‘I can skewer one of the bastards, lord!’ he called back.

‘And give them a chance to throw it back? Don’t throw!’

Waormund’s men had used all their spears and his only chance now was to row faster, but the deeper draught of his big ship was turning against him and the tide was blessedly low. We turned the bend and headed north and saw our pursuer shudder to another stop. We rowed on, gaining distance with every stroke, still threading the wide marsh, but ahead of us now there were low wooded hills and the smoke from cooking hearths. The river was becoming dirtier, with streaks of foul-smelling brown water. There was a village, I remembered, built where the Roman road from Lundene to Colneceaster forded the Ligan and I feared that the East Anglians might have left men there to guard the crossing. We were rowing now between thick willow trees that snagged on our mast and yard and I could see the small smoke from the village smearing the sky. Benedetta had come aft to join me as we passed between the village’s first small cottages. She wrinkled her nose. ‘The stink!’

‘Tanners,’ I said.

‘Leather?’

‘They cure the hides with shit.’

‘It is filthy.’

‘The world is filthy,’ I said.

Benedetta paused, and then, in a lower voice, ‘I have to say something.’

‘Say it.’

‘The slave girls,’ Benedetta said, nodding towards the bow where the girls we had freed from Gunnald’s warehouse were huddled. ‘They are frightened.’

‘We’re all frightened,’ I said.

‘But they have been kept from the men. It is not your enemy they fear, but the other slaves. I am frightened of them too.’ She paused and then, more harshly, ‘You should not have freed the men with oars, Lord Uhtred. They should all be chained still!’

‘I’m giving them freedom,’ I said.

‘Freedom to take what they want.’

I gazed at the women. All were young, and the four who had been kept for Gunnald’s use were undeniably attractive. They stared back at me with fear on their faces. ‘Short of killing the rowers,’ I said, ‘the best I can do is protect the women. My men won’t touch them.’

‘I’ll kill any man who does,’ Finan put in. He had been listening to our conversation.

‘Men are not kind,’ Benedetta said, ‘I know.’

We passed a wooden church, and beyond it a woman was pulling weeds from a vegetable garden. ‘Are there soldiers here?’ I called to her, but she pretended not to hear and walked towards her thatched hovel.

‘Can’t see any troops,’ Finan said, ‘and why would they have an outpost here?’ He nodded ahead to where a ripple of water showed where the road forded the river. ‘Isn’t that the road to East Anglia? They can’t be expecting enemies on that road.’

I shrugged and said nothing. Irenmund still steered us. A dog chased us along the bank, barking frantically, then gave up the pursuit as we reached the ford. Our keel touched the bottom again, even though we were keeping to the middle of the river, but the ominous scraping died and the slight grounding hardly checked our small speed. ‘He won’t get past that,’ I told Finan.