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Ricola, his wife, was naked now. She looked at him. Her cheerful, round face was very white. He knew she loved him, but her expression said only one thing: You did this to me. I’m going to die. You aren’t.

Some of the men were leering at her. They could not help it. After all, she had a delicious young body. Pink and white flesh, a trace of puppy fat, soft young breasts. Two men held open the sack. The man with the adder was grinning. Saxon justice was harsh.

“Woden,” the young man murmured, “save us.” And he looked around in desperation.

Surely their lives could not end like this.

Elfgiva and her party rode slowly. It was only a day’s journey, and she still felt confused. It was not just the question of denying her faith, though nothing was dearer to her. There was something else: she had an instinctive sense of foreboding. And the closer she was to home, the worse it became. What did it mean? Was it a message from the gods?

How dreary the clouds seemed. They had come from behind her and now they masked the sun. The travellers were passing through a stretch of wilderness: small trees, burnt grass, brown bracken. Elfgiva remained deep in thought. As she pondered, she remembered her father’s words, many years ago. “When a voyager begins a journey, he prepares his ship, decides upon his course and sets sail. What else can he do? But he cannot know the outcome – what storms may arise, what new lands he may find, or whether or not he will return. That is destiny, and you must accept it. Never think you can escape destiny.”

Wyrd
they called it in Anglo-Saxon. Destiny.
Wyrd
was invisible, yet governed all. Even the gods were subject to it. They were the actors;
Wyrd
was the story. And when Thunor’s thunder rumbled across the sky and echoed in the mountains, behind that sky, containing that echo, lay
Wyrd
. It was neither good nor bad; it was unknowable. You felt it all the time, in the earth, the rolling sea, the cavernous grey sky. Every Anglo-Saxon and Norseman knew
Wyrd
, which decided life and death and gave to their songs and poetry a resonant fatalism.

Destiny alone would decree what was to happen when she met her husband.

“I shall decide what to say when I see him,” she murmured aloud. She would pray to Woden and Frigg that night.

They were passing through a wood when they came to the stream. It was deep. Irritated, she realized that if they tried to ford it she was going to get very wet. For several minutes, therefore, she cast about to see if she could find a better crossing. It was just then, seeing the small bridge, that she also caught sight of the strange little gathering and urged her horse into a canter.

Moments later, Offa was surprised to find himself staring at a handsome lady whom the gods had just caused to appear out of the forest upon a fine horse.

“What did she do?” The lady was gazing down at the naked girl with curiosity. The village elder quickly explained. Elfgiva gazed around the crowd. The sight of the snake and the sack made her tremble. She looked carefully at the young couple again. It was chance that she should have come across this hamlet hidden in the woods. Why should fate have brought her there just then? To save a life perhaps. As she looked at the couple, her own troubles did not seem so terrible. She even felt envious in a way. They were young. The young man loved the girl almost, it seemed, to insanity.

“What will you take for them?”

“Lady?”

“I’ll buy them. As slaves. I’ll take them away.”

The village elder hesitated. It was true that for certain crimes a man might be turned into a slave, but he was not sure in this case what the proper
doom
should be.

Elfgiva took a coin from the pouch that hung at her waist. The Saxons had no coins of their own, but used those of the traders from across the English Channel. The coin she took out was gold. The entire village stared at it. Few had ever seen such a thing before, but the elder and several of the men had a shrewd idea of its value.

“You need them both?” he asked. He had rather wanted to see the naked girl in the bag with the snake.

“Yes.”

The elder could see at once what the village wished him to do. He signalled to the women to release the girl, who hurriedly began to dress herself.

“Cut their hair,” Elfgiva ordered one of her servants. This was the mark of all her slaves, but Offa and his wife were so shaken by what had been about to happen that they submitted meekly. As soon as it was done, Elfgiva handed the elder the coin, then turned to the young couple. “You belong to me now. Walk behind,” she ordered. And she began to ride away, across the little bridge.

They travelled for some time in silence. Offa noted that they were heading almost due west.

“Lady,” he called out respectfully, at last. “Where are we going?” At which Elfgiva briefly turned her head.

“You’ve probably never heard of it,” she said. “It’s just a little trading post, far away.” She smiled. “It’s called Lundenwic.” Then she turned back again.

Whatever destiny might finally decide, there was little doubt that Elfgiva’s fate that morning lay in the firm hand of the powerful figure who, unknown to her, was at that moment riding exactly parallel to her course only twenty miles to the south.

All those who knew her husband would have agreed, “She may be brave, but no one gets the better of Cerdic.” Two events – one that had taken place the day before, the other which Cerdic planned for the following morning – would have convinced them: “She doesn’t stand a chance.”

Cerdic rode steadily. Though it was only twenty miles as the crow flies, he might have been a world away, for he was on the other side of the Thames Estuary, riding along the great chalk ridges of the kingdom of Kent.

The contrast between the two sides of the estuary could not have been greater. Whereas the huge tracts of East Anglia were low and flat, the narrower peninsula of Kent was divided by the huge ridges that ran eastwards until they ended abruptly in the tall white cliffs that stared over the sea. Between those ridges lay great valleys and sweeps of country – rolling, open fields in the eastern parts, and in the western, bosky woods, smaller fields and orchards.

If Elfgiva was from the wild, free coast, Cerdic was from ordered Kent. And there was the difference.

His family had been there since the first Saxon and Jutish settlement. Their estate, in the west, was still their true home, but as a young man Cerdic had also set up a second residence at the little trading post of Lundenwic on the River Thames. From there he received and shipped goods and set out with a string of packhorses to visit all parts of the island. It was a trade that had made him rich indeed.

