh taken most of the garrison north? ‘Has the war started?’ I asked.
‘Probably,’ Finan said, then drained the wine. ‘God, that’s swill.’
‘Where is this place?’ Benedetta asked, then tried to pronounce it, ‘Werla …’
‘Werlameceaster?’
‘Where is that?’
‘A day’s march north of here,’ I said. ‘It’s an old Roman town.’
‘A Mercian town?’ Benedetta asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe they attack it?’ she suggested.
‘Maybe,’ I said, but I thought it far more likely that Merewalh had taken men to garrison Werlameceaster, because the town, with its strong Roman walls, lay across one of the main roads from East Anglia, and the lords of that kingdom were now firmly allied with Wessex.
Finan must have thought the same. ‘So maybe he’s stopping an East Anglian army from reinforcing Æthelhelm?’ he suggested.
‘I’d guess as much. But I have to find out.’ I stood.
‘How?’ Benedetta asked.
‘By asking Bedwin,’ I said, ‘whoever he is. He’ll be at the palace, I suppose, so I’ll start there.’
‘Don’t forget Waormund is here,’ Finan warned me.
‘I won’t go alone. You’re coming. It’s a mess,’ I said angrily. But in truth it was a mess of my own making. Because I had sworn an oath. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m coming!’ Benedetta said, standing.
‘You’re coming!’ I turned to her startled.
My surprise had made me speak too harshly and she looked frightened for a heartbeat. ‘The queen wants me to go,’ she said uncertainly, and then, like a mare going from a stumbling walk into a smart trot, she went on more confidently, ‘she wishes me to fetch some robes she left in the palace. And some slippers.’ Finan and I still just stared at her. ‘Queen Eadgifu,’ Benedetta went on with dignity now, ‘keeps clothing in each royal house.
