‘That was too close,’ I told Finan as the dawn showed a sullen grey in the east.

‘How’s your shoulder?’ he asked.

‘Cut deep, feels stiff, but it’ll mend.’

‘The women saved us.’

‘And a child.’

‘She’s a little wonder,’ Finan said.

I nearly died that night and it was a child with a spear who saved me. I have been in too many battles and stood in too many shield walls, but that night I felt the despair of death come as close to me as ever I felt it. I still remember that spike getting inexorably nearer to my eye, still smell the man’s rancid breath, still feel the terror of losing Serpent-Breath and thus being denied my place in Valhalla, but then a child, a seven-year-old girl, had driven death away.

Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

There was no sign of any pursuit in the dawn, but that did not mean our enemies had given up the chase. There was a mist over the river meadows and that mist, together with the trees on the higher ground and the hedgerows in the fields beyond, could have hidden a dozen scouts who were looking for us. Rædwalh came with the rising sun, riding a big grey mare and bringing a gift of hard cheese and bread. ‘I sent two men to Werlameceaster last night, lord,’ he told me, ‘they haven’t come back.’

‘Did you expect them to?’

‘Not if they’ve any sense, lord.’ He stared towards the river mist. ‘We’ve seen no East Anglians for a couple of weeks so they should have had no trouble. I dare say they’ll be coming back with Merewalh’s men. And you, lord, what will you do?’

‘I won’t stay here,’ I said.

Rædwalh looked at the children who were wandering around the door of the old barn. ‘You won’t get far with those little ones.’

‘With a spear up their backsides?’ I asked, which made him laugh. ‘And I’ve left you a problem,’ I went on.

‘A problem, lord?’ I led him into the barn and showed him the slaughtered oarsmen. He grimaced. ‘Aye, that’s a problem.’

‘I can drag the corpses into the wood,’ I offered, ‘let the beasts have at them.’

‘Maybe better in the river,’ he suggested, and so I ordered all ten corpses to be stripped naked and dragged down to the river.

Then we walked towards Werlameceaster. Rædwalh had given me directions to follow a wagon track until we reached the great road, then to keep on westwards. ‘The great road?’ I had interrupted him.

‘You must know it, lord!’ he said, sounding astonished at the possibility that I did not. ‘The road from Lundene to the north!’

I did indeed know that road. It had been made by the Romans and it led from Lundene to Eoferwic and beyond that to Bebbanburg. I had ridden that road more times than I could remember. ‘Is it close?’ I asked.

‘Close?’ Rædwalh had laughed. ‘You could spit on it from the other side of these woods. You only need reach the road,’ he had continued, ‘then walk two or three miles north and you’ll come to a crossroads—’