Shef dismissed the thought as he finished his song and Hund, his attendant, pushed forward quickly, bag outstretched in appeal. The listening warriors pushed the little man from one to the other as he moved round the ring, but in little more than good nature. His bag filled a little with bread, a lump of hard cheese, half an apple, whatever they had about them. This was no way to work, of course. What a sensible pair would have done was to wait till evening, approach the lord after dinner and ask permission to entertain the company. Then there would be a chance of proper food afterward, a bed for the night, maybe even a gift of money or a bag filled with breakfast.

But their own ineptitude fitted their cover. Shef knew he could never have passed for a professional minstrel. He meant instead to look like a part of the debris of war that covered all England: a younger son crippled in battle, cast out by his lord, turned away as useless by his family, and now trying to keep from starvation by singing memories of glory. Hund’s skill had created a story on Shef’s body that anyone could read by looking at him. First he had carefully and artistically painted a great scar on Shef’s face, the slash-mark of an axe or a sword across the eyes. Then he had bandaged the fake scar with the filthy rags of an English army-leech, letting only the edges of it hint at what lay underneath. Then he had splinted and strapped Shef’s legs beneath his wide breeches so that it was impossible for him to bend a knee; and finally, as a refinement of torment, strapped a metal bar to his back to prevent any free movement.

“You dropped your guard,” he had said. “A Viking hit you across the face. As you fell forward you got the back of an axe, or a war-hammer, that crushed your spine. Now your legs can only trail behind you as you hobble on crutches. That’s your story.”

But no one had ever asked Shef his story. No experienced warrior needed to. Another reason that the Mercian companions did not bother to interrogate the cripple and his meager attendant was that they were afraid. Every warrior knew that such a fate one day might be his own. Kings and lords might keep a few cripples, pensioners, as signs of their own generosity or out of some family feeling. But gratitude or care for the useless were too expensive luxuries for a land at war.