There was another awkward pause as Finan and I digested that. ‘Then you’d better come,’ I said.
I left Berg in charge of the house and the ship. I would rather have taken the young Norseman with me because he was invaluable in a fight, but after Finan he was my most reliable man. ‘Keep the doors barred,’ I told him, ‘and put a larger guard on Spearhafoc. I don’t want her burned in the night.’
‘You think Waormund will come back?’
‘I don’t know what Waormund will do,’ I told him. So far as I could tell Waormund only had the five men, far fewer than I did, but his presence in the city still troubled me. My reason said that he was helpless, trapped and outnumbered in a city possessed by his enemies, but my instinct was screaming that there was danger. ‘Maybe Æthelhelm has others hidden in the city,’ I told Berg. ‘Your job is to keep the queen and her sons safe. You don’t fight a battle if Waormund comes, you get everyone on board Spearhafoc and you take her out into the river where the queen will be safe.’
‘She will be safe, lord,’ Berg promised me.
‘And you hold the ship in the river till we come back,’ I ordered him.
‘And if you don’t come back?’ Berg asked, hastily adding, ‘Which you will, lord. Of course you will.’
‘Then you go home to Bebbanburg and you take Queen Eadgifu with you.’
‘I go home?’ he sounded appalled that he would have to leave without me.
‘You go home,’ I said.
I took Finan and six other men, all in mail, all helmeted, and all carrying long-swords. We walked east, following the wall the Romans had built to face the river, a wall that was now much pierced by ragged holes to give access to the busy wharves. I suspected we passed the slave house where Benedetta had been treated so brutally, but if we did she said nothing. The narrow street was dark except where flame-light was cast through a door or window, and as we approached any such building the noise inside would cease at the sound of our footsteps. Babies were hushed and dogs quieted. Any person we saw, and they were very few, scurried out of our path into the shadows of a doorway or alley. The city was nervous, frightened of becoming the victim to men’s ambitions.
We turned into the wider street that led uphill from Lundene’s bridge. We passed a big tavern called the Red Pig, an ale-house that had always been popular with Æthelhelm’s troops when they were in the city. ‘Remember the Pig?’ I asked Finan.
He chuckled. ‘You hanged a man from the tavern sign.’
‘A Centishman,’ I said. A fight had started in the street and had looked as if it might turn into a riot, and the quickest way to end it had been to hang a man.
A torch burned outside the Red Pig, but despite that flickering light Finan tripped on a slab and almost fell. He swore, then wiped his hand on his cloak. ‘Lundene,’ he said bitterly, ‘where the streets are paved with shit.’
‘Saxons are dirty people,’ Benedetta said.
‘Cities are dirty,’ I said.
‘They do not wash,’ Benedetta went on, ‘even the women! Most of them.’
I found I had nothing to say. Lundene was indeed dirty, it was filthy, yet it fascinated me. We passed pillars that had once graced great buildings, but which were now surrounded by wattle and clay. Shadows lay beneath arches that led to nowhere. New buildings had been made since I left, filling the gaps between the Roman houses, some of which still had tiled roofs above three or four stone-built storeys. You could see, even in the night, that this had once been a glorious place, proud with pillars and gleaming with marble. Now, except for the streets closest to the river, it was largely abandoned and gone to ruin. Folk had always believed that the ghosts of the Romans stalked these ancient streets and so they preferred to settle in the new Saxon city built to the west and, though Alfred and his son Edward had encouraged people to move back inside the old walls, much of Lundene was still a wasteland.
We passed a newly thatched church and turned left at the top of the hill and, ahead of us, on the city’s western hill, flaming torches lit the palace, which lay close by the cathedral that Alfred had ordered to be rebuilt. We had to cross the shallow valley where the Weala brook flowed south to the Temes. We crossed the bridge and walked uphill towards the palace that had first been built for Mercia’s kings. The entrance was a Roman arch carved with spearmen who carried long oblong shields, and it was guarded by four men who had round shields painted with Æthelstan’s symbol, the dragon holding a lightning bolt. That symbol was something of a relief. Finan had assured me that Æthelstan’s men still occupied the city, but the dragon with its jagged lightning was my first proof. ‘They’re old men,’ Finan grunted.
‘Probably younger than you and me,’ I said, which made him laugh.
The old men at the gate were evidently alarmed by our approach because one hammered on the closed doors with the butt of his spear and, a moment later, three more men appeared. They pulled the doors shut behind them then lined beneath the arch and levelled their weapons. ‘Who are you?’ one of the newcomers demanded.
‘Is Bedwin in the palace?’ I asked.
The man who had spoken hesitated. ‘He is,’ he finally said.
‘And I’m the Jarl Uhtred of Bebbanburg, here to see him.’ I rarely used the Danish title, but the man’s surly tone had angered me, and my men, hearing the arrogance in my voice, drew their swords.
There was a brief pause, then
