‘Too many,’ he said grimly. ‘I reckon he has forty men at least.’

So Waormund had roughly half his men rowing and the other half armed and ready to overwhelm us. ‘They’ll ram us,’ I said, ‘and board us.’

‘And what do we do? Die?’

‘We outrun them, of course.’

‘But you said they’ll catch us!’

‘They will!’ I could feel the water vibrating through the loom of the steering-oar. That meant we were going fast, but we needed to be faster. ‘If you want to be free men,’ I shouted at the oarsmen, ‘then row as you’ve never rowed before! I know you’re tired, but row as if the devil is at your heels!’ Which he was. ‘Row!’

They put their feeble strength into the oars. Four of my men had taken the places of the weaker oarsmen, and they called the time as the strokes quickened. We had gone around the vast southern bend and were heading northwards now. The pursuing ship was a little more than three hundred paces behind us and her rowers, fresher than ours, were pulling faster. I saw the river break white at her cutwater, saw how each pull of the oars surged her a pace nearer. ‘If we go ashore,’ Finan began nervously.

‘They’ll hunt us in the marshes. It won’t be pretty.’

‘So?’

‘So we don’t go ashore,’ I said, deliberately confusing him.

‘But—’

‘Yet,’ I finished.

He gave me a weary look. ‘So tell me.’

‘We won’t reach Bebbanburg, at least not for a while.’

‘Because?’

‘See those trees ahead?’ I pointed. About a mile ahead of us the river turned east again towards the sea, but on the northern bank was a prominent clump of trees. ‘Just beyond those trees is a river,’ I went on, ‘the Ligan, and it takes us north into Mercia.’

‘It takes them north too,’ Finan said, nodding astern.

‘Half a lifetime ago,’ I went on, ‘the Danes took their ships up the Ligan and Alfred built a fort to block the river. They lost all their ships. That was a fight we missed.’

‘We didn’t miss many,’ Finan said grumpily.

I turned to look behind and saw that the big ship was now a little more than two hundred paces away. I could see Waormund too, looming above the other men in the prow. He turned and evidently shouted at his oarsmen to row faster. ‘That ship may be longer than ours,’ I told Finan, ‘and she’s certainly quicker, but she draws more water. The Ligan is shallow, so if we’re lucky,’ and I touched the hammer, ‘she’ll go aground.’

‘And if we’re unlucky?’

‘We die.’

I had never sailed the Ligan. I knew the river was tidal for a few miles upstream, and deep enough beyond the tidal head to take boats almost as far as Heorotforda, but I also knew it was a difficult river. The Ligan’s last few miles flowed through dense marshland where the river divided into a dozen shallow streams that changed their courses over the years. I had seen ships using those channels, but that had been years before. And we were very close to the tide’s ebb, when the water would be at its shallowest. If I was unlucky we would go aground and then there would be blood in the Ligan.