Sunngifu was one of the women. “What I don’t understand,” I said to her, “is why you need a convent in Mameceaster.”

“Nuns are needed everywhere, Lord Uhtred,” she said.

“Mameceaster,” I said, “is a frontier burh. All the land around it is pagan, nasty and dangerous.”

“Like you?”

I looked down at her. I had offered her one of my spare horses, but she had refused, claiming that Jesus’s disciples had walked everywhere, so she and the sisters should do the same. “I’m nasty?” I asked. She just smiled. She was so breathtakingly beautiful even in a dark gray habit with a cowl covering her startling fair hair. “You’d better hope I am nasty,” I told her, “because that will keep you safe.”

“Jesus keeps me safe, lord.”

“Jesus will be no damned use to you if a Danish war-band comes out of that wood.” I nodded toward a stretch of leafless trees to the east, and thought of Abbess Hild, my friend now in far-off Wintanceaster, who had been raped repeatedly by Guthrum’s Danes. “It’s a cruel world, Mus,” I said, using her old nickname, “and you have to hope the warriors defending you are just as cruel as your enemies.”

“Are you cruel, lord?”

“I’m good at war,” I told her, “and war is cruel.”

She looked ahead to where Æthelstan’s horsemen rode. “Will they be enough to protect us?”

“How many other travelers have you seen on this road?” I asked. We were going north, entering low hills and leaving the wide flat plain with its lazy rivers behind us.

“Not many,” she said.

“Just three today,” I said, “and why? Because this is dangerous country. It’s mostly Danish with just a few Saxons. Until Edward made his burh at Mameceaster it was ruled by a Dane, and that was only two years ago. Now that country is being settled by Norsemen. I think it’s madness sending you to Mameceaster.”

“Then why won’t you protect us all the way?”

“Because twenty-two warriors are enough to keep you safe,” I said confidently, “and because I have urgent business somewhere else and it will be quicker for me to cut across country.” I was tempted to escort the nuns all the way to Mameceaster, but the temptation was solely because of Mus. I wondered about her. When she had been married to Bishop Leofstan she had whored enthusiastically, but Æthelstan had been certain she was a reformed sinner. Maybe she was, but I did not like to ask her. “What will you do in Mameceaster?” I asked instead.

“Maybe I’ll take my vows.”

“Why haven’t you taken them yet?”

“I don’t feel worthy, lord.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “Prince Æthelstan believes you’re the holiest woman he knows.”

“And the prince is a good man, lord, a very good man,” she said, smiling, “but he doesn’t know women very well.”

Something in her tone made me look at her again, but her face was all innocence, so I ignored her remark. “So what will you do in Mameceaster?” I asked instead.