‘The only copy,’ said Cynewulf mournfully, ‘for the Northmen burned or stole the rest. Copies of copies, lovingly preserved across centuries—’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Arngrim testily. ‘Then how did you know about it, priest?’

‘Through my ability to read,’ said Cynewulf, allowing himself a stab of triumph. ‘Another survivor wrote down an account of that terrible assault - and that is where I came across a mention of the prophecy. Whether it is the work of God or the devil, it seems to contain a seed of truth, a rough map of the future. And I knew I must try to track it down.’

‘Why?’

‘Because - so I believe, based on what I have read - the sixth stanza concerns Alfred, and the great trial he faces against the Danes.’

From the floor the Moor listened, evidently intrigued.

Aelfric, returning to her family at Bebbanburh, had in time taken a husband, the son of a thegn, and had children of her own. It was said that she filled her house with books, a habit her husband and children never shared nor understood. But she was never able to wipe away the scars on her soul left by the events at Lindisfarena.

And she never forgot about the Menologium. She had lost the scroll to a Viking raider, but she had spent long months labouring over its words in the scriptorium. With time she trawled it all from her memory, word by word, stanza by stanza. But she never wrote it down.

When her own daughter grew old enough she taught the whole long poem to her, by rote, word by word. And when that daughter had children of her own, in turn, she entrusted the memory of the Menologium to her own youngest daughter’s memory.

Aebbe said, ‘Aelfric preserved the Menologium in the minds of daughters and granddaughters. She said men were good for nothing but slaughter and rapine.’

‘Probably true,’ grunted Arngrim.

Cynewulf had managed to trace Aelfric’s descendants down to his own time, and to Mercia where they had fled as the Danish force carved up Northumbria.

Arngrim said, ‘And so you went looking for this child - Aebbe, greatgranddaughter of a woman who impersonated a monk.’ He laughed at the thought. ‘And this is the story you want to take to the King.’

‘I must take her, Aebbe, for even now she won’t write down the Menologium. But I believe that I must bring this prophecy to Alfred. More than our lives are at stake - the whole future of England, and the future of our children’s children, may depend on it too.’

‘I’m curious,’ said Ibn Zuhr suddenly, and inappropriately. ‘Master—’

Arngrim drank his ale and shrugged. ‘Ask what you want.’

‘You refer to this island of yours, the part you own, as England.’ Engla-lond. ‘And to yourself as English.’ Englisc.

Cynewulf shrugged. ‘So what?’