‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’

‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’

‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’

‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.

‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.

‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.

The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.

‘And your name?’ I asked.

‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’

And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.

Two

We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.

I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’

‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’

He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.

‘I knew him as a boy.’

‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’

‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’

‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.