Stephen Baxter: Conqueror

Now the looters lifted the old man up and held him over the fire. The flames from the burning books licked at the loose toga cloth, and the old man's yells turned to pained whimpers.

Wuffa glanced at Ulf. 'They will kill him.'

'It's not our affair,' Ulf said.

'No, it isn't.'

'I'll take the one on the left. If you can get the old man-'

'Let's go.'

The two of them sprinted at the looters. Ulf lowered his massive shoulders and clattered into the man on the left. The old man would have fallen into the flames, but Wuffa leapt over the bonfire, scooped up the old man in his arms, and dropped him to the ground. Wuffa knew the second looter would be on him in a flash, so he bunched his fist and swung it even as he turned. Knuckles smashed into skull with a thud that made Wuffa's whole arm ache, and the man was knocked sprawling.

Wuffa sat on the man, snatched a knife from his belt and pressed it to the Saxon's neck. The looter, dazed and enraged, was heavier and stronger than Wuffa. But when Wuffa nicked his throat with the blade he submitted and fell back, panting.

Wuffa glanced across at Ulf. The big Norse had his man pinned face-down on the ground, and was slamming his fist into the back of the looter's head, over and over.

'I think you've made your point,' Wuffa called.

Ulf paused, breathing hard, his fist held up in the air. 'Fair enough.'

In a lithe movement Wuffa rolled off his man's torso and got to his feet. The man, evidently dazed, got up, crossed to his companion, and dragged him away. Wuffa wiped his knife clean of the Saxon's blood and slipped it back into his belt. His heart pumped; he never felt more alive than at such moments.

It was in that surge of blood and triumph that he first met Sulpicia.

'Oh, Father, you could have got yourself killed!'

The old man was breathing hard but was not seriously hurt. He tried to sit up, as his daughter adjusted the folds of his toga about his thin legs.

Now that the action was safely over, the bishop in his tall hat and bright robes came over. 'Orosius! Are you all right?'

'Yes, Ammanius. But I feel a fool, such a fool.'

The bishop, Ammanius, set down his crook and helped the old man to sit up. 'I would never call you a fool, brave Orosius. But there are many books in Armorica, and there is only one of you, old fellow.'

'But I could not bear to see those pagan brutes abuse the library so.'

'They will never know what they were destroying,' Ammanius said. 'They are to be pitied, not despised.'

Ammanius glanced now at Wuffa and Ulf. Wuffa saw how the bishop's gaze roamed over Ulf's muscular legs. Ammanius was perhaps forty. Clean-shaven like his British charges, he had a full, well-fed face, skin so smooth it looked oiled, and eyebrows that might have been plucked. His Latin was heavily accented. Perhaps he was a continental, then.

'And it seems,' Ammanius said to Orosius, 'that you have another pair of "pagan brutes" to thank for your life.'

'Yes, thank you both,' said the daughter breathlessly.

Her eyes wide, she might have been twenty; she seemed careworn, but she was pretty in a dark British way, Wuffa thought.

Ammanius said, 'Do you have Latin?'

'We speak it,' Ulf said warily.

'Then you understand what is being said to you. Old Orosius is grateful for your intervention-'

The old man coughed and spoke. 'Don't put words in my mouth, Bishop.' He looked the young men up and down. 'You don't carry weapons within the walls. It's a city law.'

Wuffa frowned. 'Not under King Aethelberht.'

'I don't recognise any pagan king's authority.'

The daughter sighed.

'Don't take offence,' Ammanius said emolliently to Wuffa. 'It is a hard day for Orosius. These people are leaving their homes – the city their ancestors built centuries ago. But you care little for history, you Saxons, do you?'

'I am a Saxon,' Wuffa said. 'He is Norse, a Dane. His name is Ulf. I am Wuffa.'

The girl looked at him, her brown eyes clear. 'And I am Sulpicia.'

'In my tongue, my name means "wolf".' Wuffa grinned, showing his teeth.

She returned his gaze coolly. Then she bent over her father. 'Bishop Ammanius, these two, Ulf and Wuffa, saved my father. Even while we looked away. But they are pagans. Isn't this proof that all souls may be redeemed by Christ's light?'

Ammanius looked into Wuffa's eyes. 'Is there really goodness in you, boy? And your Norse friend too?'

Wuffa took a step back and raised his hands. 'I'm not seeking conversion to your dead god, bishop.'

'No? But plenty of your sort are coming over to Christ. That's why Augustine led us here. You Saxons are easy to convert, you are such a gloomy lot! Your songs drone endlessly of loss. You don't know it, but your German soul longs for the glow of eternity, Wuffa.'

Ulf laughed. 'Eternity can wait.'

Sulpicia said now, 'Pagan or not, these two proved themselves a lot more use today than the mercenaries we hired to protect us.'

'Well, that's true.' The bishop stroked his long nose. 'And that could be useful.'

Ulf and Wuffa shared a glance. Perhaps there was an opportunity for them here. Ulf said, 'Tell us what you mean.'

Ammanius gestured at his flock of pilgrims. 'Do you understand what is happening here? I am leading these people to river boats which will take them down the estuary to the port of Rutupiae – Reptacaestir you call it, perhaps you know it. From there they will travel across the ocean to Armorica. But I will not travel with them. I have another mission, from my archbishop. I have to go to the far north of this blighted island. And there I am to seek out a prophecy said to have been uttered centuries ago by one Isolde…'

The Roman church was trying to assimilate its British counterpart. An element of its strategy was to acquire any British saints, relics and other divine material worth keeping. One such candidate was a strange prophecy of the distant future said to have been uttered by this 'Isolde', centuries before.

'It is guarded by one they call "the last of the Romans",' Ammanius said. That phrase thrilled Wuffa. 'It will be a long and hazardous journey. I will need companions I can count on. You two have heathen souls, and yet today you stepped forward to save the life of an old man you had never seen before. Perhaps you have the qualities I seek. What do you say – will you come with me? I will pay you, of course.'

Wuffa would have to speak to his father. But Ulf grinned at him. Such an exotic adventure was hardly to be missed.

Ammanius gathered up his crook. 'If you are interested, meet me at Reptacaestir in seven days.'

Sulpicia helped her grumbling father to his feet. 'What an adventure,' she said wistfully. 'I wish I could come with you!'

Ulf grabbed the opportunity. 'Then come.'

She looked flustered. 'I can't. My father-'

'Do something for yourself, not for him,' Ulf said. 'You'll be able to find us.' And, without allowing her to argue, he turned to Wuffa.

Wuffa said, 'It will be quite a trip. Bandits on the road, the bishop snatching at our souls-'

'And the lovely Sulpicia grabbing your arse! I saw the way she looked at you, wolf-boy…'

The old man, Orosius, called after them, 'Do you even know the name of the city your kind is despoiling, you barbarians? Do you even know where you are?'

Wuffa looked back. 'This is Lunden. What of it? Who cares?'

The old Briton they had saved continued to shout insults, but the young men walked away.

On Wuffa's last day before he set off for Reptacaestir, a scop, a wandering poet, called at his home village. Coenred welcomed the ragged wanderer, fed him meat and ale, and assigned him the village's one precious slave for his comfort.