Sword of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

said suspiciously, nodding towards Spearhafoc.

      ‘They’re mostly slaves, master,’ Gerbruht said, ‘and some of them we’ll sell in Lundene.’

      The man still stared at Spearhafoc, but my crew was either slumped on the benches or huddling under the steering platform, and in the day’s dull light and because of the sheeting rain he could not tell whether they were slaves or not. ‘You’re slave-traders?’

      ‘We are,’ I said.

      ‘Then there’s customs duty to pay! How many slaves?’

      ‘Thirty, master,’ I said.

      He paused. I could see he was wondering how much he dared ask. ‘Fifteen shillings,’ he finally said, thrusting out a hand. This time I just gaped at him, and he put a hand on his sword hilt. ‘Fifteen shillings,’ he said slowly, as if he suspected a Frisian could not understand him, ‘or we confiscate your cargo.’

      ‘Yes, master,’ I said, and carefully counted fifteen silver shillings and dropped them into his palm.

      He grinned, happy to have fooled foreigners. ‘Got any juicy women in that ship?’

      ‘We sold the last three at Dumnoc, master,’ I said.

      ‘Pity,’ he said.

      His companion chuckled. ‘Wait a few days and we might have a couple of young boys to sell you.’

      ‘How young?’

      ‘Infants.’

      ‘It’s none of your business!’ The first man interrupted, plainly angered that his companion had mentioned the boys.

      ‘We pay well for small boys,’ I said. ‘They can be whipped and trained. A plump docile boy can fetch a good price!’ I took a gold coin from my purse and tossed it up and down a couple of times. I was doing my best to imitate Gerbruht’s Frisian accent and was evidently successful because neither man seemed to suspect anything. ‘Young boys,’ I said, ‘sell almost as well as young women.’

      ‘The boys might or might not be for sale,’ the first man said grudgingly, ‘and if you do buy them you’ll have to sell them abroad. Can’t be sold here.’ He was eyeing the gold coin that I slipped back into the pouch, making sure it clinked against the other coins.

      ‘Your name, master?’ I asked respectfully.

      ‘Wighelm.’

      ‘I am Liudulf,’ I said, using a common Frisian name. ‘And we seek shelter, nothing more.’

      ‘How long are you staying, old man?’

      ‘How far to Contwaraburg?’ I asked.

      ‘Ten miles,’ he said. ‘A man can walk there in a morning, but it might take you a week. How do you plan to get there? Crawl?’ He and his companion laughed.

      ‘I would stay long enough to reach Contwaraburg and then return,’ I said.

      ‘And we crave shelter, master,’ Gerbruht added from behind me.

      ‘Use one of the cottages over there,’ Wighelm said, nodding towards the further bank of the small harbour, ‘but make sure your damned slaves stay shackled.’

      ‘Of course, master,’ I said, ‘and thank you, master. God will bless your kindness.’

      Wighelm sneered at that, then he and his companion stepped back into the tavern. I had a glimpse of men at tables, then the door was slammed and I heard the bar drop into its brackets.

      ‘Was he the town reeve?’ Folcbald asked as we walked back to the ship.

      It was not a foolish question. I knew Æthelhelm had land all across southern Britain, and he probably did own parts of Cent, but it was most unlikely that Eadgifu would seek refuge anywhere near one of those estates. ‘He’s a lying bastard is what he is,’ I said, ‘and he owes me eighteen shillings.’

      I assumed Wighelm or one of his men was watching from the tavern as we rowed Spearhafoc across the creek and moored against a half-rotted wharf. I made most of my crew shuffle as they left the ship, pretending to be shackled. They grinned at the deception, but the rain was so hard and the day so dark that I doubted anyone would notice the pretence. Most of the crew had to use a store hut for their shelter because there was no room in the small cottage, where a driftwood fire blazed furiously. The cottager, a big man called Kalf, was a fisherman. He and his wife watched sullenly as a dozen of us filled his room. ‘You were mad to be at sea in this weather,’ he finally said in broken English.

      ‘The gods preserved us,’ I answered in Danish.

      His face brightened. ‘You’re Danes!’

      ‘Danes, Saxons, Irish, Frisians, Norsemen, and everything in between.’ I put two shillings on a barrel that was used as their table. I was not surprised to find Danes here, they had invaded this part of Cent years before and many had stayed, had married Centish women, and adopted Christianity. ‘One of those,’ I said, nodding at the silver shillings, ‘is for sheltering us. The other is for opening your mouth.’

      ‘My mouth?’ he was puzzled.

      ‘To tell me what’s happening here,’ I said as I took Serpent-Breath and my helmet from the big leather bag.

      ‘Happening?’ Kalf asked nervously, watching as I buckled the big sword at my waist.

      ‘In the town,’ I said, nodding southwards. Ora and its small harbour lay a short walk from Fæfresham itself, which was built on the higher ground inland. ‘And those men in red cloaks,’ I went on, ‘how many are they?’

      ‘Three crews.’

      ‘Ninety men?’

      ‘About that, lord.’ Kalf had heard Berg address me as ‘lord’.

      ‘Three crews,’ I repeated. ‘How many are here?’

      ‘There are twenty-eight men in the tavern, lord,’ Kalf’s wife answered confidently and, when I looked enquiringly at her, she nodded. ‘I had to cook for the bastards, lord. There are twenty-eight.’

      Twenty-eight men to guard the ships. Our story of being Frisian slave-traders must have convinced Wighelm or else he would surely have tried to stop us landing. Or possibly, knowing his small force could not fight my much larger crew, he was being cautious, first by insisting we landed on the creek’s far side from the tavern, and then by sending a messenger south to Fæfresham. ‘So the rest of the crews are in Fæfresham?’ I asked Kalf.

      ‘We don’t know, lord.’

      ‘So tell me what you do know.’

      Two weeks before, he said, at the last full moon, a ship had come from Lundene carrying a group of women, a small boy, two babies, and a half-dozen men. They had gone to Fæfresham, he knew, and the women and children had vanished into the convent. Four of the men had stayed in the town, the other two had purchased horses and ridden away. Then, just three days ago, the three ships with their red-cloaked crews had arrived in the harbour, and most of the newcomers had gone south to the town. ‘They don’t tell us what they’re doing here, lord.’

      ‘They’re not nice!’ the wife put in.

      ‘Nor are we,’ I said grimly.

      I could only guess what had happened, though it was not hard. Eadgifu’s plan had plainly been betrayed and Æthelhelm had sent men to thwart her. The priest who came to Bebbanburg had told me that she had endowed a convent in Fæfresham, and Æthelhelm might well have assumed she would flee there and have sent men to trap her. ‘Are the women and children still in Fæfresham?’ I asked Kalf.

      ‘We haven’t heard that they’ve left,’ he said uncertainly.

      ‘But you’d have heard if the men in red cloaks had invaded the convent?’

      Kalf’s