‘But you’d have heard if the men in red cloaks had invaded the convent?’

Kalf’s wife made the sign of the cross. ‘We’d have heard that, lord!’ she said grimly.

So the king still lived, or at least the news of his death had yet to reach Fæfresham. It was obvious what Æthelhelm’s men had come to do in Cent, but they would not dare lay hands on Queen Eadgifu and her sons until they were certain Edward was dead. The king had recovered before, and while he lived he still possessed the power of the throne and there would be trouble if he recovered again and then discovered his wife had been forcibly detained by Æthelhelm’s men. Thunder hammered close and the wind seemed to shake the small cottage. ‘Is there a way to reach Fæfresham,’ I asked Kalf, ‘without being seen from the tavern across the water?’

He frowned for a moment. ‘There’s a drainage ditch back yonder,’ he pointed eastwards. ‘Follow that south, lord, and you’ll find reed beds. They’ll hide you.’

‘What about the creek?’ I asked. ‘Do we need to cross it to reach the town?’

‘There’s a bridge,’ Kalf’s wife said.

‘And the bridge might be guarded,’ I said, though I doubted any guards would be alert in this filthy weather.

‘It’ll be low tide soon,’ Kalf assured me, ‘you can wade it.’

‘Don’t tell me we’re going back into this rain,’ Finan said.

‘We’re going back into this rain. Thirty of us. You want to stay and guard Spearhafoc?’

‘I want to watch what you’re doing. I like watching crazy people.’

‘Do we take shields?’ Berg asked, more sensibly.

I thought about that. We had to cross the creek, and shields were heavy, and my plan was to turn back once we were on the far bank and rid ourselves of Wighelm and his men. The fight, I thought, would be inside the tavern and I did not intend to give the enemy time to equip themselves for battle. In a small room the large shields would be an encumbrance, not a help. ‘No shields,’ I said.

It was madness. Not just to go into the afternoon’s storm and wade through a flooding ditch, but to be here at all. It was an easy excuse to say I was trapped by my oath to Æthelstan, but I could have discharged that oath by simply riding with a handful of followers to join Æthelstan’s forces in Mercia. Instead I was wading through a mucky ditch, soaked to the skin, cold, deep inside a country that thought me an enemy, and relying on a fickle queen to let me fulfil my oath.

Eadgifu had failed. If what the priest had told me was true she had come south to raise forces from her brother Sigulf, the Ealdorman of Cent, and instead she was inside a convent that was ringed by her enemies. Those enemies would wait until the king died before they seized her, but seize her they would and then arrange for the death of her two young sons. She had claimed to be making a pilgrimage to Contwaraburg, but Æthelhelm, who was staying close to the dying king, had seen through that pretence, he had sent men to find her, and, I suspected, despatched more men to persuade Sigulf that any attempt to support his sister would be met with overwhelming force. So Æthelhelm had won.