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Was his wife right? The dangers seemed so terrible to him, but Ricola had been reassuring: “She’s my friend. She won’t be angry with me. If we do nothing and the mistress gets sent away, where does that leave us? Out with her, or worse.”

Until the sermon, he had refused to think about it. Even now, he could not quite say why he had changed his mind. Had it been a sense that they should take a risk for this woman to whom they owed their lives? Or had it been something more general, a feeling he had taken from the preacher that somehow, thanks to this wonderful new god, everything would be all right? Only believe in His name, the preacher had said. He believed. He was sure he did. The Frey would protect them.

But now he was beginning to wonder again. He tried to put such thoughts away. Gradually, as the warmth from the venison and the thick, spicy ale spread pleasantly inside him, he began to feel that, after all, Ricola was right. There would be a fleeting incident. If it worked, well and good; if not, no harm would be done. He reached for the wooden beaker before him and drank some more ale.

The master, too, was eating and drinking well. He seemed content, if watchful. Elfgiva, wearing a fine gold band around her neck and looking, it seemed to Offa, as beautiful as any of the younger women, was graciously serving her guests with mead and ale. Everyone thanked her and raised their beakers to their host, swearing oaths of friendship and loyalty. Everything appeared as it should.

More than once, Offa noticed, Cerdic, flushed with warm mead, looked across at Elfgiva. Just let her look back at him, Offa silently prayed. One little look of surrender was all that was needed. If she would just give in that night, Ricola’s charade would be unnecessary and they could all go to their beds happy.

But though Elfgiva played her part she gave Cerdic no sign, and his face darkened. Other men would be with their wives that night, but not, it seemed, the merchant. Offa sighed. The plan would go ahead. As the feast wore on, he thought about it numbly.

It was almost the end of the feast when Ricola made her move.

People were drifting in and out. Men who had drunk a quantity of ale would step briefly outside. Already one or two couples, red-faced and well fed, had staggered off, not to return. When Cerdic went outside, and Ricola and Offa slipped out after him, nobody even noticed.

A short time later, Cerdic, returning, noticed the slave girl standing alone by the door of her hut. A faint light from the lamp inside showed her outline in the darkness; it also caught her short, fair hair, giving it a strange glow. She’s a pretty little thing, the merchant thought. The woollen shawl she was wearing round her shoulders had slipped, revealing the top of her breasts, which were small but well formed. If she was cold, she did not seem to notice it. Cerdic paused.

“Where’s your husband?”

She gave him a smile and nodded towards the hut.

“Sleeping. He’ll sober up tomorrow.”

He grinned. “All alone tonight then?”

She glanced up at him, pausing for just a fraction of a second before answering, “Looks like it.”

He began to turn away, but then did not. He looked at her thoughtfully. He felt a warmth stirring inside him. Other men were sleeping with their women that night, yet the master of the house would sleep alone.

Why should he?

The plan was simple enough. Crude, even. But not entirely stupid.

“All we need to do is let her see him coming after me. Nothing more.”

“Then she’ll blame you,” Offa had protested.

“No.” Ricola had shaken her head. “Not if we do it right. He’ll be wanting a woman. She’ll know that. I’ll be looking frightened because he’s the master and I don’t know what to do. You go and get her. Say I sent you, like I’m asking for help.”

“She’ll be angry with him.”

“Maybe. But he’s still her man. She isn’t going to have him sleeping with her own slave right in front of her. She’ll put a stop to that quickly, and there’s only one way a woman can do that.”

“So she’ll just take him off to bed herself?”

“She knows she can have him. This time she has to decide: take him or he grabs another woman. Move or not. On the spot. She’s his wife. If she’s half a woman, she’s got to make a move. After all,” Ricola wisely added, “if she was really ready to let him go, she wouldn’t still be here now.” This was the plan. The little push Elfgiva needed.

Through the darkness, Offa looked across the yard from the barn where he had been hiding. They were only twenty paces away and he could see them clearly enough by the dim light of the doorway. Ricola was playing her part well, laughing at something the master had just said, head a little thrown back. She was friendly, naturally warm, enticing without actually provoking him. She saw Offa as he slipped inside.

