‘Yes,’ he said scarce above a whisper.

‘I’d drop the sword,’ I said, ‘unless you want to fight me?’

He shook his head, but still gripped the weapon.

‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Uhtred, son of Uhtred, Lord of Bebbanburg.’

The sword fell from a nerveless hand, clattering on the wooden floor. Gunnald followed it, dropping to his knees and holding clasped hands towards me. ‘Lord!’

There was a second shuttered window in the gable facing the river. I walked past the kneeling man and pushed the shutter open to let more light into the room. ‘I don’t like slave-traders,’ I said mildly as I went back to Gunnald.

‘Many don’t, lord,’ he whispered.

‘Is she a slave?’ I asked, pointing Serpent-Breath at the girl in the bed.

‘Yes, lord,’ Gunnald’s whisper was scarcely audible.

‘Not any longer,’ I said. Gunnald said nothing. He was still shaking. I saw a robe or gown on the floor, a threadbare thing of linen. I picked it up with Serpent-Breath’s bloodied tip and tossed it to the girl. ‘Do you remember a slave-trader called Halfdan?’ I asked Gunnald. He hesitated, perhaps surprised at the question. His face was round, his eyes small, and his beard too scanty to cover his thick jowls. His hair was thinning. He wore a mail coat, but too small, so he had ripped the sides upward so the mail would cover his belly. A big belly. ‘We don’t see many fat people,’ I said, ‘isn’t that right, Finan?’

‘A few monks,’ Finan said, ‘and a bishop or two.’

‘You must eat plenty,’ I told Gunnald, ‘to get a belly like that. Your slaves are all thin.’

‘I feed them well, lord,’ he muttered.

‘You do?’ I asked with pretended surprise.

‘Meat, lord. They eat meat.’

‘Are you telling me you treat your slaves with kindness?’ I asked. I crouched in front of him and let Serpent-Breath’s tip rest on the floor by his knees. He stared at the blade. ‘Well?’ I prompted him.

‘A contented slave is a healthy slave, lord,’ Gunnald managed to say, his eyes on the blade’s drying blood.

‘So you do treat them well?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘So that girl wasn’t forced to your bed?’

‘No, lord,’ and again his whisper was almost inaudible.

I stood. ‘You’ll think I’m a strange man, Gunnald,’ I said, ‘because I don’t like seeing women beaten or raped. You think that’s strange?’ He just looked at me, then lowered his eyes again. ‘Halfdan treated women badly,’ I said. ‘Do you remember Halfdan?’

‘Yes, lord,’ he whispered.

‘Tell me about him.’

‘Tell you, lord?’

‘Tell me about him!’ I encouraged him.

He managed to raise his eyes to me again. ‘He had a yard on the other side of the bridge, lord,’ he said. ‘He did business with my father.’

‘He died, yes?’

‘Halfdan, lord?’

‘Yes.’

‘He died, lord. He was killed.’

‘Killed!’ I sounded surprised. ‘Who killed him?’

‘No one knows, lord.’

I crouched again. ‘It was me, Gunnald,’ I whispered, ‘I killed him.’