‘I am a Saxon,’ Wuffa said. ‘He is Norse, a Dane. His name is Ulf. I am Wuffa.’

The girl looked at him, her brown eyes clear. ‘And I am Sulpicia.’ ‘In my tongue, my name means “wolf”.’ Wuffa grinned, showing his teeth.

She returned his gaze coolly. Then she bent over her father. ‘Bishop Ammanius, these two, Ulf and Wuffa, saved my father. Even while we looked away. But they are pagans. Isn’t this proof that all souls may be redeemed by Christ’s light?’

Ammanius looked into Wuffa’s eyes. ‘Is there really goodness in you, boy? And your Norse friend too?’

Wuffa took a step back and raised his hands. ‘I’m not seeking conversion to your dead god, bishop.’

‘No? But plenty of your sort are coming over to Christ. That’s why Augustine led us here. You Saxons are easy to convert, you are such a gloomy lot! Your songs drone endlessly of loss. You don’t know it, but your German soul longs for the glow of eternity, Wuffa.’

Ulf laughed. ‘Eternity can wait.’

Sulpicia said now, ‘Pagan or not, these two proved themselves a lot more use today than the mercenaries we hired to protect us.’

‘Well, that’s true.’ The bishop stroked his long nose. ‘And that could be useful.’

Ulf and Wuffa shared a glance. Perhaps there was an opportunity for them here. Ulf said, ‘Tell us what you mean.’

Ammanius gestured at his flock of pilgrims. ‘Do you understand what is happening here? I am leading these people to river boats which will take them down the estuary to the port of Rutupiae - Reptacaestir you call it, perhaps you know it. From there they will travel across the ocean to Armorica. But I will not travel with them. I have another mission, from my archbishop. I have to go to the far north of this blighted island. And there I am to seek out a prophecy said to have been uttered centuries ago by one Isolde ...’

The Roman church was trying to assimilate its British counterpart. An element of its strategy was to acquire any British saints, relics and other divine material worth keeping. One such candidate was a strange prophecy of the distant future said to have been uttered by this ‘Isolde’, centuries before.

‘It is guarded by one they call “the last of the Romans”,’ Ammanius said. That phrase thrilled Wuffa. ‘It will be a long and hazardous journey. I will need companions I can count on. You two have heathen souls, and yet today you stepped forward to save the life of an old man you had never seen before. Perhaps you have the qualities I seek. What do you say - will you come with me? I will pay you, of course.’

Wuffa would have to speak to his father. But Ulf grinned at him. Such an exotic adventure was hardly to be missed.