The foreigner seemed to remember himself, and hastily dropped his eyes. ‘I have no name but my master’s. I apologise.’

Arngrim said, ‘His name is Ibn Zuhr. I bought him at the slave market at Brycgstow.’

‘A Moor,’ Cynewulf said, startled.

‘He has his uses. He can count, for example.’

‘Even you can count,’ Cynewulf said dryly.

‘Not like him. He can compute sums beyond nine hundred!’

‘Impossible,’ breathed Cynewulf.

‘Apparently not.’

‘Why bring him here?’

Arngrim sighed. ‘Alfred insists his thegns be Christian, and literate. Well, I can fake the Christianity but not the literacy, and I don’t have time to learn, not with the Northmen rampaging around the country. If I have him I am literate too, at least by proxy. But he hasn’t got me any closer to Alfred.’

Cynewulf was intrigued. ‘Does he have a tongue of his own? Say something in your own language.’

Ibn Zuhr spoke rapidly, a string of harsh syllables.

‘What did you say?’

‘I complimented you on your appearance.’ But there was a hint of mockery in this slave’s eyes.

‘Why are you literate?’

‘In my country, although I was taken away by the Northmen when I was a young man, I was a scholar. A pharmacist, in fact.’

There was a commotion at the head of the hall, where the King had interrupted his prayers. He was bent over, his hands on his chest, evidently struggling to breathe.

Aebbe murmured, ‘He looks ill.’

‘They say he has struggled for breath all his life,’ Arngrim said.

‘Perhaps he is asthmatic,’ suggested Ibn Zuhr. It was a Greek term the others weren’t familiar with.

Aebbe was interested. ‘You said you were a pharmacist. Perhaps you have something to treat the King.’

The Moor smiled, and opened his cloak. The interior was stitched with tiny pockets, each barely wide enough to admit a probing forefinger. ‘I had my stock with me when I was taken from al-Andalus. It is much depleted, but a little remains. Hold out your hand,’ he said to Arngrim. He sprinkled a pinch of a ground leaf, deep green, into the thegn’s palm.

Amgrim sniffed this suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

‘Its name is—never mind. It is a plant from Africa, a country my people now own. Tell your King to crush this in a little wine, and then to rub the paste under his nose. It will not cure him but will relieve his symptoms.’

Arngrim closed his fist. ‘Maybe this will be my way to the King’s hearth.’

‘You trust this slave?’ Cynewulf asked. ‘What if it’s poisonous?’

Arngrim glanced at the Moor. ‘I’ve seen him work his magic before. And he’s a very long way from home. If he did betray me, where could he go, with skin that colour? Eh, Moor?’

Ibn Zuhr merely smiled.