She said to him, 'And you-?'

'Orm. My name is Orm Egilsson.'

'Why are you here? You are not Norman, or English. This is not your home.'

'I am a mercenary. I fight for pay.'

She shifted in her cramped hole. 'You were at Hastings?'

'I was.'

'On such a day it was better to fight for the winner. Why have the Normans brought you here?'

'To put a stop to the rebellions.'

Eadgyth said, 'My own uncle is a wildman, in the fen country of the east.'

'Yes. The Normans call them silvarici. People of the woods.' All over England the wildmen had taught the Normans another new word: murdrum, furtive slaughter. 'The north has been worst, though. This country. And so it will suffer most grievously. Everywhere it is like this, from Durham to York – burned – uninhabited.' There would be no harvest this year, no lambs or calves; famine would follow the steel.

'So at last the Conqueror has come here,' Eadgyth whispered. 'From Hastings all the way to this remote place of farmers and sheep and cattle.'

Orm heard voices calling. 'We have no more time,' he said.

'Then you must earn your pay.'

He looked into her calm eyes, so like Godgifu's.

'What's this?' The voice was heavy, the accent crude French.

Orm was dismayed to see Roger fitz Gommery standing over him. Roger was a common soldier, a slab of hardened muscle from toe to brain, and an ardent rapist. The crotch of his leather trousers was already smeared with blood and ordure from his day's sport. 'Have I broken into your party, Orm Egilsson? Let's see what we've got.'

He closed his leather glove over Eadgyth's short hair, and dragged her to her feet. She screamed, and her legs flapped, too weak to support her weight.

'Roger-'

'You'll get your share, Orm.'

With his gloved hand Roger ripped at the neck of Eadgyth's habit. Old, much patched, the material gave easily. She was left naked save for pants of stained wool, which Roger pulled away. Her body was skeletal, her skin pocked by lesions, her breasts shrunken mounds behind hard nipples. She whimpered, her eyes closed, and she seemed to be praying: