Like hunted beasts we had gone to ground, but the hunters wanted more blood. One of our pursuers carried a flaming torch and the blundering shadows of big men were thrown onto a broken wall beside us. The hunters stopped, I held my breath and heard voices muttering. ‘This way!’ one said, and the shadows faded as the footsteps went further east. None of us moved, none of us spoke. Then a woman screamed terribly from not far away and men roared in triumph. She screamed again. Benedetta whispered something bitter. I did not understand a word, but I sensed she was trembling and I reached out to touch her and she seized my skinned hand and held it tightly.
And so we waited. The noises subsided, but we could still hear the woman whimpering. ‘Pigs,’ Benedetta said softly.
‘Where are we?’ I whispered in Oswi’s direction.
‘Safe, lord,’ he murmured, though our refuge seemed anything but safe to me. We appeared to be in the ruins of a small stone house with no way out except to go back the way we had entered. Other houses nearby were still being used. I saw flame-light appear and vanish at a shuttered window. Another woman screamed and Benedetta’s hand gripped mine hard. Oswi whispered something and I heard Finan grunt in reply.
Then flint struck on steel, there a puff of breath, another spark, and the small kindling from Finan’s pouch caught fire. The flame was tiny, but just enough to show what looked like a small cave mouth in the rubble at the base of the broken wall, the dark opening supported by a shattered and tilted pillar. Oswi crawled into the hole, Finan handed him a scrap of burning wood and the small flame vanished inside the hole. ‘This way!’ Oswi hissed.
Finan followed, then one by one we wriggled into the cave. Finan had lit a larger piece of wood and in its light I saw we were in a cellar. I dropped down to a stone floor and almost gagged at the stench. The cellar had to be close to a cesspit. Benedetta held her scarf to her mouth and nose. Thick pillars of narrow Roman bricks supported the ceiling. ‘We used to hide here,’ Oswi said, then clambered through a gap in the stone wall on the cellar’s far side. ‘Be careful here!’
Again Finan followed him. The flame of the makeshift torch flickered. Beyond the gap was another cellar, but deeper, and to my right was the cesspit. A narrow ledge led to a brick arch and it was through that last opening that Oswi vanished. A boy’s voice challenged him, more voices added to the sudden noise, then Finan handed the torch to Vidarr and drew his sword. He stepped through the arch and shouted for silence. There was immediate quiet.
I followed Finan to discover a dozen children in the final cellar. The oldest might have been thirteen, the youngest only half that age. Three girls and nine ragged boys, all of them looking starved, their eyes big against pale, wild faces. They had beds of straw, their clothes were rags, and their hair hung lank and long. Oswi had lit a small fire, using straw and scraps of wood, and in its light I could see that one of the older boys held a knife. ‘Put it away, boy,’ I snarled and the knife vanished. ‘Is this the only entrance?’ I asked from the brick arch.
‘The only one, lord,’ Oswi said, tending his fire.
‘He’s a lord?’ a boy asked. None of us answered him.
‘Who are they?’ I asked, though it was a stupid question because the answer was plain to see.
‘Orphans,’ Oswi said.
‘Like you.’
‘Like me, lord.’
‘Aren’t there convents?’ Benedetta asked. ‘Places to look after motherless children?’
‘Convents are cruel,’ Oswi said harshly. ‘If they don’t like you they sell you to the slavers on the river.’
‘What’s happening?’ the boy who had hidden the knife asked.
‘Enemy troops,’ I answered. ‘They took the city. You’d best stay hidden till they calm down.’
‘And you’re running from them?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’ I asked, and he said nothing. But I knew what he was thinking, that he could earn a small fortune by betraying us, which is why I had asked Oswi if there was another way out of this stinking, dark cellar. ‘You’ll stay here till we say you can leave,’ I added. The boy just looked at me and said nothing. ‘What’s your name, boy?’
He hesitated, as if wanting to challenge me, then muttered his name. ‘Aldwyn.’
‘Aldwyn, lord,’ I corrected him.
‘Lord,’ he added reluctantly.
I crossed to him, stepping over rags and straw. I crouched and stared into his dark eyes. ‘If you betray us, Aldwyn, the enemy will give you a shilling. Maybe two shillings. But if you do me service, boy, I will give you gold.’ I took a coin from my pouch and showed it to him. He stared at it, looked up into my eyes, and then back to the coin. He did not speak, but I could see the hunger in his gaze. ‘Do you know that man?’ I asked, nodding towards Oswi.
He glanced at Oswi, then back to me. ‘No, lord.’
‘Look at him,’ I said. The boy frowned,
