‘Benedetta is my treasured companion,’ Eadgifu explained.

‘And evidently a long way from home,’ I remarked.

‘Home!’ Benedetta almost spat the word at me. ‘Where is home, Lord Uhtred, when slavers come and take you away?’

‘Slavers?’

‘Saraceni pigs,’ she said. ‘I was twelve years old. And you have not answered me, Lord Uhtred.’

I looked at her again and thought this fine, defiant woman was as beautiful as her royal mistress. ‘I haven’t answered you?’

‘Where is safe?’

‘If Lady Eadgifu’s brother survives,’ I said, ‘then she is free to join him. If not, we go to Bebbanburg.’

‘Sigulf will come,’ Eadgifu said confidently, though immediately after speaking she made the sign of the cross.

‘I hope so,’ I said awkwardly, and wondered how I would cope with Eadgifu and her companions in Bebbanburg. The fortress was comfortable, but offered nothing like the luxuries of the palaces at Wintanceaster and Lundene. Then there were the rumours of plague in the north, and if Eadgifu and her children were to die in my fortress then men in Wessex would say I had killed them just as they claimed I had killed Æthelhelm the Elder.

‘My brother will come,’ Eadgifu interrupted my thoughts, ‘and besides, I cannot go to Bebbanburg.’

‘You’ll be safe there, my lady,’ I said.

‘My son,’ she said, pointing to the eldest of her children, ‘should be King of Wessex. He cannot be king if we are hiding in Northumbria!’

I half smiled. ‘Ælfweard will be king,’ I said gently, ‘and Æthelstan will try to be king, so there will be war, my lady. Best to be far away from it.’

‘There will be no war,’ she said, ‘because Æthelstan will be king.’

‘Æthelstan?’ I asked, surprised. I had thought she would press her son’s claim to the throne over Æthelstan’s. ‘He’ll only be king if he defeats Ælfweard,’ I added.

‘Æthelstan will be King of Mercia. My husband,’ she said those last two words with venom in her tone, ‘has made the decision. It is in his will. Ælfweard, horrible boy, will be King of Wessex and of East Anglia, and Æthelstan will be King of Mercia. It is decided.’ I just stared at her, scarce believing what I had heard. ‘They are half-brothers,’ Eadgifu went on, ‘and they each get what they want, so there will be no war.’

And still I stared. Edward was dividing his kingdom? That was madness. His father’s dream had been to make one kingdom out of four, and Edward had brought that dream so close to reality, yet now he would take an axe to it? And he believed that would bring peace? ‘Truly?’ I asked.

‘Truly!’ Eadgifu answered. ‘Æthelstan will rule in Mercia and the nasty pig boy will rule the other two kingdoms until my brother defeats him. Then my Edmund will be king.’

Madness, I thought again, pure madness. Fate, that malevolent bitch, had surprised me again, and I tried to persuade myself that it was none of my business. Let Ælfweard and Æthelstan fight it out, let the Saxons kill each other in a welter of blood and I would go back north. But the malevolent bitch had still not done with me. Æthelhelm lived, and I had made an oath.