The pot held the chopped roots of some plant mixed with a host of small brown seeds. I had looked at Beadwulf in the hut’s gloom. “Seeds and roots?”

“It’s the secret of the úlfhéðnar, lord,” he had said.

I took out a handful and sniffed. It stank. “What are they?”

“Henbane, lord.”

I had let the seeds and roots fall back. Henbane was a weed, and we feared it because it could poison pigs, and pigs were valuable. “The úlfhéðnar eat this?” I had asked, dubiously.

Beadwulf shook his head. “I pound the mixture, lord,” he showed me a pestle and mortar on the shelf, “then make an ointment of wool grease and the crushed plant.”

“And Arnborg trusted you?”

“I was a herbalist in the monastery, lord. I know things that Arnborg’s folk never discovered. When his wife was sick I cured her with celandine. You use the roots and you must say the Pater Noster ten times as you mix—”

“I don’t care about celandine,” I had snarled, “tell me about the henbane.”

“I made the ointment for Jarl Arnborg, lord, and it was better than the paste Snorri made.”

“Snorri?”

“Sköll’s sorcerer, lord. He is a powerful sorcerer, lord,” Beadwulf had made the sign of the cross when he said that, “but he used the leaves and petals of the plant to make his ointment. The seeds and roots have more power.”

“So you make an ointment?”

“And the warriors smear it on their skin, lord.”

“And what does that do?”

“The men think they can fly, lord. They stagger, they howl. Sometimes they just fall asleep, but in battle it turns them into madmen.”

I sniffed the pot again and almost retched. “Have you tried it?”

“Yes, lord.”

“And?”

“I thought I saw God, lord. He glowed and had wings.”

“You saw God? Not Wynflæd?”

He had blushed. “I am a sinner, lord.”

I gave him back the pot. “So Arnborg took seeds with him?”

“He took four jars of the prepared ointment, lord.”

“You have the grease?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Make me a pot,” I had ordered him.

“Lord?” he had pleaded, and waited till I nodded. “If I stay here, lord,” he went on, “Eerika will kill me. She will think I brought you here.”

“You did bring me here,” I had said, “but if you’re so scared, just go. Walk south. Take your girl.”

“They’ll follow me, lord. Take us with you. I can treat the sick. Please, lord.”

I had scowled at him. “How can I trust you?”

“Do I look like a man who would offend you again, lord?”

And that, I confess, had made me smile. Beadwulf was thoroughly cowed. It would have been easy to kill him, even satisfying, but Wynflæd was so pathetic, so wan and childlike, that I relented. “Make me the wolf ointment,” I had told him, “and then you can ride with us.”

We plundered the hall for warm clothing, took all eight horses that were still in Arnborg’s stables, burned the three ships at the wharf, and, under a pale afternoon sun, went eastward.