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Chapters (92)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I - MUSTA’RIB
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. X
  14. XI
  15. XII
  16. XIII
  17. XIV
  18. XV
  19. XVI
  20. XVII
  21. XVIII
  22. XIX
  23. XX
  24. XXI
  25. XXII
  26. XXIII
  27. XXIV
  28. II - CRUCESIGNATI
  29. I
  30. II
  31. III
  32. IV
  33. V
  34. VI
  35. VII
  36. VIII
  37. IX
  38. X
  39. XI
  40. XII
  41. XIII
  42. XIV
  43. XV
  44. XVI
  45. XVII
  46. XVIII
  47. XIX
  48. XX
  49. XXI
  50. XXII
  51. XXIII
  52. XXIV
  53. XXV
  54. XXVI
  55. XXVII
  56. XXVIII
  57. XXIX
  58. XXX
  59. XXXI
  60. III - NAVIGATOR
  61. I
  62. II
  63. III
  64. IV
  65. V
  66. VI
  67. VII
  68. VIII
  69. IX
  70. X
  71. XI
  72. XII
  73. XIII
  74. XIV
  75. XV
  76. XVI
  77. XVII
  78. XVIII
  79. XIX
  80. XX
  81. XXI
  82. XXII
  83. XXIII
  84. XXIV
  85. XXV
  86. XXVI
  87. XXVII
  88. XXVIII
  89. EPILOGUE
  90. I
  91. II
  92. Afterword

‘Find him. And stop him.’

Roger lost his nerve. He let go of the woman’s hair and she crumpled into a heap. ‘Screw her, kill her, or marry her, she’s all yours, Dane. I’m having no more of this.’ He turned and stomped off, massive in his armour, obsessively crossing himself.

The woman was huddled over on herself, her back bright with blood. Orm lifted her face with a gloved hand. Spittle flecked her lips, and he saw blood on her tongue. She had bitten it while speaking. He said, ‘Who are you? By whose authority shall I command Sihtric?’

She looked at him. ‘Orm?’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am Eadgyth. Only Eadgyth.’ She frowned. ‘I - have I fallen?’

‘Do you remember what you said to me?’

‘What I said . . . What’s happened to me, Orm Egilsson?’

He stood up. The bright February day became insubstantial around him, and a harsher light shone through its sparse threads. He remembered all Sihtric’s talk in the days before Hastings, the mystical babbling of a possibly heretical priest - talk about the tapestry of time, and how its weave might be picked undone and remade by a god, or a man with sufficient power. The Weaver, Sihtric had called him. And now Sihtric and his mysteries had returned to Orm’s life.

But on the ground before him was a woman, helpless, naked, shivering, bleeding. That was the reality. He reached up to his horse, pulled a blanket from the saddle, and draped it over her shoulders. The Norman soldiers, drunk on blood and rape, drawn by Roger’s gabbled account, gathered around curiously.

I - MUSTA’RIB

I

004

MUSTA’RIB

AD 1085

I

I

The north Spanish country did not interest Robert, son of Orm.

Why should it? Green, damp, mild even in July, it was too like England. And besides, Robert, fourteen years old, believed that his soul yearned for spiritual nourishment, not for spectacle. So he was glad when he and his father reached Santiago de Compostela, the city of Saint James of the Field of Stars, where he would be able to prostrate himself among the flocking pilgrims before the tomb of the Apostle, Santiago Matamoros, James the Moorslayer.

As it turned out, it was not his soul he would give up in this city, but his heart, and not to the dusty bones of a saint, but to the sweet face of a half-Moorish girl.