It was quite simple, but he had to be quick.

It was hot in Cerdic’s hall. For a second the air, thick with smoke, stung his eyes. The fire and lamps lit the scene with a warm glow. It was not as easy as he had expected to get to where Elfgiva was sitting. The table ran down the centre of the little hall. Halfway along, his path was blocked by two of the stockmen who had decided to pass out together in a heap, quietly snoring. Unable to skirt them, he climbed over instead. They did not notice.

At last he came to his mistress’s side, ready to say the words Ricola had made him rehearse carefully. He leaned forward.

But Elfgiva was talking to an elderly farmer from upriver. When the slave tried to speak to her, she waved him away. Since, however, the young fellow seemed insistent, she told him to wait. Politely she continued the conversation with the old farmer, who was telling her an interminable story. It was boring, but one must show respect. The farmer’s ancestor had killed no less than three men in battle, including a considerable chief from the north, before Elfgiva looked at the slave again and noticed that he was getting very agitated.

The message Offa had rehearsed was very simple. “My wife sent me, lady. She begs you to help her. She does not want to offend the master.” A loyal slave in an awkward position. He could leave the rest to her, Ricola had told him.

But time was passing. The farmer seemed well set to tell Elfgiva about his ancestor’s brothers too. Offa became anxious. When, at last, with a faint show of impatience, Elfgiva turned to him, he became confused.

“My wife –” he began.

“I shall not need her tonight.” Elfgiva smiled and started to turn away.

“No, lady. My wife –”

“Not now.” Again she was turning from him.

“My wife, lady,” he tried, a little desperately, then, forgetting his lines: “Your husband and my wife . . .” He gestured towards the door.

She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?” She smiled at the farmer quickly.

“They sent for you,” he blurted out, now hopelessly confused. And at last she shrugged, excused herself, and a moment later was moving towards the door.

What was keeping Offa? Ricola had calculated everything so carefully. She needed the merchant to go just so far and no further, but time had passed and Cerdic was getting excited. She wondered what to do. More time passed. The merchant had put his hand on her shoulder. Either she must fight him off now and provoke his anger, or . . .

Still they did not come. Cerdic’s smile was growing. She almost winced, tried gently to remove his hand, which had found her breast. Not yet, she wanted to scream. Not yet.

But he was stooping to kiss her.

When Elfgiva emerged from the low doorway into the darkness of the yard, she saw clearly enough the figures of her husband and the slave by the entrance of the little hut. Her husband was kissing the girl, who showed no sign of struggling. Her shawl lay on the ground beside her. As they disengaged and glanced towards her, Cerdic smiled with a mixture of guilt and triumph. But the girl, in a ridiculous pantomime of pushing him away, looked at her with fear.

At that moment, Elfgiva remembered only one thing. What had the little slave so impertinently said to her the other day? “If you won’t have him, others will”? Something like that. And now the girl thought she could take him herself.

Elfgiva shrugged. She was hurt, of course. She was furious. But if her husband chose to amuse himself with a slave, she thought with bitter contempt, it was a matter beneath her notice. Paying no more attention to Offa or the lovers, she turned back to the feast, followed by the young fellow, who was trying to say something. She did not even listen.

For this was the one thing that poor Ricola had not fully understood. Her mistress might confide in her when she was in distress, but to the high-born Saxon lady, the girl was still only a slave. She was not a rival. Hardly even an embarrassment. She was a chattel to be used for the night if her husband had nothing better to do, to be discarded at will. Elfgiva could, even in these circumstances, dismiss her from her mind just as she wished.

Which was exactly what she did now. As she made her way back up the table to the garrulous farmer, Elfgiva merely waved young Offa away.

By the time the young fellow went outside again, Cerdic and Ricola had vanished.

That night seemed long to Offa. The wind had dropped. In the earlier part, as he sat by the door of his hut, he could see figures passing out of the hall opposite or stumbling about in the yard. Occasionally he heard the faint murmuring of a drunken laugh from somewhere. Was he hearing the merchant and Ricola?

