Rædwalh hesitated, then took the coin. ‘I’ll send two men, lord.’ He hesitated again. ‘Is there going to be a war?’

‘There already is,’ I said bleakly, ‘there was fighting in Lundene, and once a war starts it’s hard to stop.’

‘Because we have two kings instead of one?’

‘Because we have one king,’ I said, ‘and a vile boy who thinks he’s a king.’

Rædwalh heard the bitterness in my voice. ‘Ælfweard?’

‘Him and his uncle.’

‘Who won’t stop till they’ve swallowed Mercia,’ Rædwalh said sourly.

‘But what if Mercia swallows Wessex and East Anglia?’ I asked.

He thought about that, then crossed himself. ‘I’d rather there was no war, lord. There’s been too much. I don’t want my sons in a shield wall, but if there has to be war than I pray young Æthelstan wins it. Is that why you’re here, lord? To help him?’

‘I’m here,’ I said, ‘because I’m a fool.’

And I was. I was an impetuous fool, but the gods had brought me close to Æthelstan’s forces, so maybe the gods were on my side.

The morning would tell.

I would not allow a fire. If Waormund had sent men to follow us through the night then a fire, even inside the old barn, would betray us. We ate stale oatcakes and dried fish, drank the water from the spring that Rædwalh had said was pure, and then I ordered the oarsmen to sleep at one end of the old barn, the women and children at the other, while I and my men would stay between them. I put our plunder, the spare clothes, mail coats, money, and spears with the women. Then I made all my men draw their swords. A small moonlight leaked through the barn’s splintered roof, just enough light so that the oarsmen could see the glint of swords. ‘I’m chaining you,’ I told them. There was silence for a couple of heartbeats, then a growl. ‘I’m freeing you too!’ I quietened them. ‘I promised it and I keep my promises. But this night you wear the chains, maybe for the last time. Immar, Oswi! Do it.’

That was why I had brought the chains. The oarsmen were bone-tired, and that might be enough to keep them sleeping all night, but Benedetta’s warning had stayed with me. Men whose ankles were linked by chain would find it impossible to move silently, and any attempt to remove the chain would surely alert us. Benedetta and the women watched as Oswi and Immar threaded the links. There was no way of stapling the chains, so they just tied clumsy knots in their ends.

‘Now sleep,’ I told them, then watched as they sullenly settled on the rancid straw before I took Finan out into the moonlight. ‘We’re going to need sentries,’ I said. We were gazing across the meadows to where the moon-touched river slid silver between the willows.

‘You think the bastards are following us?’

‘They might be, but even if they’re not—