They reached their home. All that was left was the fireplace, with the iron tripod still standing over it.

To one side of the ruin was the body of Pa. Ma gave a cry of horror and grief, and fell to her knees. Edgar knelt beside her and put his arm around her shaking shoulders.

Pa’s right arm had been severed near the shoulder, presumably by the blade of an ax, and he seemed to have bled to death. Edgar thought of the strength and skill that had been in that arm, and he wept angry tears at the waste and loss.

He heard Eadbald say: “Look at the yard.”

Edgar stood up and wiped his eyes. At first he was not sure what he was seeing, and he rubbed his eyes again.

The yard had burned. The vessel under construction and the stock of timber had been reduced to piles of ash, along with the tar and rope. All that remained was the whetstone they had used to sharpen their tools. In among the cinders, Edgar made out charred bones too small to be human, and he guessed that poor old Grendel had burned to death at the end of his chain.

All the family’s wealth had been in that yard.

Not only had they lost the yard, Edgar realized; they had lost their livelihood. Even if a customer had been willing to order a boat from three apprentices, they had no wood with which to build it, no tools to shape the timber, and no money to buy any of what they needed.

Ma probably had a few silver pennies in her purse, but the family had never had much to spare, and Pa had always used any surplus to buy timber. Good wood was better than silver, he had liked to say, because it was harder to steal.

“We’ve got nothing left, and no way to make a living,” Edgar said. “What on earth are we going to do?”

CHAPTER 2

Saturday, June 19, 997

ishop Wynstan of Shiring reined in his horse at the top of a rise and looked down over Combe. There was not much left of the town: the summer sun shone on a gray wilderness. “It’s worse than I expected,” he said. There were some ships and boats undamaged in the harbor, the only hopeful sign.

His brother Wigelm came alongside and said: “Every Viking should be roasted alive.” He was a thane, a member of the landholding elite. Five years younger than Wynstan at thirty, he was quick to anger.

But this time Wynstan agreed with him. “Over a slow fire,” he said.

Their elder half brother heard them. As was the custom, the brothers had names that sounded alike, and the oldest was Wilfwulf, forty, usually called Wilf. He was ealdorman of Shiring, ruler of a part of the west of England that included Combe. He said: “You’ve never seen a town after a Viking raid. This is how it looks.”