The girl glared at the thegn. 'So what now, greybeard? Will you cut off my head and give it to the King?'

To Cynewulf's relief the thegn seemed more amused than angry. 'You need to get this one under better control, priest.'

'Believe me, I've tried.'

'You see, my problem is this. If nothing is written down, what proof do you have of what you say?'

'This.' Cynewulf reached into his robe and produced a letter on vellum, crumpled and stained by his own sweat; he had carried it across the country and back. 'This is a safe-conduct signed by the King himself. It has kept me alive, more than once – for even among the heathen Northmen Alfred's name carries weight.'

The thegn took the letter. Cynewulf noted that he held it upside down. He passed it to the foreigner. 'Read it, Ibn Zuhr.' The foreigner murmured something Cynewulf couldn't hear, and passed the letter back to the thegn – who, to Cynewulf's horror, crumpled it and trod it into the dirt. 'An obvious forgery. On your way, priest, if you don't want to leave your head behind.'

'But – but-' Cynewulf got to his knees, retrieved his precious note, and tried to smooth it out. 'Can you not read, man? Can't you see?'

Aebbe placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Priest. Calm down.'

'But these dolts – I have been across the country, I have faced down the heathen, only for this…'

But Aebbe was smiling. When Cynewulf looked up, wondering, he saw that the thegn was smiling too. And though his grin through the beard looked like a wound in a bear's thigh, something in his eyes, the shape of his mouth, was familiar.

'Arngrim? Is it you?'

Arngrim grinned wider. 'You always were easy to tease, cousin!' And he leaned down to clap Cynewulf on the shoulder.

Amgrim and Aebbe had to help Cynewulf up from his knees, and then they guided him into the hall of King Alfred.

Inside the hall Cynewulf was immersed in smoky warmth. A fire blazed in a huge central hearth, and rush torches on the walls cast bright light. There was a hubbub of rumbling conversation, for the hall was already crowded.

He breathed deep of the fuggy air and rubbed his hands, gleeful. 'At last, at last.'

Aebbe was unimpressed. 'You're glad to be here? In this tavern?'

Arngrim laughed. 'You'll have to forgive him. He grew up in places like this, so he feels at home. Come on, let's find somewhere to sit.'

They walked into the body of the hall. Two rows of century-old oaks divided the open floor into three aisles, like the Roman basilicas of older times. It was a massive wooden structure, an ark surely strong enough to withstand the mightiest storm. And if there was security here, there was wealth too. Though boar spears and deer skins hung on the walls, gold glinted everywhere, woven into the fabric of the tapestries on the walls, even inlaid into the mead benches.

The hall was packed. Cynewulf knew he would find many of the great men of Wessex here: bishops, thegns, and ealdormen, the great land-owners. They had been summoned on Saint Stephen's Day for the King's witan, and were still here this January evening, the end of the feast of the Twelve Days of Christmas. The town of Cippanhamm was full of their families and retainers, and even here in the hall a few children picked at the food on the tables.

Some of the men were sleeping, worn out by the long days of festivities. They lay on blankets on the floor behind the mead benches, with their polished wooden shields at their heads and their armour and weapons heaped up on the benches. These days even bishops were never out of reach of their swords.

And at the head of the hall, opposite the great door, seated on his giving-throne, was the King himself. Alfred was a young man with a young family; his wife stood at his shoulder and children sat as his feet while lines of supplicants approached him. Among the warriors who drank on the mead benches must be the King's hearth-companions, his bodyguard and closest allies.

Cynewulf felt hugely reassured to be in the presence of this mass of great men, bound to each other and their King by oaths, the foundation of the law. A king's hall was the very pivot of English society. He turned to Aebbe, beaming helplessly. 'I told you I would bring you home.'

Aebbe still wasn't impressed. 'And that,' she said, pointing, 'is the King. Him?'

Cynewulf looked again, and saw the King through her eyes. Alfred was a tall, pale man, his hair worn long and loose. Clean-shaven, he had a remarkably long chin that gave his face a perpetually mournful expression. His habit was almost as plain as Cynewulf's, but it glistened with gold's lustre. As the petitioners spoke to him, clerks at his elbows frantically scribbled down a record of all that was said, but the King was racked by fits of coughing, during which the clerks paused, their quill pens poised. After a few moments Alfred waved away his petitioners and bowed his head as a priest at his side began to intone prayers.

Aebbe said, 'The last English king. The only man who stands before the Danes. And you tell me I am safe here, Cynewulf.'

Cynewulf tried to suppress his own doubts. Alfred looked more a scholar than a warrior, it couldn't be denied. 'It is midwinter. The Danes never move in midwinter. And there is a truce between Alfred and Guthrum-'

'Well, at least the King is pious, just as you said. Maybe his prayers will keep away the Northmen.'

'For a girl born on a holy island you're terribly cynical.'

'But think what she's been through.' Arngrim was five years older than Cynewulf, and probably twice his weight. 'The monks abandoned their house on Lindisfarena long before she was born, bearing the bones of Saint Cuthbert with them. Christianity didn't help them much, did it? And since then you've had to run yourself, girl, haven't you?'

Aebbe's was a common story. More than eighty years after the first raid on Lindisfarena, and twelve years since the Danish army called the Force had landed in East Anglia and begun its purposeful rampage, the country's markets were ruined, trade withered, monasteries shattered, folk driven from their farms to starve. Even kings had died. Of the four great English kingdoms, only Wessex still stood. England was a land full of fear – and there were many, many refugees.

'I can look after myself,' Aebbe said defiantly. 'And as for Christ, there are many who say He has deserted England, for why would He let us suffer so?'

'You can see she's mixed up,' Cynewulf said hastily.

'You mustn't mind Cynewulf, Aebbe,' Arngrim said. 'Christianity is only a generation deep in our family. That's why Cynewulf works so hard at it. Even Alfred, pious as he might be, is directly descended from Cerdic, the first Saxon to land in Wessex four hundred years ago, who in turn was descended from Woden.'

The foreigner, Arngrim's companion, spoke for the first time. 'For a follower of your Christ-prophet the King seems remarkably fond of wealth. I am so blinded by his jewellery I can barely see him.' His voice was a deep brown tone, and he made Aebbe laugh.

Cynewulf turned on him. 'And who are you?'

The foreigner seemed to remember himself, and hastily dropped his eyes. 'I have no name but my master's. I apologise.'

Amgrim said, 'His name is Ibn Zuhr. I bought him at the slave market at Brycgstow.'

'A Moor,' Cynewulf said, startled.

'He has his uses. He can count, for example.'

'Even you can count,' Cynewulf said dryly.

'Not like him. He can compute sums beyond nine hundred!'

'Impossible,' breathed Cynewulf.

'Apparently not.'

'Why bring him here?'

Amgrim sighed. 'Alfred insists his thegns be Christian, and literate. Well, I can fake the Christianity but not the literacy, and I don't have time to learn, not with the Northmen rampaging around the country. If I have him I am literate too, at least by proxy. But he hasn't got me any closer to Alfred.'