‘A little, not much. I would like to.’

‘Then maybe you can teach them what little you know.’

‘Then Alaina can read her prayers,’ Benedetta said.

‘I can pray!’ Alaina said.

‘You speak Ænglisc!’ I said, surprised.

‘Of course she does!’ Benedetta said scornfully. ‘Her father is Saxon. We will find her father and her mother? Yes?’

‘If we can.’

Though what we could do, or rather what I hoped we could do, had to wait for Aldwyn and the Ræt to return, which they did in the late afternoon, slithering down the rubbled slope and grinning proudly. I took them into the cellar where Finan and the rest of my men could hear what they had to say.

‘There are not many guards on the wharves,’ Aldwyn said. ‘They walk up and down in three groups. Six men in each.’

‘With spears and shields,’ the Ræt added.

‘The bird on most shields,’ Aldwyn said, ‘and some with just a cross.’

‘Not many men for that length of wharves,’ Finan said.

‘The slaver’s house is near the bridge,’ Aldwyn said. ‘He has a wharf there, but we couldn’t get there.’

‘Which side?’ I asked.

‘Towards the sea, lord,’ Aldwyn said.

‘We couldn’t reach the wharf,’ the Ræt explained, ‘because there’s a wooden fence.’

‘But there was a gap in the wood,’ Aldwyn said, ‘and a ship there.’

‘We looked through!’ the Ræt, who I guessed was seven or eight years old, said proudly.

‘How big?’ I asked.

‘A big gap!’ the Ræt said, and held his grubby hands maybe two finger-widths apart.

‘The ship,’ I said patiently.

‘The ship? Oh, big, lord,’ Aldwyn said, ‘long!’

‘And just one ship?’

‘Just one.’

‘And the entrance from the street?’ I asked.

‘A big gate, lord. Big! And men with spears inside.’

‘You looked through the gate?’

‘We waited till they opened it, lord, and men came out. We could see the guards inside.’

‘Big guards,’ the Ræt said open-eyed, ‘three of them.’

‘Three guards are nothing, lord,’ Beornoth put in.

‘But the noise we make breaking down a big gate will bring the East Anglians,’ I said. ‘It’s close to the bridge and the bastards are thick there.’

‘There must be other ships to steal,’ Finan suggested.

‘We saw no oars on the other ships, lord,’ Aldwyn said.

‘They usually lie between the rowers’ benches,’ I said.

Aldwyn nodded. ‘That’s where you told us to look and we saw none.’ Which meant, I thought, that the East Anglians had confiscated the oars to stop men escaping. ‘Except in the slave ship,’ Aldwyn added.

‘She had oars?’

‘I think so, lord.’ He sounded uncertain.

‘Like thin logs, lord,’ the Ræt said. ‘I saw them!’

‘We need oars,’ I said, and wondered how my few men were to row a big ship downriver. ‘There was a sail?’

‘Bundled on the stick, lord, like you said.’ Aldwyn meant the yard. But unless the gods were kind and sent us a westerly wind we would have a hard time taking a stolen ship downriver under sail. We needed oars, and I was relying on the report of an eager boy who was not entirely sure of what he had seen.