‘But they don’t have men in Gunnald’s yard,’ I said. ‘Once we get the new ship we’ll leave at dawn, hope for an ebbing tide and row hard.’ I made it sound easy, but I knew better and again went to touch my hammer and found the cross.
We walked a few paces more, then Father Oda chuckled. ‘What?’ I asked.
‘Northern savages,’ he said, amused.
Was that our reputation? If so, it pleased me. But the northern savages, or a handful of them, were trapped, and our savagery would win us nothing unless we managed to escape. We needed a ship.
And next morning she came.
PART THREE
The Field of Barley
Eight
It was late morning and Immar was standing as sentry on the western wharf, or rather he was sitting in the summer sunlight on the western wharf with a pot of sour ale and with two small boys, both from Aldwyn’s tribe of orphans, sitting at his feet and listening awestruck to whatever tall tales he told them. Immar was a young Mercian whom I had saved from being hanged the previous year, though he had been forced to watch his father dancing the rope-death on my orders. Despite that experience he had sworn loyalty to me and now wore mail and carried a sword. He had learned his sword-skill remarkably quickly and had proved to be a ferocious fighter on two cattle raids, but he had yet to be tested in a shield wall. Still, the two small boys were captivated by his stories, as was Alaina who had wandered to join them and now listened just as keenly.
‘Nice little girl,’ Finan said.
‘She is,’ I agreed. Finan and I were sharing a bench on the landward wharf, watching Immar and idly discussing the chances of having a west wind instead of the persistent but gentle south-easterly that had blown all night and morning.
‘You think her mother is alive?’ Finan asked, nodding towards Alaina.
‘Mother’s more likely to be alive than her father.’
‘True,’ he allowed, ‘poor woman.’ He took a bite of an oatcake. ‘Be nice for Alaina if we could find her.’
‘It would,’ I agreed. ‘But she’s a tough little girl. She’ll survive.’
‘She made these oatcakes?’
‘She did.’
‘They’re horrible,’ Finan said, throwing the rest of his oatcake into the river.
‘It’s the mouse shit in the oats,’ I pointed out.
‘We need better food,’ Finan grumbled.
‘What about those two horses in the stable?’ I suggested.
‘They don’t mind eating mouse crap. It’s probably the best food they’ve had in years! Poor beasts. They need a month or two on good pasture.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ I said, ‘I mean why don’t we kill the two beasts, skin them, butcher them, and stew them?’
Finan looked at me aghast. ‘Eat them?’
‘Must be enough meat on those two horses to last us a week?’
‘You’re a barbarian,’ Finan said. ‘I’ll let you persuade Father Oda.’
Father Oda would disapprove of eating horse meat. The church had forbidden its followers to eat the flesh of horses because, the clerics insisted, that flesh only came from pagan sacrifices. In truth we pagans are reluctant to offer Odin a sacrificial horse, the beasts are too valuable, though when times are desperate the gift of a prized stallion might placate the gods. I had made just such sacrifices, though always with regret. ‘Father Oda doesn’t have to eat the stew,’ I pointed out, ‘he can live on mouse shit.’
‘But I can’t,’ Finan said firmly, ‘I want something decent. There must be fish for sale?’
‘Horse meat tastes good,’ I insisted. ‘Especially an older horse. My father always swore that an older horse’s liver was a meal fit for the gods. He once made me kill a foal just so he could taste the liver, and he hated it, and after that he always insisted on an older horse. But you mustn’t overcook it, it’s best while it’s still a bit bloody.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Finan said, ‘and I thought your father was a Christian.’
‘He was, so every time he ate horse liver he added it to the other sins he confessed, and there were enough of those.’
‘And you’ll find your Benedetta won’t eat horse meat,’ Finan said slyly, ‘she’s a good Christian.’
‘My Benedetta?’ I asked.
He just chuckled and I thought of Eadith in far-off Bebbanburg. Was there really plague in the north? And if there was, had it reached my fortress? Jorund had heard a rumour that it was ravaging Eoferwic where two of my grandchildren lived with their father, and I touched my hammer amulet and sent a wordless prayer to the gods. Finan saw the gesture. ‘Worried?’ he asked.
‘I should never have left Bebbanburg,’ I said.
I knew Finan agreed with me, but he had the decency to say nothing of that. He just stared at the glitter of sunlight on the river, then stiffened and put a hand on my arm. ‘What’s happening?’
I came out of my reverie and saw Immar was standing and staring downriver. Then Immar turned and, looking at me, pointed eastwards, and I saw a mast, crossed with a yard on which a sail was furled, showing above the eastern palisade. ‘Come back!’ I shouted at Immar. ‘And bring the boys! Alaina! Come!’
We had planned to present Gunnald’s son with a small mystery when he arrived. Usually, the captive guards had told us, there would be at least one man on the wharf to take the arriving ship’s lines. ‘Lyfing Gunnaldson needs help, lord,’ Deogol the one-handed captive had told me. ‘He can’t handle a ship like his father. And if there’s no one on the wharf he sounds a horn and we’ll run to help him.’
‘And if no one helps him?’ I had asked.
Deogol had shrugged. ‘He’ll get ashore somehow, lord.’
I was insisting that the arriving ship must find the wharf deserted and that no one should help Lyfing Gunnaldson tie up. If he saw
