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sweetmeats and coins from men like these, and he knew what they had to do in return. He was aware that drunkenness was a common prelude.
    He tried to refuse more of the liquor but Barber frowned. “Drink,” he commanded. “It will set you at ease.”
    Not until he had taken two more full swallows and was set to violent coughing was Barber satisfied. He took the horn back to his own side of the fire and finished the flask and another, finally loosing a prodigious fart and settling into his bed. He looked over at Rob only once more. “Rest easy, chappy,” he said. “Sleep well. You have nothing to fear from me.”
    Rob was certain it was a trick. He lay under the rank bearskin andwaited with tightened haunches. In his right hand he clutched his coin. In his left hand, although he knew that even if he had Barber’s weapons he would be no match for the man and was at his mercy, he gripped a heavy rock.
    But eventually there was ample evidence that Barber slept. The man was an ugly snorer.
    The medicinal taste of the liquor filled Rob’s mouth. The alcohol coursed through his body as he snuggled deep in the furs and allowed the rock to roll from his hand. He clutched the coin and imagined the Romans, rank upon rank, shouting ten times for heroes who wouldn’t allow themselves to be beaten by the world. Overhead, the stars were large and white and wheeled all over the sky, so low he wanted to reach up and pluck them to make a necklace for Mam. He thought of each member of his family, one by one. Of the living he missed Samuel the most, which was peculiar because Samuel had resented him as eldest and had defied him with foul words and a loud mouth. He worried whether Jonathan was wetting his napkins and prayed Mistress Aylwyn would show the little boy patience. He hoped Barber would return to London very soon, for he longed to see the other children again.
    Barber knew what his new boy was feeling. He had been exactly this one’s age when he found himself alone after berserkers had struck Clacton, the fishing village where he was born. It was burned into his memory.
    Aethelred was the king of his childhood. As early as he could remember, his father had cursed Aethelred, saying the people had never been so poor under any other king. Aethelred squeezed and taxed, providing a lavish life for Emma, the strong-willed and beautiful woman he had imported from Normandy to be his queen. He also built an army with the taxes but used it more to protect himself than his people, and he was so cruel and bloodthirsty that some men spat when they heard his name.
    In the spring of Anno Domini 991, Aethelred shamed his subjects by bribing Danish attackers with gold to turn them away. The following spring the Danish fleet returned to London as it had done for a hundred years. This time Aethelred had no choice; he gathered his fighters and warships, and the Danes were defeated on the Thames with great slaughter. But two years later there was a more serious invasion, when Olaf, King of the Norwegians, and Swegen, King of the Danes, sailed up the Thames with ninety-four ships. Again Aethelred gathered his army around London and managed to hold the Norsemen off, but this time the invaders saw that the cowardly king had left his country vulnerable in order to protecthimself. Splitting up their fleet, the Norsemen beached their ships along the English coast and laid waste to the small seaside towns.
    That week, Henry Croft’s father had taken him on his first long trip after herring. The morning they returned with a good catch he had run ahead, eager to be first in his mother’s arms and hear her words of praise. Hidden out of sight in a cove nearby were half a dozen Norwegian longboats. When he reached his cottage he saw a strange man dressed in animal skins staring out at him through the open shutters of the window hole.
    He had no idea who the man was, but instinct caused him to turn and run for his life, straight to his father.
    His mother