‘The chapel!’ she sounded surprised.

‘He probably wants to pray.’

‘Just kill the pup,’ Egil put in cheerfully.

‘I think he’ll talk,’ I said. We had learned much from the other prisoners. The small fleet of four ships had been assembled at Dumnoc in East Anglia and was crewed by a mix of men from that port, other East Anglian harbours, and from Wessex. Mostly from Wessex. The men were paid well and had been offered a reward if they succeeded in killing me. The leaders of the fleet, we learned, had been Father Ceolnoth, the boy Wistan and a West Saxon warrior named Egbert. I had never heard of Egbert, though the prisoners claimed he was a famed warrior. ‘A big man, lord,’ one had told me, ‘even taller than you! A scarred face!’ the prisoner had shuddered in remembered fear.

‘Was he on the ship that sank?’ I had asked. We had not captured anyone resembling Egbert’s description so I assumed he was dead.

‘He was on the Hælubearn, lord, the small ship.’

Hælubearn meant ‘child of healing’, but it was also a term the Christians used for themselves, and I wondered if all four ships had carried pious names. I suspected they did because another prisoner, clutching a wooden cross hanging at his breast, said that Father Ceolnoth had promised every man that they would go straight to heaven with all their sins forgiven if they succeeded in slaughtering me. ‘Why would Egbert be on the smallest ship?’ I had wondered aloud.

‘It was the fastest, lord,’ the first prisoner told me. ‘Those other boats are pigs to sail. Hælubearn might be small, but she’s nimble.’

‘Meaning he could escape if there was trouble,’ I had commented sourly, and the prisoners just nodded.

I reckoned I would learn nothing from Father Ceolnoth, but Wistan, I thought, was vulnerable to kindness and so, when the meal was over, Eadith and I took the boy to Bebbanburg’s chapel, which is built on a lower ledge of rock beside the great hall. It is made of timber like most of the fortress, but the Christians among my men had laid a flagstone floor which they had covered with rugs. The chapel is not large, maybe twenty paces long and half as wide. There are no windows, just a wooden altar at the eastern end, a scattering of milking stools, and a bench against the western wall. Three of the walls are hung with plain woollen cloths that block the draughts, while on the altar is a silver cross, kept well polished, and two large candles which are permanently lit.

Wistan seemed bemused when I led him inside. He glanced nervously at Eadith who, like him, wore a cross. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.

I sat on the bench and leaned against the wall. ‘We thought you might want to pray,’ I said.

‘It’s a consecrated space,’ Eadith reassured the boy.

‘We have a priest too,’ I added. ‘Father Cuthbert. He’s a friend and he lives in the fortress here. He’s blind and old and some days he feels unwell and then he asks the priest from the village to take his place.’