There was another awkward pause as Finan and I digested that. ‘Then you’d better come,’ I said.

I left Berg in charge of the house and the ship. I would rather have taken the young Norseman with me because he was invaluable in a fight, but after Finan he was my most reliable man. ‘Keep the doors barred,’ I told him, ‘and put a larger guard on Spearhafoc. I don’t want her burned in the night.’

‘You think Waormund will come back?’

‘I don’t know what Waormund will do,’ I told him. So far as I could tell Waormund only had the five men, far fewer than I did, but his presence in the city still troubled me. My reason said that he was helpless, trapped and outnumbered in a city possessed by his enemies, but my instinct was screaming that there was danger. ‘Maybe Æthelhelm has others hidden in the city,’ I told Berg. ‘Your job is to keep the queen and her sons safe. You don’t fight a battle if Waormund comes, you get everyone on board Spearhafoc and you take her out into the river where the queen will be safe.’

‘She will be safe, lord,’ Berg promised me.

‘And you hold the ship in the river till we come back,’ I ordered him.

‘And if you don’t come back?’ Berg asked, hastily adding, ‘Which you will, lord. Of course you will.’

‘Then you go home to Bebbanburg and you take Queen Eadgifu with you.’

‘I go home?’ he sounded appalled that he would have to leave without me.

‘You go home,’ I said.

I took Finan and six other men, all in mail, all helmeted, and all carrying long-swords. We walked east, following the wall the Romans had built to face the river, a wall that was now much pierced by ragged holes to give access to the busy wharves. I suspected we passed the slave house where Benedetta had been treated so brutally, but if we did she said nothing. The narrow street was dark except where flame-light was cast through a door or window, and as we approached any such building the noise inside would cease at the sound of our footsteps. Babies were hushed and dogs quieted. Any person we saw, and they were very few, scurried out of our path into the shadows of a doorway or alley. The city was nervous, frightened of becoming the victim to men’s ambitions.

We turned into the wider street that led uphill from Lundene’s bridge. We passed a big tavern called the Red Pig, an ale-house that had always been popular with Æthelhelm’s troops when they were in the city. ‘Remember the Pig?’ I asked Finan.

He chuckled. ‘You hanged a man from the tavern sign.’

‘A Centishman,’ I said. A fight had started in the street and had looked as if it might turn into a riot, and the quickest way to end it had been to hang a man.

A torch burned outside the Red Pig, but despite that flickering light Finan tripped on a slab and almost fell. He swore, then wiped his hand on his cloak. ‘Lundene,’ he said bitterly, ‘where the streets are paved with shit.’