‘Finan,’ I said. The sun was in my eyes, too bright. ‘Finan.’

‘Aye, it’s me,’ Finan answered. He was riding alongside the cart.

The woman bent over me, shadowing my face. ‘Benedetta,’ I said.

‘I’m here, lord, with the children. We’re all here.’

I closed my eyes. ‘No Serpent-Breath,’ I said.

‘I do not understand,’ Benedetta said.

‘My sword!’

‘You’ll have her again, lord,’ Finan called.

‘Waormund?’

‘The big bastard escaped, lord. Rode his horse straight into the river. But I’ll find him.’

‘I’ll find him,’ I croaked.

‘You’ll sleep now, lord,’ Benedetta said and she laid a gentle hand on my forehead. ‘You must sleep, lord, you must sleep.’

I did sleep, and at least that was an escape from the pain that filled me. I remember little of that day after the sight of Finan’s bright sword slashing down to sever the rope that had tied me to Waormund’s stallion.

I was taken to Werlameceaster. I do remember opening my eyes and seeing the Roman arch of the eastern gate above me, but I must have slept again, or else the pain just drove me to unconsciousness. I was put on a bed, I was washed, and my wounds, and they were many, were smeared with honey. I dreamed of the cave again, saw the rock coming to crush me, but instead of screaming I just woke shaking to see I was in a stone-walled room lit by stinking rushlights. I was confused. For a moment I could only think about rushlights and how bad they smelled when the fat used to smear them was rancid, and then I felt the pain, remembered my humiliation, and groaned. I wanted the blessing of sleep, but someone put a damp cloth on my forehead. ‘You’re a hard man to kill,’ a woman said.

‘Benedetta?’

‘It is Benedetta,’ she said. She gave me weak ale to drink. I struggled to sit up and she put two straw-filled bags behind me.

‘I’m ashamed,’ I said.

‘Hush,’ she said and held my hand. It embarrassed me and I took my hand away.

‘I’m ashamed,’ I said again.

‘Of what?’

‘I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg. They humiliated me.’

‘And I am Benedetta of nowhere,’ she said, ‘and I have been humiliated all my life, raped all my life, enslaved all my life, but I am not ashamed.’ I closed my eyes to stop myself crying, and she took my hand again. ‘If you are powerless, lord,’ she went on, ‘then why be ashamed of what the strong inflict on you? It is for them to be ashamed.’

‘Waormund,’ I said the name quietly, as if testing it.

‘You will kill him, lord,’ Benedetta said, ‘as I killed Gunnald Gunnaldson.’

I let her hold my hand, but I turned away from her so she would not see my tears.

I was ashamed.

Next day Finan brought me my mail coat, he brought me Wasp-Sting, with a sword belt to which he had attached Wasp-Sting’s scabbard, and he brought me my boots and my old shabby helmet. All that was missing was my torn mail coat, the hammer amulet, and Serpent-Breath. ‘We took all these off the dead, lord,’ Finan explained, placing Wasp-Sting and the helmet on the bed, and I was glad it was not my fine war-helmet, the helmet that was crested by the silver wolf, because the wolf of Bebbanburg had been humiliated. ‘Six or seven of the bastards got away,’ the Irishman said.