'Find him,' Eadgyth said, and her voice was a hiss now.

'Who?'

'Sihtric.'

It was the name of Godgifu's brother, the priest. He had not told Eadgyth of him. The name shocked Orm to his core. 'But Sihtric is in Spain,' he said weakly.

'Find him. And stop him.'

Roger lost his nerve. He let go of the woman's hair and she crumpled into a heap. 'Screw her, kill her, or marry her, she's all yours, Dane. I'm having no more of this.' He turned and stomped off, massive in his armour, obsessively crossing himself.

The woman was huddled over on herself, her back bright with blood. Orm lifted her face with a gloved hand. Spittle flecked her lips, and he saw blood on her tongue. She had bitten it while speaking. He said, 'Who are you? By whose authority shall I command Sihtric?'

She looked at him. 'Orm?'

'Who are you?'

'I am Eadgyth. Only Eadgyth.' She frowned. 'I – have I fallen?'

'Do you remember what you said to me?'

'What I said… What's happened to me, Orm Egilsson?'

He stood up. The bright February day became insubstantial around him, and a harsher light shone through its sparse threads. He remembered all Sihtric's talk in the days before Hastings, the mystical babbling of a possibly heretical priest – talk about the tapestry of time, and how its weave might be picked undone and remade by a god, or a man with sufficient power. The Weaver, Sihtric had called him. And now Sihtric and his mysteries had returned to Orm's life.

But on the ground before him was a woman, helpless, naked, shivering, bleeding. That was the reality. He reached up to his horse, pulled a blanket from the saddle, and draped it over her shoulders. The Norman soldiers, drunk on blood and rape, drawn by Roger's gabbled account, gathered around curiously.

I

MUSTA'RIB AD 1085