‘Pretty name,’ I said.

‘For a pretty girl,’ Benedetta was cuddling the child, who had very dark hair, frightened eyes, and skin the same light golden colour as Benedetta. I guessed she was seven or eight years old, and I had noticed her in the cellar’s gloom because she was both better dressed and looked to be in better health then the other children. She had also looked more miserable, her eyes red from crying. Benedetta stroked the girl’s hair. ‘She came here just before us!’

‘Yesterday?’

Benedetta nodded. ‘Yesterday, and her mother is like me. From Italy.’ She said something in her own language to Alaina, then looked back to me. ‘A slave.’ She spoke defiantly, as if it were my fault.

‘The child’s a slave?’ I asked.

Benedetta shook her head. ‘No, no. Nor is the mother any more. Her mama is married to one of Merewalh’s men and she left the house to take food to her husband and the other sentries. That’s when the enemy came.’

‘The girl was alone?’

‘Alone.’ She bent to kiss the child’s hair. ‘Her mother said she would be home soon, but she never came home. And the poor child heard screaming and she ran from the sound. Aldwyn found her and here she is.’

Alaina stared at me with wide eyes. She looked scared. She saw an older man with a scarred, hard face, a battered mail coat, a gold chain, and a brace of swords at his waist. I smiled at her and she looked away, burying her face in Benedetta’s clothes. ‘Maybe,’ Benedetta said, ‘the two boys are caught?’

‘They’re cunning,’ I said, ‘they won’t be caught.’

‘Gunnald would like to have them as slaves. Especially the young one. He can sell small boys almost as easily as little girls.’ She leaned down and kissed Alaina’s forehead. ‘And this poor one? She would fetch a good price.’

‘The boys will come back,’ I said, touching the hammer and so earning an Italian scowl.

‘You think?’

‘I think,’ I touched the hammer again.

‘And what will you do with them?’

‘Do?’

‘What will you do with them!’ she repeated the question aggressively as if to suggest I had wilfully misunderstood it the first time. ‘You take them with you?’

‘If they want to come.’

‘All of them?’

I shrugged. I had not really thought about the children’s future. ‘I suppose so. If they want to come.’

‘Then what do they do if they come?’

‘There’s always a need for servants at Bebbanburg,’ I said. ‘The girls will work in the kitchen, the hall or the dairy. The boys in the stables or armoury.’

‘As slaves?’

I shook my head. ‘They will be paid. The girls will grow and be married, the boys become warriors. If they don’t like it they can leave. So no, they won’t be slaves.’

‘You will not teach them?’

‘Sword-skill, yes.’

‘To read!’

I hesitated. ‘It’s not a very useful skill for most folk. Can you read?’