‘She is Queen of Mercia until we hear of her husband’s death,’ he said primly, and he was, indeed, a prim little man with a coronet of wispy brown hair surrounding a bald pate. He noticed the hammer at my neck and grimaced. ‘The queen,’ he continued, still looking at the hammer, ‘wishes that we wait for news from the town.’

‘We’ll wait,’ I said.

‘And then, lord?’

‘If she wishes to go with her brother? She can go. Otherwise she goes with us to Bebbanburg.’ I looked up at the wharf. ‘Gerbruht!’

‘Lord?’

‘Get rid of those ships!’ I pointed to the three ships that had brought Æthelhelm’s men from Lundene to this muddy harbour. ‘Take what’s useful from them first,’ I called after him.

We salvaged sealhide ropes, new oars made from larch wood, two barrels of ale, three of salted pork, and a faded banner of the leaping stag. We heaped them all in Spearhafoc, then Gerbruht fetched a metal bucket of embers from the tavern’s hearth and blew the embers to life in the bellies of the three ships. ‘The crosses,’ Father Aart said when he realised what was happening.

‘Crosses?’

‘On the front of the ships! You can’t burn our Lord’s symbol.’

I growled in frustration, but recognised his unhappiness. ‘Gerbruht,’ I bellowed, ‘remove the crosses from the prows!’

All three ships were alight before he and Beornoth managed to knock out the pegs holding the crosses. ‘What do I do with it?’ he asked when the first came loose.

‘I don’t care! Float it!’

He threw the cross overboard, then jumped to help Beornoth loosen the second cross. They freed it, scrambled aft, and escaped the flames just in time, but were too late to save the third cross, and I wondered what kind of omen that was. My men apparently saw nothing sinister because they were cheering. They always enjoyed destruction and they whooped like children as the flames seared up the tarred rigging, then as the fire reached the sails that were furled tight on the yards and they too erupted in flame and smoke. ‘Was that necessary?’ Father Aart asked.

‘You want to be pursued by three shiploads of Æthelhelm’s warriors?’ I asked in return.

‘No, lord.’

‘It was necessary,’ I said, though in truth I doubted that any of the three ships could have caught Spearhafoc. They were typical West Saxon ships, well-made but heavy, brutish to row and sluggish under sail.

The wind had gone around to the south-west. The evening air was warm, the sky almost cloudless, though now smirched by the pyre of dark smoke from the burning boats. The tide was low, but had turned and the flood had begun. I had moved Spearhafoc well away from the blazing ships and moored her to the most northerly wharf, close to the entrance channel. Fisherfolk watched from their houses, but they stayed well clear both of the fire and of us. They were wary, and with good reason. The sun was low in the west, but the summer days were long and we had two or three hours of daylight left. ‘I won’t stay here overnight, my lady,’ I told Eadgifu.