“Do not be surprised,” said the old man in the background. “Our Karli does that to everyone. He is a champion. But you had better tell us who you are, or he will strike you again.”
“I got separated from my ship,” said Shef. “Had to walk and swim across the sandbanks.”
“Are you one of the Vikings? You speak more like one of us.”
“I am an Englishman. But I have been much among Norsemen, and can understand their speech. I have spoken with Frisians as well. You speak most like them. Are you Frisians? The free Frisians,” Shef added, remembering how they liked to describe themselves.
Even the old woman laughed. “The free Frisians,” said the stocky youth. “Living on sandbanks and running for their lives every time they see a sail. No, we are Germans.”
“The archbishop’s men?” inquired Shef cautiously. He could see his sword now, standing in a corner where they must have put it. If the answer were wrong, he would lunge for it and try to kill the stocky youth at once.
Again they laughed. “No. Some of us are Christians, some follow the old gods, some none. But none of us has any wish to pay tithes or kneel to a lord. We are the folk of the Ditmarsh,” the youth ended proudly.
Shef had never heard the name from anyone before. He nodded. “I am cold and wet. And hungry,” he added. “May I sleep inside your house tonight?”
“Sleep by the fire and welcome,” said the older man, who Shef realized must be the father of the stocky one, the master of the house. “As for hunger, we have plenty of that ourselves. But you can dry yourself here rather than die out on the marsh. Tomorrow you must go before the village for a doom.”
I have gone into a doom-ring before, thought Shef. But maybe the Ditmarshers’ doom will be kinder than the Great Army’s. Feeling his swollen jaw again, he moved to the side of the fire while the family of the house prepared itself for sleep.
Chapter Six
Shef woke in the morning feeling strangely calm and rested. For a few moments he lay on the packed earth floor and wondered why. The fire was out, and he had kept from shivering in the night only by curling into a ball and gripping knees with arms. His clothes had dried from body heat, but dried stiff and harsh from salt water. His belly was pinched with hunger. And he was alone and without resources in a strange and probably hostile land. So why did he not seem more anxious?
Shef got to his feet, stretched luxuriously, and pushed open the wooden shutter, letting in the sunlight and the fresh air smelling of grass and blossom. He knew the answer. It was because his cares and responsibilities had fallen from him. For the first time for many months he did not have to think about other people’s needs: how to feed them, how to persuade them, how to praise them to make them do his will. His childhood had made him used to cold and hunger. And to blows and the threat of slavery as well. But now he was no child, but a man in his prime. If anyone struck him he could strike back. Shef’s one eye noted the weapons he had leant against the corner of the hut. Hrani’s sword and Sigurth’s spear. They were the only possessions he now had, apart from the pendant round his neck and the flint and eating-knife slung from his belt. They would have to do.
Out of the corner of his eye Shef saw that the older couple had emerged from their box-bed. The man went straight out of the door. That could be ominous. The woman pulled a quern from under their rough table, scooped grain from a barrel into it, and began to grind it with a hand-pestle. The sound brought Shef’s childhood back even more strongly. As long as he could remember, every day had started the same way, with the sound of women grinding grain into flour. Only jarls and kings could live far enough away from daily necessity not to hear it. It was the task warriors hated most, though on campaign even they had to do it. Perhaps women hated it too, Shef reflected. At least it showed these people had food. His belly cramped in response to the thought, and Shef glanced again towards his weapons.