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Back Conqueror Save as PDF
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

Wuffa glanced across at Ulf. The big Norse had his man pinned face-down on the ground, and was slamming his fist into the back of the looter’s head, over and over.

‘I think you’ve made your point,’ Wuffa called.

Ulf paused, breathing hard, his fist held up in the air. ‘Fair enough.’

In a lithe movement Wuffa rolled off his man’s torso and got to his feet. The man, evidently dazed, got up, crossed to his companion, and dragged him away. Wuffa wiped his knife clean of the Saxon’s blood and slipped it back into his belt. His heart pumped; he never felt more alive than at such moments.

It was in that surge of blood and triumph that he first met Sulpicia.

III

III

‘Oh, Father, you could have got yourself killed!’

The old man was breathing hard but was not seriously hurt. He tried to sit up, as his daughter adjusted the folds of his toga about his thin legs.

Now that the action was safely over, the bishop in his tall hat and bright robes came over. ‘Orosius! Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Ammanius. But I feel a fool, such a fool.’

The bishop, Ammanius, set down his crook and helped the old man to sit up. ‘I would never call you a fool, brave Orosius. But there are many books in Armorica, and there is only one of you, old fellow.’

‘But I could not bear to see those pagan brutes abuse the library so.’

‘They will never know what they were destroying,’ Ammanius said. ‘They are to be pitied, not despised.’

Ammanius glanced now at Wuffa and Ulf. Wuffa saw how the bishop’s gaze roamed over Ulf’s muscular legs. Ammanius was perhaps forty. Clean-shaven like his British charges, he had a full, well-fed face, skin so smooth it looked oiled, and eyebrows that might have been plucked. His Latin was heavily accented. Perhaps he was a continental, then.

‘And it seems,’ Ammanius said to Orosius, ‘that you have another pair of “pagan brutes” to thank for your life.’

‘Yes, thank you both,’ said the daughter breathlessly.

Her eyes wide, she might have been twenty; she seemed careworn, but she was pretty in a dark British way, Wuffa thought.

Ammanius said, ‘Do you have Latin?’

‘We speak it,’ Ulf said warily.

‘Then you understand what is being said to you. Old Orosius is grateful for your intervention—’

The old man coughed and spoke. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth, Bishop.’ He looked the young men up and down. ‘You don’t carry weapons within the walls. It’s a city law.’

Wuffa frowned. ‘Not under King Aethelberht.’

‘I don’t recognise any pagan king’s authority.’

The daughter sighed.

‘Don’t take offence,’ Ammanius said emolliently to Wuffa. ‘It is a hard day for Orosius. These people are leaving their homes - the city their ancestors built centuries ago. But you care little for history, you Saxons, do you?’