We had tipped the naked corpses into the river at night. The falling tide and the current would have taken them eastwards, though I did not doubt the bodies would be stranded on a mudbank long before they reached the distant sea. No one would take note. There would be enough corpses this summer as men struggled to take the throne of Wessex.

More ships brought more men to Lundene. They brought reinforcements for Jarl Varin, who still commanded the garrison on Æthelhelm’s behalf. We knew that because after two days there was a proclamation bellowed throughout the old city that folk could walk safely after dark and, despite Finan’s dour warning, I went that night to a big riverside alehouse called Wulfred’s Tavern, though everyone called it the Dead Dane because a falling tide had once revealed a Danish warrior impaled on one of the rotting stakes of an old wharf. For years the dead man’s hand had been nailed to one of the tavern’s doorposts and everyone who entered would touch a finger. The hand had long gone, though a crude picture of a corpse still decorated the sign hanging above the door. I pushed inside, followed by Father Oda and Benedetta.

Oda had suggested he accompany me. ‘A priest commands respect,’ he had claimed, ‘not suspicion. And Benedetta should come too, as my wife.’

I had almost bridled when he spoke of Benedetta as his wife, but had the sense to hide my irritation. ‘It’s not safe for women,’ I said.

‘Women have walked the streets all day,’ Oda said calmly.

‘Benedetta should stay here,’ I insisted.

‘The East Anglians,’ Oda said patiently, ‘must suspect there are fugitives still hiding in the city. They will be looking for young men, not for a priest and his wife. You want news, yes? So let us come. Strangers will trust a priest.’

‘Suppose you’re recognised?’

He had shaken his head. ‘I left East Anglia as a beardless youth. No one will know me now.’

I was swathed in a big, dark cloak. I had ransacked both Gunnald’s attic and the room beneath where his son lived, and discovered the cloak with its hood. I wore it and belted the cloak with a length of rope, then borrowed a wooden cross from Gerbruht and hung it around my neck. I carried no sword, only a knife concealed beneath the big cloak. ‘You look like a monk,’ Finan had said.

‘Bless you, my son.’

We found a table in a dark corner of the tavern. The room was almost full. There were some local people, women as well as men, sitting at tables to one side of the large room, but most of the customers were troops, almost all wearing swords, who watched us with curiosity, but looked smartly away when Father Oda sketched the sign of the cross towards them. They were here to drink, not to hear a sermon. Some were here for more than a drink and climbed the wooden staircase that led to the rooms where the tavern’s whores did their trade. Everyone who climbed the stairs received a chorus of cheers and jeers from their companions, raucous sounds that earned frowns from Father Oda, though he said nothing.