At the sight of the misty sun, and the sea birds that wheeled before it, something in Elfgar’s soul reluctantly stirred. Funny thing was, while he was burying himself up to his hips in the grunting girl last night, he kept thinking of Wilfrid and his woolly arse, and the old man’s foolish words of love and shame. Maybe his own taste was changing.

A shadow passed across the wall before him. He turned, his cock still in his hand.

He didn’t recognise the big man standing over him. He had a lean, hard, weather-beaten face, bright blue eyes, and a shock of yellow-grey hair pulled back from his brow. He carried some kind of axe, and he smelled of the sea. The deacon was vaguely aware of more men behind him, and a couple of the villagers watching curiously.

The big man smiled at Elfgar.

His hand still clutching his crotch, Elfgar scowled. ‘Travellers, are you? Pilgrims, come to see Cuthbert’s bones?’

The big man spoke. His tongue was strange, but to Elfgar it sounded as if he said, ‘My name is Bjarni.’

‘Good for you, Bjarni. You need to see the abbot at the monastery. He’ll tell you the tithes to pay.’

Bjarni seemed to think this over. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘This.’ And he drove his axe into Elfgar’s face.

On the causeway the tide was rising. Belisarius and Macson had rushed back from Bebbanburh. Now, hurrying to Lindisfarena, they had taken off their boots, but the clinging sand sucked at their bare feet, and the water, steadily rising, lapped at their shins.

‘This is ridiculous,’ panted Macson. ‘Dangerous. We should go back.’

‘We go on.’

Macson, defiantly, stopped dead. ‘We’ll get ourselves killed! And for what?’

Belisarius paused, breathing hard. He knew Macson had a point. Though he and Macson had ridden hard from Bebbanburh, those ships with the checked sails had beaten them here. He had seen for himself how they had pulled in to a shallow sandy beach near the village. And he had seen their carved prows, the snarling dragons’ faces - dragons, just as in the prophecy.

He should have known, Belisarius told himself. East Romans knew all about the dragon ships of the Northmen, which came raiding down the great rivers of Asia. He should have put the pieces of the puzzle together; he should have known what the Menologium meant. Then perhaps he could have saved lives, fragile, grumpy old Boniface and his flickering candle of literacy, and Aelfric, young, so eager to learn she was prepared to hide her own sex to do it. And then there were the books - including his own stock, still sitting in their wooden chest in the monastery’s library.