Yet, in the fast-approaching twilight, Skuli was steering Gullinbursti straight for that perilous shore.
Rollo stared at him. Didn’t he know the danger? He opened his mouth to speak, but Skuli forestalled him. ‘You fear for our safety, Norman?’ he said, a wide grin creasing his face. ‘You forget what ship this is! Gullinbursti, like all her kind, is shallow-drafted, and she can proceed in confidence where no other vessel dare venture.’
Then he threw back his head and laughed.
Rollo hoped he was wrong, but he was sure he detected a note of madness.
They sailed on, and only at the very last moment, when Rollo had convinced himself that the ship would run straight into the shore, smash to pieces and throw them all to their deaths, did Skuli order the sail to be lowered.
Gullinbursti, quickly losing way, floated through the shallows and finally grounded gently on the long, flat shore.
The crew leapt into action, jumping out of the ship and hurrying to pull her further up the beach, where they hammered in wooden stakes to which they secured her with ropes. Then, following Skuli’s lead, they headed inland, stopping at his signal after only a few paces.
Skuli stood perfectly still. He seemed to be watching, and perhaps also listening, for something. Rollo tried to make out the details of this mysterious, alarming place. The low-lying, sandy ground was criss-crossed by streamlets and what looked like a dry river bed, and the whole shore was broken up with marshy thickets. Further inland a plateau rose up, and a spur of higher ground stretched out towards where they now stood. On top of the spur there seemed to be the ruins of buildings: part of a wall, and huge tumbled stones that might have once formed a vast temple or fortress.
Where on God’s earth were they?
Why had Skuli brought them here?
Rollo had no idea.
Daylight was fading fast now, and, standing on that alien shore, with no sign of human habitation and the crew the only company for maybe dozens of miles, Rollo felt fear creep up his spine. He began to see things on the edge of vision; things which, when he spun his head to look, were not there. And he could hear things: the long-drawn-out, eerie howl of a wolf; a whisper, a buzz, the clink of metal; then a steady hum which grew until it sounded as if a great army of men were encamped somewhere nearby.
Rollo twisted this way and that, eyes frantically searching, but, even as he did so, he already knew: there was nobody there.
A sudden coarse sound split the darkening sky; a raucous bird cry. Speeding straight towards them like arrows flew a pair of ravens.
And, very close at hand, came the sound of horses: two horses, ridden hard. It sounded like two horses, for there were more than four feet pounding the ground, yet when Rollo strained to see, he made out just the one vague, shadowy shape, looming huge in the dim light. A horse with eight legs, its hooves thundering on the earth so that it seemed to shake.
I am hallucinating, Rollo told himself.
The ground was shaking. Rollo’s cry of alarm was echoed by others, and, for a few terrifying moments, the men on the shore quavered before the fury of the earthquake.
It stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Skuli, acting like a good captain should, instantly encouraged his crew. ‘Do not be afraid!’ he cried. ‘These signs are good, for they tell us that the gods recognize our presence, and are bidding us welcome!’
Then Rollo was assailed with a horrible thought. No, he told himself frantically, it cannot be.
He had to be wrong: the alternative was just too frightening. Here he was – here they all were – at one man’s bidding, and that man was the master of the ship which had brought them here.
The dread suspicion was growing, and Rollo was faced with the awful fact that he’d stumbled on the truth: it was the only explanation. Yet still he fought to accept it. No rational man, he thought, could still believe the old myths!
Perhaps Skuli was not rational.
Skuli was marching ahead. Fear making his very blood feel chill, Rollo joined the rest of the crew and marched after him.
Jack and I were almost back at Aelf Fen. Jack had barely spoken. Although I longed for reassurance that the men we had left bound and helpless in the thicket would not die there, I dared not ask.
This was a different Jack. Ruthless, brutal, unforgiving. We had been attacked, and it was only by sheer luck that neither of us was dead; if I’d asked, he’d have said Gaspard Picot and his hired killer deserved all they’d got.
I called it luck to myself. I wasn’t ready to think about the way in which the shining stone had forewarned me. It was just too frightening.
Breaking the long silence, Jack said, in a surprisingly normal tone, ‘I’ve been going over your great-uncle Sihtric’s revelations.’
‘What?’ It came out in a squeak. Then, swiftly trying to overcome my astonishment that he seemed to have put our encounter with violent death behind him – perhaps such things happened regularly to him – I gathered my ragged thoughts together. It proved quite hard to remember what had gone on back at Little Barton, but finally I succeeded.
‘Harald went to Miklagard,’ I said. ‘It proves he wasn’t Rosaria’s father-in-law because she came from Spain.’
But Jack was keeping ominously quiet.
‘He can’t have been!’ I cried.
Still Jack didn’t speak. I pulled Isis to a halt. We’d been riding side by side and, instantly noticing I’d stopped, he did too.
‘Go on, then,’ I said sharply. ‘Tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’ Jack replied.
‘Why have you got that look,’ I demanded, ‘as if you know something terrible and don’t want to tell me?’
He smiled very briefly. ‘I’m afraid I might have,’ he said. ‘It’s something I’ve had on my mind for days.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
He looked at me, and I couldn’t read his expression. Then, dismounting, he said, ‘Come and talk to me. There are things I should tell you before we go on into the village.’
I felt a horrible sense of doom, as if something was heading straight for me and I wouldn’t be able to avoid it or run away. I did as he asked, and he looped the horses’ reins around the branch of a willow tree. I went to stand beside him and he took my hand, looked into my eyes and said, ‘Do you recall how, as you, Lady Rosaria and I approached Aelf Fen on the day we brought her here, I said I must know her name, in order to present her to Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma?’
‘Yes. What of it?’
‘She said she was Hugo Guillaume Fensmanson’s widow, and her name was Rosaria Dalassena.’
‘Yes, that sounds right.’
He paused, as if reluctant to continue. Then he said, ‘Lassair, Dalassena reveals that she belongs to a well-known family. I knew I’d heard it before, and eventually I remembered: Anna Dalassena Comnena is the mother of Alexius Comnenus.’
I stared right back at him. ‘And who might he be?’
Jack sighed. ‘He’s the Byzantine emperor.’ In case I was still missing the point, he added, ‘Lady Rosaria bears the family name of the emperor in Constantinople.’
My mind was casting frantically round for an answer; one that would allow me to go on believing that Lady Rosaria wasn’t my great-uncle’s daughter-in-law. But if her illustrious name really did mean she came from Constantinople, I was on shaky ground.
‘She might have left her home and settled in Spain!’ I protested. ‘She might be one of the Dalassena kin who doesn’t live in Constantinople. She might …’