Orm was dismayed to see Roger fitz Gommery standing over him. Roger was a common soldier, a slab of hardened muscle from toe to brain, and an ardent rapist. The crotch of his leather trousers was already smeared with blood and ordure from his day’s sport. ‘Have I broken into your party, Orm Egilsson? Let’s see what we’ve got.’

He closed his leather glove over Eadgyth’s short hair, and dragged her to her feet. She screamed, and her legs flapped, too weak to support her weight.

‘Roger—’

‘You’ll get your share, Orm.’

With his gloved hand Roger ripped at the neck of Eadgyth’s habit. Old, much patched, the material gave easily. She was left naked save for pants of stained wool, which Roger pulled away. Her body was skeletal, her skin pocked by lesions, her breasts shrunken mounds behind hard nipples. She whimpered, her eyes closed, and she seemed to be praying:

And the Dove will fly east,
Wings strong, heart stout, mind clear.
God’s Engines will burn our ocean
And flame across the lands of spices.
All this I have witnessed
I and my mothers . . .

As she gabbled these words, Roger looked her up and down, contemptuous. ‘Skin and bone. Chicken legs. You know what, Dane? I can’t be bothered; I’ve had my fill today. But we can still have a little sport. Have you ever carved a chicken?’ He took a knife from his belt and, almost thoughtfully, drew it across Eadgyth’s back. She jerked rigid at the pain, and warm blood poured.

And her eyes snapped open.

She stared directly at Orm. ‘Egilsson,’ she said. ‘Orm Egilsson. Can you hear me? Are you there?’ All the weakness had gone from her voice, despite the way Roger held her up by her hair, despite the wound that crossed her back. It didn’t even sound like her voice any more, but deeper, heavier, the accent distorted. ‘Are you there, Orm Egilsson?’

Roger gaped. ‘Is she possessed?’

‘Orm Egilsson. Listen to what I have to tell you. Listen, and remember, and let your sons and their sons remember too.’ And again she began to intone her eerie, unfamiliar prayer.

In the last days
To the tail of the peacock
He will come:
The spider’s spawn, the Christ-bearer
The Dove.
And the Dove will fly east . . .

Roger crossed himself. ‘By God’s wounds, she’s a prophet.’

She spoke on in that clear alien voice, of fires consuming an ocean, of war.

All this I have witnessed
I and my mothers.
Send the Dove west! O, send him west!

Orm was unaccountably afraid of this naked, helpless woman. ‘What peacock, what dove? I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Find him,’ Eadgyth said, and her voice was a hiss now.

‘Who?’

‘Sihtric.’

It was the name of Godgifu’s brother, the priest. He had not told Eadgyth of him. The name shocked Orm to his core. ‘But Sihtric is in Spain,’ he said weakly.