We could have sailed that evening, but we were tired and the shoals around Sceapig are treacherous and best tackled in daylight. We were safe for the night, we could sleep under the watch of our sentries and there was a hummock of dry ground where we could make a fire.

The wind died in the darkness, then came again with the dawn, only now it was a west wind, brisk and warm. I wanted to leave, wanted to be sailing Spearhafoc north along the East Anglian coast, wanted to leave Wessex and its treachery far behind, but Benedetta asked me to wait.

‘Why wait?’ I asked her.

‘We have things to do,’ she said distantly.

‘So do I! A voyage!’

‘It will not take long, lord.’ She still wore the grey cloak and hood, her face shadowed from the sun that rose behind her to gloss the Swalwan Creek with a shimmer of red gold.

‘What won’t take long?’ I asked irritably.

‘What we must do,’ she said stubbornly.

I understood then. ‘There’s privacy under the steering platform,’ I told her, ‘and buckets.’

‘Eadgifu is a queen!’ Benedetta said with a touch of anger. ‘Queens do not crouch in a stinking space over a dirty bucket!’

‘We can wash the buckets,’ I suggested, but received nothing in reply but a scornful look. I sighed. ‘You want me to find her a palace?’

‘I want you to give her some privacy. Some dignity,’ Benedetta said. ‘She is a queen! We can go to the alehouse, yes?’ she pointed across the creek.

‘That harbour will be full of Æthelhelm’s troops,’ I said. ‘Better to piss in a bucket than fall into their hands.’

‘Then the reeds will do,’ she said stiffly, ‘but your men must stay away.’

Which meant I had to order two of the rowing benches to be loosened and fashioned into a makeshift gangplank, then post sentries to guard the reeds from anyone approaching whatever place the women chose, and finally threaten death by dismemberment if any of those sentries were within sight of the women. Then we waited. I talked to Awyrgan as the sun rose higher, but he could tell me little of what had happened in Fæfresham the previous day. He had posted his men as guards on the road that led to Lundene, then been surprised by Æthelhelm’s horsemen who had attacked him from the south. ‘We fled, lord,’ he confessed.

‘What of Sigulf?’

‘I don’t know, lord.’

‘The last I heard,’ I said, ‘they were negotiating.’

‘Which only bought them time to take her ladyship from the convent,’ Awyrgan said bitterly.

‘Then you’re fortunate I was here,’ I said.

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Indeed, lord.’

I looked across the reed beds, wondering what on earth took the women so long, then back over the creek. At first light the harbour had appeared deserted, but now I could see men there, red-cloaked men. I pointed to them. ‘Æthelhelm’s men,’ I told Awyrgan, ‘which suggests Sigulf lost. And they can see us. They’ll be coming for us.’