In the dark hour before dawn Shef pulled on his dew-soaked leather shoes, rose from the rustling straw pallet, wrapped his blanket-cloak round him and stepped out into the chill air of the late English summer. He walked through the still-sleeping camp like a ghost, with no weapon except the whetstone-scepter, cradled in the crook of his left arm. His freedmen did not ditch and stockade their camps like the ever-active Vikings, but at the edge sentries stood. Shef walked up to the shoulder of one of them, one of Lulla’s halberdiers, leaning on his weapon. His eyes were open but he paid no heed as Shef walked quietly past him and out into the dark wood.

Birds began to chirp as the sky paled in the east. Shef picked his way carefully through the tangles of hawthorn and nettle, found himself on a narrow path. It reminded him of the path he had followed with Godive the year before, as they had fled from Ivar. Sure enough, it led to a clearing and a shelter.

The day was up as he reached the clearing, and he could see plainly. The shelter was a mere hut. As he watched it, the ill-hung door opened and a woman came out. An old woman? Her face was worn with care, and had the pale, pinched look of the chronically underfed. But she was not so old, Shef realized, standing silent and motionless under the trees. She looked round, not seeing him, and then sank down in the feeble sunlight by the side of her hut. Put her face in her hands and began to weep silently.

“What’s the matter, Mother?”

She started convulsively as she heard Shef’s question, looked up with terror in her eyes. As she realized there was only one man, unarmed, she calmed.

“The matter? An old story, most of it. My man was taken off to join the king’s army …”

“Which king?” asked Shef.

She shrugged. “I do not know. It was months ago. He has never come back. All summer we were hungry. We are not slaves, but we have no land. With Edi not here to work for the rich, we had nothing. When the harvest started they let me glean grain from what the reapers missed—little enough. But it would have been enough, only it was too late. My child died, my daughter, two weeks ago.