‘And Spearhafoc,’ she stumbled over the unfamiliar name, ‘is where?’
‘Well on her way home by now, I hope.’
‘And will your people send help?’
‘They won’t even know whether we’re alive,’ I said, ‘so if they’ve any sense they’ll shut the fortress doors, guard the ramparts, and wait for news. That’s what I’d do.’
‘And what do we do?’
‘We capture Gunnald’s second ship,’ I said, ‘and follow Spearhafoc home.’
‘So we stay here till then?’
‘Better that than the cellar next to the cesspit.’
‘Lord!’ Beornoth called from the foot of the stairs. ‘You’ll want to see this!’
I went back down to the wharf and followed Beornoth to the end of the westernmost pier where Finan was waiting. The Irishman jerked his head downstream. ‘Enough of the bastards,’ he said.
Four ships were being rowed upriver. They looked to be Saxon ships, big and heavy, and all four had crosses on their prows. The tide was ebbing, which made the water seethe through the spaces between the bridge piers, but none of these ships was trying to go upstream because all four had masts crossed by spars on which sails were furled and none of their crews was trying to lower those masts. They began to turn towards the downstream wharves, their oarsmen struggling against tide and current, and as they turned I saw the ships’ big bellies were crammed with men and many of those men wore the dark red cloak that was Æthelhelm’s mark. ‘The reinforcements,’ I said bleakly.
‘Enough of the bastards,’ Finan said again.
My only consolation as I watched my enemy bringing more men to the city was that Spearhafoc was not being towed or rowed with them. Not that four such heavily-loaded ships would have had a chance of outrunning and capturing my ship, but it suggested Berg and his crew had slipped past them and were on their way north. That thought made me wonder about Bebbanburg and the rumours of plague. I touched my hammer amulet and said a prayer to the gods that my son was safe, that his prisoners were securely held, and that Eadgifu and her children would not sicken. I had saved her sons from Æthelhelm’s spite, but had I sent them instead to an agonising death from the plague?
‘What are you thinking?’ Finan had seen me touch the hammer.
‘That we hide here,’ I said, ‘we wait, and then we go home.’
Home, I thought wistfully. I should never have left it.
All we could do was wait. The ship commanded by Gunnald’s son could return at any moment which meant I had to have men watching on the wharf, and other men guarding the courtyard gate, and still others in the warehouse where we had chained the captured guards in one of the slave pens. The slaves themselves were neither chained nor penned, but forbidden to leave because I dared not risk one of them betraying our presence.
We had tipped the naked corpses into the river at night. The falling tide and the current would have taken them eastwards, though I did not doubt the bodies would be stranded on a mudbank long before they reached the distant sea. No one would take note. There would be enough corpses this summer as men struggled to take the throne of Wessex.
More ships brought more men to Lundene. They brought reinforcements for Jarl Varin, who still commanded the garrison on Æthelhelm’s behalf. We knew that because after two days there was a proclamation bellowed throughout the old city that folk could walk safely after dark and, despite Finan’s dour warning, I went that night to a big riverside alehouse called Wulfred’s Tavern, though everyone called it the Dead Dane because a falling tide had once revealed a Danish warrior impaled on one of the rotting stakes of an old wharf. For years the dead man’s hand had been nailed to one of the tavern’s doorposts and everyone who entered would touch a finger. The hand had long gone, though a crude picture of a corpse still decorated the sign hanging above the door. I pushed inside, followed by Father Oda and Benedetta.
Oda had suggested he accompany me. ‘A priest commands respect,’ he had claimed, ‘not suspicion. And Benedetta should come too, as my wife.’
I had almost bridled when he spoke of Benedetta as his wife, but had the sense to hide my irritation. ‘It’s not safe for women,’ I said.
‘Women have walked the streets all day,’ Oda said calmly.
‘Benedetta should stay here,’ I insisted.
‘The East Anglians,’ Oda said patiently, ‘must suspect there are fugitives still hiding in the city. They will be looking for young men, not for a priest and his wife. You want news, yes? So let us come. Strangers will trust a priest.’
‘Suppose you’re recognised?’
He had shaken his head. ‘I left East Anglia as a beardless youth. No one will know me now.’
I was swathed in a big, dark cloak. I had ransacked both Gunnald’s attic and the room beneath where his son lived, and discovered the cloak with its hood. I wore it and belted the cloak with a length of rope, then borrowed a wooden cross from Gerbruht and hung it around my neck. I carried no sword, only a knife concealed beneath the big cloak. ‘You look like a monk,’ Finan had said.
‘Bless you, my son.’
We found a table in a dark corner of the tavern. The room was almost full. There were some local people, women as well as men, sitting at tables to one side of the large room, but most of the customers were troops, almost all wearing swords, who watched us with curiosity, but looked smartly away when Father Oda sketched the sign of the cross towards them. They were here to drink, not to hear a sermon. Some were here for more than a drink and climbed the wooden staircase that led to the rooms where the tavern’s whores did their
