He stood and then left me alone. At once my students came over to sit beside me.
‘What’s happening, Master?’ asked Wiglaf, wide-eyed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, which came away smeared with blood and snot. It always bled when he was nervous. ‘What are they talking about? When are they going to let us go?’
‘Soon, I think,’ I said, but I wasn’t really paying him or the others any attention. I kept glancing towards Wulfnoth and his band. The one called Sihtric was shaking his head.
‘He’s old,’ I heard someone mutter.
The woman glanced up and saw me staring. She gave me an evil look and spat upon the ground, and I looked away.
Plegmund’s head was bowed, his eyes were closed and he was whispering a prayer that God might deliver us from our enemies. Hedda was trembling; his face was ashen. I think he still expected them to kill us at any moment.
‘Do you really know that man, Master?’ he asked, his voice small.
‘I used to. Many, many years ago. When I was as young as you.’
‘We heard you laughing. What were you talking about?’
I didn’t know how best to answer that, but fortunately I didn’t have to, for just then I looked over my shoulder and saw Wulfnoth marching towards us, and Gytha beside him, a stony look in her eyes. I rose to my feet hurriedly, not knowing what to expect. My palms were sweaty, and I could feel my heart thumping as I turned to face them.
All I saw was a fist hurtling towards my head, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, with my face in a puddle. Pain blossomed in my cheek, and I could taste blood and mud and rainwater. Someone’s foot was pressed down on my back, and it felt like all the breath was being squeezed from my chest.
‘Master Guthred!’ one of my students was shouting, but I couldn’t tell which one. My cheek was throbbing; there was a ringing in my ears, and I still didn’t know what had happened.
‘The three of you can go,’ I heard Wulfnoth say. ‘You’re worth nothing to us. Your master is, though. He’s our hostage now.’
‘If you want to see him alive, come back here in a week’s time with one thousand shillings in silver,’ the woman added, and I reckoned it was her foot on my back, for her voice seemed closer. ‘Any less and you’ll be taking back a corpse.’
My mind was racing, my heart too, as I wondered what I’d got myself into.
‘Now, go,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘That is, unless you want him to suffer. Do you hear me?’
I’d made a terrible mistake, I thought. Now I was about to pay, probably with my life. Why had I thought I could trust such scoundrels? My breath came in starts, and I felt suddenly faint. I heard my students shouting to one another in alarm, followed by hoofbeats on the track, which gradually grew more distant. They were leaving me, I thought; they really were leaving me. I wanted to shout out to them, but fear kept the words from reaching my tongue.
The weight pressing upon my back suddenly lifted; Wulfnoth began laughing, and then the woman as well. I didn’t know if I dared move, but I looked up, and there he was, beaming at me, his hand outstretched.
‘I think they were convinced,’ he said. ‘You can get up now.’
I took his hand cautiously. I still wasn’t quite sure what was supposed to have happened. My cheek stung, and I winced as I put a hand to it.
‘You hit him too hard, Gytha,’ Wulfnoth admonished her.
‘I hit him like I hit everyone,’ she replied tartly.
He helped me to my feet, apologising on her behalf, and said that of course I wasn’t their captive. I didn’t see why the pretence was necessary, but he seemed to think it was and I didn’t feel like arguing.
‘No need to look so scared,’ Wulfnoth said. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and grinned. ‘You’re one of us now.’
And so it was that things came full circle, and the priest became a thief.
*
He won’t even look at them as he speaks, Tova notices. That’s how ashamed he is. And so he should be. She tries to imagine Thorvald doing the things Guthred says he has done, but she can’t. How can they both wear the cross and yet be so different?