“A knorr, master. It’s a merchant ship. Deep-bellied, for cargo.” He hesitated, afraid to show further knowledge, afraid to conceal it. “I can recognize ’un by … by the shape of the prow. They must be Vikings, master. We don’t use ’em.”

Godwin stared out to sea again, anger fading, replaced by a cold, hard feeling at the base of his stomach. Doubt. Dread.

“Listen, Merla, to me,” he whispered. “Be very sure. If those are Vikings must call out the entire coast-watch, every man from here to Bridlington. They are only churls and slaves, when all is said and done. No harm if they are dragged from their greasy wives.

“But I must do something else. As soon as the watch is called I must also send riders in to the minister at Beverley, to the monks of good St. John—your masters, remember?”

He paused to note the terror and the old memories in Merla’s eyes.

“And they will call out the mounted levy, the thanes of Ella. No good keeping them here, where the pirates could feint at Flamborough and then be twenty miles off round Spurn Head before they could get their horses out of the marsh. So they stay back, so they can ride in any direction once the threat is seen. But if I call them out, and they ride over here in the wind and the rain on a fool’s errand … And especially if some Viking sneaks in through the Humber while their backs are turned …

“Well, it would be bad for me, Merla.” His voice sharpened and he lifted the underfed slave off the ground. “But by almighty God in heaven I’ll see you regret it till the last day you live. And after the thrashing you get that may not be long.

“But, Merla, if those are Viking ships out there and you let me not report them—I’ll hand you back to the black monks and say I could do nothing with you.

“Now, what do you say? Viking ships, or no?”

The slave stared out again to sea, his face working. He would have been wiser, he thought, to say nothing. What was it to him if the Vikings sacked Flamborough, or Bridlington, or Beverley Minster itself? They could not enslave him any more than he was already. Maybe foreign heathens would be better masters than the people of Christ at home. Too late to think that now. The sky was clearing, momentarily. He could see, even if his weak-eyed landlubber of a master could not. He nodded.

“Two Viking ships, master. Two mile out to sea. Southeast.”