Well, he had to get out of the mud. But when he tried to push himself up his arms just sank in the mush up to his elbows, and as he thrashed around the links of his mail coat clogged up and grew heavier. Winded from the fall, he was starting to tire. And, he realised, each time he struggled to free himself, all he succeeded in doing was stirring up the mud and sinking a little deeper. He had to laugh. Was this how his life was to end, drowning in mud? He would be turned away from paradise with the heroes’ mockery ringing in his ears.

And so much for impressing the Duke, he thought bitterly. But he had no choice but to ask for help.

‘Hey!‘ He shouted as loudly as he could, and took off his conical helmet to wave it. ‘A hand! Over here!’

The Normans surged on like a storm, but he thought he saw a couple of riders peel off.

He struggled further, sank deeper. He repeated his cries in the Frankish spoken by the Normans, in English, and in Danish.

‘I can hear you. No need to yell.’

The new voice was English, and a woman’s. Orm tried to turn. The mud was now almost up to his waist, its heavy grasp tightening around his legs.

The woman, who must have been riding with the warriors, was standing at the far side of the copse, with a man beside her. Short, confident, wiry-looking, she wore no mail but a sensible tunic and trousers of tough-looking leather. Her brown hair was pulled back revealing a face bronzed by sun and rain. Blue-eyed, around twenty, she might have been pretty, Orm thought bleakly, if she wasn’t so obviously amused by him.

The man beside her had similar pale blue eyes; he was in mail and carried a mace, but looked too slight to be a warrior. Older than the woman he looked sly to Orm - slim and lithe, like a snake.

Orm knew him. ‘You’re the priest who rides with Harold.’

‘That‘s true,’ the man said. ‘My name is Sihtric. This is my sister, Godgifu.’

Orm tried to straighten up, recovering as much dignity as he could. ‘And I am Orm, son of Egil, son of Egil, who—‘ But he tipped over backward, and, thrashing in the mud, sank a bit deeper.

Like the call of a bird Godgifu’s laughter echoed around the little copse.

Sihtric murmured, ‘It isn’t polite to mock the poor chap, Godgifu. So you’re Egilsson? In fact I’ve been meaning to find you. Is it true your father was born in Vinland?’

‘Conceived there,’ Orm said, gasping in the mud. ‘Born in Greenland.’

‘Ah. And do you have an ancestor, another Egil, who fought Alfred at Ethandune?‘

‘Yes.’

‘Then our families have a connection,’ said Sihtric. ‘You see—’