Sharing Wace’s concerns, I turned to the Englishman. ‘You said there were a thousand men in Beferlic. Where are the others?’
‘Some among the Danes prefer to sleep by their ships rather than in camp,’ Runstan said. ‘They’ve taken a quarter of their force into the marshes a mile or so upstream to guard against an attack from across the hills to the north.’
Or else to catch an unwary foe in the rearguard, and crush them between their swords and the walls of Beferlic. Which meant that in the town itself and the camp surrounding its walls were probably somewhere between seven and eight hundred men.
‘From now on you’ll tell us everything,’ I said, grabbing him by the collar. ‘Do you understand?’
He nodded, but I sensed my threats were meaningless to him. He was no longer trembling, no longer afraid; he knew as we did that he was of more use to us alive than dead.
We circled around the town so as to approach it from the south. We left our horses inside what must at one time have been a barn or storehouse, albeit one long abandoned for it was in need of some repair. An ideal hiding place, since there was little reason for the enemy to venture there, though in any case it was well out of sight of both the town and the river. ?dda offered to stay with the animals and wait for our return, and to judge from the anxiety in his eyes that was probably the best thing. He had served me loyally and done more for me than anyone in recent weeks. He had come this far, and I could ask no more of him.
‘If first light comes and there is no sign of us, you must get yourself away from here,’ I told him. ‘Forget about us; make sure you get back safely to Eoferwic and the others.’
He nodded solemnly. How I thought we might escape Beferlic when I didn’t even know how to get in, I wasn’t sure. With luck an answer would present itself when we needed one; that was the best we could hope for.
Nine of us there were, then, who set out across the sucking bogs. Nine, that was, not counting our guide. We moved slowly, making our way through the mist: splashing gently over narrow streams; wading across inlets of the river; picking our way through clumps of reeds and tall grass and around pools where the ground had become waterlogged following the rains; staying as low to the ground as we could; keeping our cloaks over our armour so that we would blend in more easily with the night. There would be watchmen upon the walls, and doubtless also atop the monastery’s bell-tower, which offered the best vantage of anywhere for miles around. Save for the occasional splashing and calls of waterbirds upon the river, the night was still. The slightest noise or sign of movement and the alarm would quickly be raised. Once or twice I wondered at what point Runstan would try to betray us, as he surely must. Not yet, I thought, when we still had a chance of escaping. Instead he would wait for the right opportunity, perhaps once we were a little nearer.
I followed but a few paces behind him, keeping one hand on my sword-hilt at all times. That way if he did cry out, it would be the last sound he made before my blade was buried in his back. Still, for now at least he seemed to be holding to his word, never rushing on ahead nor, so far as any of us could tell, leading us on any false paths. At the same time he didn’t take us too close to the ramparts, the shadows of which I could just make out through the marsh-mist, along with the hulls of the five enemy boats. I could see now that these were cargo vessels, built for the open sea as much as for river-going: broad of beam and with high gunwales. But there were two other ships moored upon the river about a quarter of a mile off that I had not spotted earlier. Larger and sleeker than the others, these ones had to be perhaps twenty-five or even thirty benches in length, sitting high in the water. Ships of war.
I signalled to the others behind me to stop. ‘Wait,’ I said to Runstan in hushed tones, and pointed in the direction of the ships. ‘Whose are they?’
‘The nearest is ?girulfr; it belongs to King Sweyn. The other is Northgar, King Eadgar’s own ship.’
Northgar. The northern spear. No doubt the name had been chosen to appeal to the Northumbrian families, upon whose support he was greatly reliant.
Hopefully those ships and the men upon them were too far off to make any difference to the plan that was forming in my mind. Upon dry land near to the five wide-bellied boats was a large fire, around which the same number of men were warming their hands; obviously they were the unlucky ones who had been burdened with guard duty this chilly night. Indeed we were fortunate that there weren’t more of them, but then what reason did the enemy have to expect an attack from across the marshes?