‘I’m a warrior of Northumbria,’ Oswi said proudly, ‘but I was once like you, boy. I lived in this cellar, I stole my food and I ran from the slavers like you do. Then I met my lord and he became my gold-giver.’
Aldwyn looked back to me. ‘You are really a lord?’
I ignored the question. ‘How old are you, Aldwyn?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, lord. Twelve?’
‘You lead these boys and girls?’
He nodded. ‘I look after them, lord.’
‘Are you cruel?’ I asked.
‘Cruel?’ he frowned.
‘Are you cruel?’ I asked again.
He still seemed puzzled by that question and, instead of answering, glanced at his companions. It was one of the girls who responded. ‘He can hurt us, lord,’ she said, ‘but only when we do something wrong.’
‘If you serve me,’ I said, ‘I will be a gold-giver to you all. And yes, Aldwyn, I am a lord. I am a great lord. I have land, I have ships, and I have men. And in time I will drive the enemy from this city and the streets will run with their blood and the dogs will gnaw their flesh and the birds will feast on their eyes.’
‘Yes, lord,’ he whispered.
And I hoped I had told him the truth.
Spearhafoc was gone, the stone wharf was empty, and no corpses lay on the terrace.
My new troops brought me the news, or rather Aldwyn and his younger brother went as my scouts and came back bubbling with happiness at a successful mission. Father Oda had tried to warn me against employing them, saying that the temptation for them to betray us was too great, but I had seen the hunger in Aldwyn’s young eyes. It was not a hunger for treachery, nor for the satisfaction of greed, but a hunger to belong, to be valued. They returned.
‘There were soldiers there, lord,’ Aldwyn said excitedly.
‘What was on their shields?’
‘A bird, lord.’ These were city children and would not know a crow from a kittiwake, but I assumed the bird, whatever it might have been, was a symbol from East Anglia.
‘And no corpses?’
‘None, lord. No blood either.’
That was a sensible observation. ‘How close did you get?’
‘We went inside the house, lord! We said we were beggars.’
‘What did they do?’
‘One hit me around the head, lord, and told me to piss off.’
‘So you pissed off?’
‘Yes, lord,’ he grinned.
I gave him silver and promised him gold if he continued to serve me. So Spearhafoc was gone, which was a relief, but there was always the chance that an East Anglian fleet had been waiting in the sea reach of the Temes to reinforce the men who had captured the city, and that fleet could have captured Berg and my ship. I touched my hammer amulet, said a silent prayer to the gods, and tried to plan a future, but could see no hope beyond the immediate need to find food and ale.
‘We steal,’ Aldwyn said when I asked him how his small band fed themselves.
‘You can’t steal enough food for us,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to buy.’
‘They know us in the markets, lord,’ Aldwyn said gloomily. ‘They chase us away.’
‘And the best markets,’ one of the girls said, ‘are outside the city.’ She meant in the sprawling Saxon-built town to the west of the Roman walls. Folk preferred living there, far from the ghosts of Lundene.
‘What do you need?’ Father Oda asked me.
‘Ale, bread, cheese, smoked fish. Anything.’
‘I will go,’ Benedetta said.
I shook my head. ‘It’s not safe for a woman yet. Maybe tomorrow, when things calm down.’
‘She’ll be safe in the company of a priest,’ Father Oda remarked.
I looked at him. The only light in the cellar came from a crack in the roof that also served as the smoke-hole. ‘But we only have a fire at night, lord,’ Aldwyn had told me, ‘and no one has ever noticed the smoke.’
‘You can’t go, father,’ I told Oda.
He bristled. ‘Why not?’
‘They know you, father,’ I said, ‘you’re from East Anglia.’
‘I’ve grown a beard since then,’ he said calmly. It was a short beard, neatly cropped. ‘You either starve or let us go,’ he went on. ‘And if they take me captive? What can they do?’
‘Kill you, father,’ Finan said.
A flicker of a smile touched the priest’s face. ‘My lord Uhtred is known as the priest-killer, not Lord Æthelhelm.’
‘What will they do to you?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Either ignore me or, more likely, send me to Lord Æthelhelm. He is angry with me.’
‘You! Why?’
‘Because I served him once,’ Father Oda said calmly. ‘I was one of his confessors. But I left his service.’
I stared at him in surprise. When I had first met Father Oda he had been in the company of Osferth, an ally of Æthelstan’s, and now I discovered he had been in Æthelhelm’s service.
‘Why did you leave?’ Finan asked.
‘He demanded we all give an oath to Prince Ælfweard, and in conscience I could not do so. Ælfweard is a cruel, unnatural boy.’
‘And King of Wessex now,’ Finan added.
‘Which is why Lord Uhtred is here,’ Oda went on, still calm. ‘Soon the priest-killer will be a killer of kings too.’ He looked away from me to Oswi. ‘You will come with us, but no mail coat, no weapons. I am a priest, the lady Benedetta will say she is my wife, and you are our servant, and we go to buy food and ale for the brethren of Saint Erkenwald.’ I knew there was a monastery dedicated to Saint Erkenwald in the east of the city. ‘You, boy,’ Father Oda pointed at Aldwyn, ‘will follow us as far as the city gate and come back here if you see we are in trouble with the guards. And you, lord,’
