They rowed, but even with the new energy born of fear, they could not outpace the men hurrying across the marsh. I counted them. Twelve men carrying two spears each. Waormund was not among them, he was still on board the pursuing ship that was being heaved off the mudbank. I could just hear him bawling orders.
Then the leading spearman decided to chance his arm. It was a long throw, but he hurled his spear and it soared across the river, aimed at Irenmund, and I heard it thump into Finan’s shield. The other men kept coming, then two stopped and threw their spears. One fell short, plunging into the river, the other struck Brimwisa’s hull and quivered there.
Waormund had been clever enough. He had realised that spearmen on foot could catch us and cripple us by slaughtering enough oarsmen, but he had not been clever enough to tell them that their best chance was to throw their spears together. A man can dodge a spear or catch it on his shield, but a shower of spears is far more deadly. One by one the men threw the heavy blades, and one by one we either stopped them or watched them fly high or low. Not every spear missed. One oarsman was hit in the thigh, the blade gouging a deep cut that Father Oda hurried to bandage. Another glanced off the iron rim of my shield and scored a long shallow wound across a man’s naked back, but most of the spears were wasted, and still we rowed on, nearing the next bend that would take us north again. North into Mercia.
Waormund had freed his ship and had his men hauling on their oars again, but Irenmund was already taking us into the sharp curve. I saw Beornoth readying to hurl a spear back at the frustrated men who could only watch as we rowed away from them. ‘No!’ I called to him.
‘I can skewer one of the bastards, lord!’ he called back.
‘And give them a chance to throw it back? Don’t throw!’
Waormund’s men had used all their spears and his only chance now was to row faster, but the deeper draught of his big ship was turning against him and the tide was blessedly low. We turned the bend and headed north and saw our pursuer shudder to another stop. We rowed on, gaining distance with every stroke, still threading the wide marsh, but ahead of us now there were low wooded hills and the smoke from cooking hearths. The river was becoming dirtier, with streaks of foul-smelling brown water. There was a village, I remembered, built where the Roman road from Lundene to Colneceaster forded the Ligan and I feared that the East Anglians might have left men there to guard the crossing. We were rowing now between thick willow trees that snagged on our mast and yard and I could see the small smoke from the village smearing the sky. Benedetta had come aft to join me as we passed between the village’s first small cottages. She wrinkled her nose. ‘The stink!’
‘Tanners,’ I said.
‘Leather?’
‘They cure the hides with shit.’
‘It is filthy.’
‘The world is filthy,’ I said.
Benedetta paused, and then, in a lower voice, ‘I have to say something.’
‘Say it.’
‘The slave girls,’ Benedetta said, nodding towards the bow where the girls we had freed from Gunnald’s warehouse were huddled. ‘They are frightened.’
‘We’re all frightened,’ I said.
‘But they have been kept from the men. It is not your enemy they fear, but the other slaves. I am frightened of them too.’ She paused and then, more harshly, ‘You should not have freed the men with oars, Lord Uhtred. They should all be chained still!’
‘I’m giving them freedom,’ I said.
‘Freedom to take what they want.’
I gazed at the women. All were young, and the four who had been kept for Gunnald’s use were undeniably attractive. They stared back at me with fear on their faces. ‘Short of killing the rowers,’ I said, ‘the best I can do is protect the women. My men won’t touch them.’
‘I’ll kill any man who does,’ Finan put in. He had been listening to our conversation.
‘Men are not kind,’ Benedetta said, ‘I know.’
We passed a wooden church, and beyond it a woman was pulling weeds from a vegetable garden. ‘Are there soldiers here?’ I called to her, but she pretended not to hear and walked towards her thatched hovel.
‘Can’t see any troops,’ Finan said, ‘and why would they have an outpost here?’ He nodded ahead to where a ripple of water showed where the road forded the river. ‘Isn’t that the road to East Anglia? They can’t be expecting enemies on that road.’
I shrugged and said nothing. Irenmund still steered us. A dog chased us along the bank, barking frantically, then gave up the pursuit as we reached the ford. Our keel touched the bottom again, even though we were keeping to the middle of the river, but the ominous scraping died and the slight grounding hardly checked our small speed. ‘He won’t get past that,’ I told Finan.
‘Waormund?’
‘That ford will stop him dead. He’ll have to wait hours.’
‘God be praised,’ Benedetta said.
Aldwyn brought me Serpent-Breath. I checked that the blade was clean and dry, slid the sword into her fleece-lined scabbard, and patted Aldwyn’s head. ‘Well done,’ I said, then looked behind and could see no sign of our pursuer. ‘I think we’re safe.’
‘God be praised,’ Benedetta said again, but Finan just nodded westwards.
And on the road to Lundene, at the village’s western end, were horsemen. The sun was low, dazzling my eyes, but I could see men hauling themselves into saddles. They were
