And we rowed on, struggling against the current and the last of the ebb. I let the oarsmen slow, content just to make a walking pace as we slid between the marshes. Waormund’s ship was aground, but men were already leaping overboard to shove her back into the channel. The hay barge had gone ashore on the other bank and its crew had been sensible enough to leap overboard and flee through the marshes.

‘So we’re safe?’ Finan asked.

‘They’ll be afloat soon.’

‘Jesus,’ he muttered.

I was gazing ahead, trying to pick a course through the tangled waterways. Our oars touched the river’s bed every few strokes, and once I felt the shudder of mud beneath the keel and held my breath till we had slid into deeper water. The branch of a poplar brushed our furled sail’s yard and scattered leaves on the rowers. Birds fled from us, their wings white, and I tried to discern an omen in their flight, but the gods had given me the gift of the hay barge and offered me nothing more. An otter slid into the water, looked up at me for an instant, then dived out of sight. We were still rowing through marshes, but ahead of us the land rose almost imperceptibly. There were small fields of wheat and rye and I thought of Jorund, whom we had met in the Dead Dane, and how he wanted to be home for the harvest.

‘Bastards are coming,’ Finan said. But the bastards were having a more difficult time than the Brimwisa, their oars were fouling more often and their pace was slowed by the river’s depth. They had a man in the prow who was watching for the shallows and shouting directions. ‘They’ll give up soon,’ Finan added.

‘They won’t,’ I said, because ahead of us the river twisted like a serpent. It flowed south on its way to the Temes, then turned sharply northwards before another tight bend brought it south again to where we struggled against the current. We would be well ahead of Waormund when we reached that first bend, but as we rowed south his ship would be just forty or fifty paces away on the northward reach. ‘Irenmund!’ I shouted.

‘Lord?’

‘I want you here! Vidarr? Take his oar!’ I waited for Irenmund to reach me. ‘You can steer a ship?’ I asked.

‘Been doing it since I was eight years old,’ he said.

I gave him the steering-oar. ‘Stay on the outside of that bend,’ I said, ‘then keep her in the middle of the river.’

He grinned, happy to be given the responsibility, and I pulled on my old, battered helmet with its boiled-leather cheek-pieces. Finan pulled on his own helmet and gave me a quizzical glance. ‘Why that fellow?’ he asked softly, nodding at Irenmund. ‘And not Gerbruht?’

‘Because we’ll be fighting soon,’ I said. Gerbruht was a fine seamen, but he was also an immensely strong man who was pulling an oar and we needed all the strength we could find. ‘Or we will be fighting,’ I went on, ‘if Waormund has half a brain.’