“We are all in the Army together,” he had said. “What we decide together, all must do, even if some of us don’t like it. If we don’t like it we have to talk the others round, in open meeting. But I don’t like the way you think you can take some bits of the Army and leave the others, young man. You are a carl now. Carls do what is best for each other. That is why we are all given a voice.”
“I did what was best when the ram broke.”
Brand had grunted, doubtfully, and had muttered, “For your own reasons.” But he had left Shef behind, with Thorvin and a mountain of smith-work, in the guarded camp that watched York, ever alert for a sally. Shef had begun immediately to play with models, to imagine giant bows, sling-stones, mallets. One problem at least he had solved—if not in practice or even in theory.
Outside the smithy there was a pad of running feet, a gasping of exhaustion. The three men inside moved as one to the wide, open doors. A few feet beyond them Thorvin had set up a line of poles, connected with yarn, from which he had hung the rowan berries that indicated the limits of his precinct, the holy place. To one of the posts clung a panting figure, dressed in rough sacking. The iron collar round his neck indicated his status. Desperately his eyes moved from one to the other of the three faces staring at him, then brightened with relief as he saw, finally, the hammer round Thorvin’s burly neck.
“Sanctuary,” he gasped, “give me sanctuary.” He spoke in English, but used the Latin word.
“What is ‘sanctuarium’?” asked Thorvin.
“Safe-keeping. He wants to come under your protection. Among the Christians, a runaway may grasp a church door in some churches, and then he is under the protection of the bishop till his case is tried.”
Thorvin shook his head slowly. He could see now the pursuers coming into view—half a dozen of them, Hebrideans by the look of them, among the most ardent of the slave-takers, not hurrying now that they could see their quarry.
“We don’t have that custom here,” he said.
The slave wailed with fear as he saw the gesture and felt the presences behind him, and clung tighter to the fragile poles. Shef remembered the moment when he too had walked forward to Thorvin inside his enclosure, not knowing if he was walking to his death or not. But he had been able to call himself a smith, a fellow of the craft. This man looked as if he was just extra labor, knowing nothing of any value.
“Come along, you.” The leader of the Hebrideans said, clouting the cringing figure round one ear, and began to pry his fingers from the pole.
“How much do you want for him?” said Shef impulsively. “I’ll buy him off you.”
Guffaws of laughter. “What for, One-eye? You want a bum-boy? I’ve got better down in the pen.”
“I said I’ll buy him. Look, I’ve got money.” Shef turned towards “Thrall’s-wreak,” stuck in the ground at the entrance to the precinct. From it he had hung his purse with the few coins in it that Brand had doled out as his share of the meager plunder so far.
“No chance. Come down to the pens if you want a slave, sell you one anytime. I’ve got to take this one back, make an example of him. Too many down there run from one master, think they might run from another. Got to show them it doesn’t pay.”
The slave had caught something of the dialogue, and wailed with fear again, this time more desperately. As the men gripped his arms and hands and began to pull him off, trying as they did so not to damage the precinct-markers, he thrashed and fought. “The pendants,” he cried. “They said the pendant-men were safe.”
“We cannot help you,” Shef replied, speaking again in English. “You should have stayed with your English master.”
“My masters were the black monks. You know what they are like to their slaves. And my master was the worst of all—Erkenbert the deacon, who makes the machines….”