Shef shook his head and gestured with bound hands to the leather bottle at a man’s belt. Silently the man passed it over. It was full of beer—muddy, thick with barley husks, drawn all too obviously from the bottom of a cask; Shef drank it down in steady gulps, till he could tilt his head back and drain out the last drops. He finished, wiped his mouth, feeling as if the beer had swollen him out like an empty skin, handed the bottle back. There was a grunt of amusement as the pirates watched his face.

“Good, eh? Beer is good. Life is good. If you want more of both, you’d better tell us. Tell us everything he said.”

Dolgfinn the Viking watched Shef’s face with his usual, unblinking intensity. He saw on it doubt, but no fear. Also, stubbornness, knowledge. The lad would do a deal, he reflected. It would have to be the right one. He turned away and beckoned, a preconcerted signal. From a group a little way off, a large man came walking, gold round his neck, left hand resting on the silver pommel of a sword. Shef recognized him instantly. It was the big man he had fought in the skirmish on the causeway. Sigvarth, jarl of the Small Isles. His father.

As he strolled forward, the others drew back a few paces, leaving the two face-to-face. They studied one another for a few seconds, each staring the other up and down, the older man looking at the younger’s physique, the younger staring intently into his father’s face. He’s looking at me the same way I’m looking at him, thought Shef. He’s looking to see if he can recognize himself in me, just as I am at him. He knows.

“We’ve met before,” remarked Sigvarth. “On the causeway in the marsh. Muirtach told me there was a young Englishman walking round claiming he’d fought me. Now they tell me you’re my son. The leech’s assistant, the boy who came with you. He says so. Is that true?”

Shef nodded.

“Good. You’re a burly lad, and you fought well that day. See here, son”—Sigvarth stepped forward and put a broad hand round Shef’s biceps, squeezing gently—“You’re on the wrong side. I know your mother’s English. That’s true of half the men in the Army. English, or Irish, or Frankish, or Finnish or Lapp for that matter. But blood goes with the father. And I know you were brought up by the English—by that fool you were trying to rescue. But what have they ever done for you? If they knew you were my son I dare say you had a hard life of it. Eh?”

He looked into Shef’s eyes, conscious that he had scored a point.