There was nothing Ricola could do. He realized that. Even if she resisted, the merchant was bigger and far stronger, and as slaves he and Ricola had few rights. The irony of the situation struck him. As a freeman back in the village he could have stood up to the elder. He could at least have demanded compensation. But by losing his head and then his freedom, he had ensured that the same thing could happen again, and that this time he would be helpless.

He moaned at his own stupidity.

For a little while he had vainly hoped that perhaps Ricola might manage to escape from the merchant. Perhaps Cerdic would be too drunk, or she would somehow be able to give him the slip. It was a faint hope at best. As the night deepened and Ricola did not appear, it passed.

He wanted, against all good sense, to go and look for them. Where were they? In the barn perhaps? Or one of the huts?

“What would I do anyway?” he muttered to himself. “Stick a pin in him too?” As he considered the hopelessness of the situation, and his folly in letting Ricola start this whole business, he shook his head. “I’d never have done it if it hadn’t been for that preacher,” he murmured. “Much use his new god’s been to me.” It seemed to him that the Frey on the Cross was a powerless god after all.

As she lay in Cerdic’s powerful arms, Ricola was thoughtful. Her mind had drifted to her husband, then to Elfgiva. What would tonight mean to them all? To her marriage, her position with her mistress, her future relationship with the merchant? She ran her hand softly over the merchant’s chest, feeling the blond hair. She wanted to go, but he was still only half asleep and his strong arm gently restrained her. In the early hours, he became wakeful once more.

One thing at least Ricola knew. Within her she already carried a tiny life – the life that belonged to her and Offa alone and which, come what may, she must protect.

Ricola might have been very surprised, however, if, in the vague greyness of the midwinter dawn, she could have seen her mistress.

Elfgiva did not sleep. She had lain awake, tossing restlessly. Again and again, the events of the evening had passed before her eyes and it was not long before her anger gave way to another, simpler emotion. Regret. Why didn’t I just stop him? she asked herself. And then, as if addressing another: He was yours, and you turned him away.

She was hurt, yet she felt sorry for her husband too. She knew his needs, but she had refused them. And why? Loyalty to her gods. Fear of humiliation. Pride. But was her pride bringing her any happiness? Was humiliation worse than this mess? As for those ancestral gods and her loyalty to them, had Woden, Thunor and Tiw brought her any comfort during this winter night? It seemed to her that they had not.

A little before the first hint of light, she wrapped a heavy fur around her and walked down the slope to the water’s edge. The river made little sound. In the darkness it looked black. Hunching her shoulders, she sat on the jetty and stared at the water.

What would her father have done? He would have set sail for some distant shore, trusted in his gods and braved the sea. But her father was a man. As the night wore on, the old seafarer seemed less and less relevant. And yet perhaps that vigorous old soul might have approved when, as the water began to turn from black to grey, she stood up, straightened her shoulders and proceeded briskly up the slope.

Young Ricola had been right after all. Her ruse had worked, even if later than she had planned. Elfgiva had decided to take control of her marriage again.

That morning, therefore, it was with a sense of relief and warm pleasure that Cerdic listened to his wife, who announced firmly: “I will follow your new god. Tell your priest he can baptize me.” To which, however, she added: “The slave girl goes.”

He grinned and embraced her.

“The girl goes,” she repeated.

He shrugged as if it were of no account. “Whatever you want,” he said. “After all, she belongs to you.”

Unknown to any of them, one other event had taken place during the long watches of that winter night.

This was the arrival of a visitor.

As the dawn arose over the long Thames Estuary, a single longship had come stealing up the river on the incoming tide. Now, on this dull, damp day, it had just entered the great bend downstream from the settlement.

As his squat, seaworthy vessel came in sight of the jetty at Lundenwic, the small, hard man standing near the bow looked ahead of him with anticipation. He was in his forties, with a rather brutal face, and a patchy grey beard that was clipped very short. Of all the Frisian traders, he was the only one who would make the journey to the island at this bleak and dangerous time of the year. He did so because he was fearless, clever and greedy. He bought his merchandise cheap because he saved their owners the cost of housing and feeding them in the winter months, and he was usually the only man who could supply any goods that might be urgently needed before the spring. His traffic was in human beings. All along the north European coastline it was known: “That cunning Frisian’s the only one who can supply winter slaves.” He reached Lundenwic at midday.