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Chapters (88)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. X
  14. XI
  15. II
  16. I
  17. II
  18. III
  19. IV
  20. V
  21. VI
  22. VII
  23. VIII
  24. IX
  25. X
  26. XI
  27. XII
  28. XIII
  29. XIV
  30. XV
  31. XVI
  32. XVII
  33. XVIII
  34. XIX
  35. XX
  36. XXI
  37. III
  38. I
  39. II
  40. III
  41. IV
  42. V
  43. VI
  44. VII
  45. VIII
  46. IX
  47. X
  48. XI
  49. XII
  50. XIII
  51. XIV
  52. XV
  53. XVI
  54. XVII
  55. XVIII
  56. XIX
  57. XX
  58. XXI
  59. IV
  60. I
  61. II
  62. III
  63. IV
  64. V
  65. VI
  66. VII
  67. VIII
  68. IX
  69. X
  70. XI
  71. XII
  72. XIII
  73. XIV
  74. XV
  75. XVI
  76. XVII
  77. XVIII
  78. XIX
  79. XX
  80. XXI
  81. XXII
  82. XXIII
  83. XXIV
  84. XXV
  85. XXVI
  86. XXVII
  87. EPILOGUE
  88. Afterword

Aelfric’s nostrils flared. ‘I have no husband.’

‘Why? Are your legs withered, your womb dry?’

Belisarius interrupted quickly, ‘Aelfric, you should understand that it is no accident we are here. Macson has come all this way because he is descended from one of the protagonists of the legend which spawned your Menologium in the first place. Or at least he believes he is.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You are a grandson of Wuffa? Or Ulf? But you are British.’

‘One of those brutes - yes,’ Macson spat back. ‘I am descended from Sulpicia, the British woman who was raped by one or both those barbarians.’

‘There was no rape,’ Aelfric said. ‘Wuffa loved Sulpicia. Ulf tried to take her from him, and the prophecy. They fought.’

‘Who told you this story?’

‘It comes from the descendant of Wuffa who brought the prophecy here in the first place.’

‘We will surely never know the full story,’ Belisarius said emolliently. ‘Perhaps these are all partial truths.’

Aelfric seemed fascinated by Macson now. ‘So your family kept this story alive. Did your grandfathers write it down?’

‘We were illiterate,’ Macson said with a kind of perverse pride. He tapped his forehead. ‘We remembered, man-woman.’

‘And now you’ve come here for what? Revenge?’

‘It is as good a motive as any,’ Macson said coldly.

‘The British are good at nursing grudges,’ Aelfric said. ‘Even now they call this country the Lost Land in their tongue. Boniface says its loss was a punishment from God for wickedness and corruption. Easier to blame the Germans than to accept your sins!’

Macson glowered, and stalked away.

XIV

XIV

The dragon ship was fifteen paces long. She was laid down on a keel cut from a single oak timber, its curve so gentle the centre was only the length of a forearm lower than the end points. It was this carefully shaped keel that gave the ship the shallow draught that made her so easy to beach, and also gripped at the water when underway to balance the pressure from the sail and keep her from capsizing. The ship’s hull was of oak too, thick polished planks laid down so they overlapped each other, and held in place by wooden pegs.

Gudrid had sailed in such ships all her life, of course - but only in the fjords, or around the coast. Never before had she sailed into the open sea, and out of sight of land; never had she taken the sail road.

In the days before the raid Gudrid helped scrub the boat clean, scrape her hull and repair its caulking, and then they lowered the hull under the sea water so that the salt could kill off rats and worms and fleas.