‘A woman!’ a half-dozen voices echoed.

‘Share her!’ the first man called.

‘Keep going,’ I said, and followed Oswi through a half-broken arch that led into another alley. ‘Now hurry!’ I called, but hurrying was treacherous because it was pitch dark, the alley was narrow, and its footing nothing but earth and broken stone. I heard our pursuers shout again. They had reached the arch and were following us into the darkness. ‘Finan,’ I said.

‘A pleasure,’ he answered grimly, and the two of us let the others go past.

‘Bring her here!’ a man shouted. He received no answer, he could hear nothing but stumbling footsteps. ‘You bastards!’ he called again. ‘Bring the bitch here!’

Again he received no answer and so he came towards us, followed by four men. We could see them outlined against the small light from the main street, but they would have seen little of us because their looming shadows obscured our drawn swords. ‘Bring her here!’ the man bellowed again and then made a mewing sound as Serpent-Breath pierced his mail, tore through the muscles of his belly, and then twisted in his guts. He collapsed into me, his sword clattering on the ground, his right hand clutching at my mail coat. I brought my right knee up into his chin and the scream that had just begun became a bloody gurgle. I stepped back and wrenched Serpent-Breath free. Finan, with his usual lightning speed, had put his man down with no noise except for the hoarse bubbling gasp of a cut throat. I saw the blood spurt black across the alley and some splashed on my face as I stepped over the gut-slit man to thrust my blade into another. He tried to twist aside, but Serpent-Breath sliced across his ribs, tearing mail, then he tripped on the first dying man, and Beornoth, behind me, hammered down with his sword’s pommel to break the man’s skull open like an egg. Finan had taken a man’s eyes, and that man was screaming, hands clutched to his bloody face.

The last man stopped, then fled from the alley. Finan started after him, but I seized his arm. ‘Back,’ I said, ‘back! Leave him!’ The fugitive had already reached the wider torch-lit street.

We ran, looking for Oswi. I turned right into another alley, tripped, skinned my left hand on a wall, turned left again. Sudden shouts came as men discovered the carnage we had made. Finan tugged my sleeve and I followed him down three stone steps. The moon had come from behind cloud and I could see again, except that we were in the black shadow of gaunt stone walls. Ruins, I thought, then we crossed a moonlit space and turned into another alley. Where the hell was Oswi? I could hear shouts behind us. The last bell in the west of the city stopped tolling, then a voice called near us, ‘This way! This way!’ I saw a shadow within a shadow on top of a mound of broken stone. We clambered over and dropped down into bleak darkness. I trod on someone, Benedetta, who gasped, then I dropped beside her. ‘Quiet, lord!’ Oswi whispered. ‘Quiet!’