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sins that I wish I had been able to confess.’
    I ignored him, hoping he wouldn’t get back on to that worthless subject. I turned my head slightly, wondering if a new angle of vision might bring some improvement. It didn’t. I tried to think of something witty. I did better with keeping the wine cup from spilling its redness all down my chest. At least no one would think I was either palsied or cold inside from the fear. If I couldn’t be bothered with twisting round to look, I could plainly hear the muttering on the deck behind me.
    ‘Do tell me,’ I asked calmly, ‘if we are just to be thrown overboard, or if the crew proposes to carve us up first.’
    ‘I think it will be the latter,’ came the infinitely sad reply. ‘The weapons they carry would be superfluous for the former.’
    I tried not to laugh. This was, after all, a crisis. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. I took another sip and put my wine down very carefully. ‘Have the kindness, dear boy, to help me round so that I can face these people.’
    It may be that familiarity had blunted the horror of their appearance. Or it may be that Hrothgar had done outstandingly well in transforming them from a pack of beer-demented barbarians to a crew of cut-throat pirates. Whatever had been the case, though, they weren’t now an encouraging sight. They looked pretty much as they had on their first appearance in Jarrow – only there was no monastery wall this time to keep us apart. They stood in a closely packed rabble a couple of yards from my daybed. One of them leaned forward and jabbered something I couldn’t catch. Someone at the back began making weird animal noises. How Hrothgar had kept them in any line at all said much for his skills as a leader. How he’d dared trust them unsupervised on board was a mystery. Now he was gone, and might not be back, they were all reverting by the moment. I clutched for my stick and got unsteadily to my feet.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ I said in my best approximation to their own language. No one seemed surprised I could speak it. ‘Dear friends.’ I smiled and held out my free arm in a gesture of regard and affection. ‘I appreciate your concerns for what may have happened ashore. But I do suggest that a day is not long enough for drawing untoward conclusions. Let us wait until evening. If nothing has happened by then, let us consider returning to England – where I can promise a generous reward from the Lord Bishop of Canterbury for my safe return.’
    ‘We want our men back,’ someone shouted.
    ‘You’ve fucking stitched them up with the Greeks,’ someone else added with a certain want of reasonableness. There was a general humming of assent.
    I didn’t bother with probing. It was plain that ‘our men’ covered the two oarsmen alone. Edward and Hrothgar could be written off as lost. My stick wobbled with a slight motion of the ship, and I had to grab hold of Wilfred to stay on my feet. Since he was clutching at me for the same reason, it was almost a wonder we didn’t hit the deck together. As it was, I was able to carry on with my probably useless oration.
    ‘You must consider,’ I said, ‘that I have no knowledge of conditions on shore. You surely know that I am a prisoner on this ship, and have no contact with anyone. If your friends are in trouble there, I cannot help them. All I can do is repeat my promise of reward for my safe return to England.’
    ‘You’ll get them back,’ the man at the front shouted again. ‘You’ll get them back – or the boy dies!’
    Against my better judgement, I laughed. I thought raiding undefended towns was their job, not mine. What did these creatures now expect of me – that I’d swim ashore in the absence of another boat, and then back with an oarsman under each arm? They might as well butcher us on the spot. I sat quickly down and fussed with my blanket.
    ‘Master,’ Wilfred whispered in my ear, ‘I’ve often heard them talking about you. They are all convinced you are a