Uhtric glared at Drosten for a few heartbeats, then allowed himself to fall back into his pillows, as if being angry had exhausted him.

“Well,” he said at last, “if you have not come to heal me, or to watch me die, what do you want?”

Runolf turned to me. Again, I swallowed. My mouth was so dry, I was sure that my voice would crack. I looked about for something to drink. There was an earthenware jug on a small table beside Uhtric’s bed. I thought it might contain water, and I looked at it longingly. But there was only one cup, and even if I had been bold enough to request a drink, the thought of sipping from the same cup as the dying lord turned my stomach. Here, this close to the injured man, the incense did little to disguise the odour of his putrefying wound. The cloying stink of rot was thick in the warm air. I could barely imagine how the lady of the hall could stay by his side without gagging.

I wished we had not come here. If only I could have convinced the others to head directly towards Eoforwic, I could have avoided witnessing the ignoble end of this lord of Northumbria.

“Well, do not tarry,” Uhtric said, a twisted smile on his emaciated lips. “As my good wife said, I am tired, and, as is apparent to us all, even to her, bless her, I do not have time to waste.”

Hereward nodded and Runolf pushed me forward. I scowled at him, before turning to Uhtric.

“As you know, lord,” I said. My voice broke as I had feared it would, and I cleared my throat before continuing. “As you know, we defeated the Norse who attacked Werceworthe, thus saving many lives and valuable treasures of the minster.” I thought of the great trench we had filled with the dead and realised with a stomach-twisting shock, that the smell permeating the hall reminded me of the miasma that had hung over the bloated corpses. Uhtric was staring at me, but he said nothing, so I went on. “What you may not know is that we wish to travel whence the Norsemen came. To the land of Rygjafylki, across the North Sea.”

“Why?” Sensing this might be Runolf’s doing, Uhtric’s eyes flicked away from me and towards the Norseman. “Do you wish to return to your home, Runolf?”

“That is not the reason, lord,” Runolf said.

“Then what is it?”

“The jarl who led his ships to Lindisfarnae and Werceworthe was my brother.”

Uhtric waved a thin hand.

“Yes, yes. Hereward told me as much. But you killed him, did you not?”

Runolf’s face clouded. Perhaps he was remembering fighting his brother; severing his head and holding it aloft, wide-eyed and gore-dribbling, to show the Norsemen that their leader had been defeated.

“I did. But I also learnt of my wife’s treachery.”

“She yet lives?”