He was a large, bluff man, a Saxon to the core, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a hint of temper about him. Whilst his beard was full, the hair on his head was thinning, and his complexion suggested that, when angry, he could become flushed even to apoplexy. At the same time, his broad, Germanic face had high cheekbones that suggested a measured, even cold strength and authority. “Strong as a bull, but hard as an oak tree,” his men used to say of him. It was also generally agreed that, like his father before him, he would live to be old: “They’re too shrewd to die in a hurry, that family.”

Two other character traits, always strong in his ancestors, were especially noticeable in Cerdic. One was that, once given, he had never been known to break his word. As a trader, this had become a great asset to him. The other, though it was sometimes the subject of wry amusement to his friends, was more often viewed with awe and even fear.

To Cerdic there were only two sides to any issue. Whatever he had to decide – a course of action, a man’s character, a question of guilt or innocence – as far as Cerdic was concerned, there was a right answer and a wrong answer, and nothing in between. Once his mind, which was an intelligent one, was made up, it snapped shut like an iron trap. “Things are only black and white to Cerdic, never grey,” his associates would say.

None of this boded well for his wife. At this moment, Cerdic was on his way back from the court of his traditional lord, good King Ethelbert of Kent, in the city of Canterbury.

Where they were Christians.

In the days when young Offa’s ancestor Julius had forged his coins in Roman Londinium, Christianity had been an unofficial cult, subject to occasional persecution. Then, in the following century, thanks to the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, Christianity had become the empire’s official religion, and Rome the Catholic capital. In the province of Britain, as elsewhere, churches were built, often on the site of pagan temples. The British Church was of some consequence. Even decades after the Romans had left the island, British bishops were still attending faraway Church councils. “Though we had to pay their travelling expenses,” the Italian bishops recorded, “because they’re miserably poor.”

But then the Anglo-Saxons came, staunch pagans all. The British Christians struggled, became cut off, and then silent. A century passed, and more.

Not that all was lost. Missionaries arrived. From Ireland, recently converted by St Patrick, came Celtic monks, intense in spirit, rich in Celtic art. Monasteries were established in the north of the island, near the border with the Scots. Nevertheless, most of England still belonged to the Nordic gods. Until now.

For in the year of Our Lord 597, the monk Augustine had been sent by the Pope to convert the Anglo-Saxons to the true faith. His mission had taken him straight to Canterbury, in the south-eastern peninsula of Kent.

It was certainly a convenient place. Situated at the centre of the peninsula’s tip on a small hill, Canterbury had since Roman times acted as a hub to which the Kentish ports like Dover – which lay only twenty miles across the Channel from the European Continent – were all connected. Coming from Europe, Canterbury was the first place of significance a traveller reached. Far more important than its geography, however, was that good King Ethelbert of Kent, whose principal residence this was, had married a Frankish princess, and her people had already been converted. It was the presence of this Christian queen that really drew the Church to Canterbury and gave it its opportunity. In those times the rule of conversion was simple: “Convert the king. The rest will follow.”

“And you, my good Cerdic, I know I can trust absolutely.” Only yesterday, the grey-bearded King Ethelbert had put his hand on his shoulder whilst Queen Bertha had smiled approvingly. Of course they could trust him. Hadn’t his ancestors been loyal companions of the first Kentish kings? Hadn’t King Ethelbert given rings – the most intimate token between a lord and his men – to his own father? “We are always so glad to see you,” the queen had said, “at our court at Canterbury.”

The court of the Kentish king was, by the standards of ancient times, a rustic little place. Where once, in the days of Rome, the provincial town had had a small forum, temple, baths and other buildings in stone, there now stood a large stockaded enclosure, in the centre of which was a long, barn-like building with timber walls and a high thatched roof. This was King Ethelbert’s hall. A short distance away, however, was another, simple enclosure, and in the centre of this stood an altogether more remarkable building. For although it, too, seemed little more than a barn and was smaller than the king’s hall, it was built in stone.

Canterbury’s cathedral was built by the monk Augustine himself. It was possibly the only stone building in Anglo-Saxon England at the time. Primitive though it surely was, in these first few years of its existence this little building marked a turning point in the island’s history.

“And now we have Canterbury as a base,” the queen had said eagerly, “the missionary work can really begin.” And she smiled at her husband.

“You see,” the king explained, “your position makes you particularly useful.” The plan for the rest of the island, Cerdic had now discovered, was ambitious. The missionaries planned to strike right up the east coast to the north. Their first goal, however, was to secure both banks of the Thames Estuary, which meant, after Kent, converting the Saxon King of Essex. “He’s my nephew,” King Ethelbert explained, “and he’s agreed to convert out of respect for me. But,” he made a wry face, “some of his followers may be more difficult.” He fixed his eyes firmly on Cerdic. “You’re a loyal man of Kent,” he went on, “but you trade from Lundenwic, which is on the north shore, part of my nephew’s kingdom, technically. I want you to give the missionaries every help you can.”

Cerdic nodded. “Of course.”

“There’s to be a bishop there, you see. And a new cathedral,” Queen Bertha added enthusiastically. “We shall tell the new bishop to rely on you.”

Cerdic bowed. Then, thinking of the various residences of the Essex king, enquired: “But where does this bishop plan to build his church?” Only to find the king laughing.

“My dear friend, I see you haven’t understood.” He smiled, but with a serious look in his eyes. “The cathedral is going to be at Lundenwic.”

It was late afternoon when Cerdic arrived at his destination for that day. Since leaving Canterbury he had followed the line of the old Roman road – now an overgrown, grassy track – that led along the northern edge of the peninsula until it reached the mouth of the River Medway, where there lay a modest Saxon settlement known as Rochester. Here, instead of continuing on the old Roman road along the estuary towards the former city of Londinium, he had turned inland, mounted the steep ridge that strode across the northern part of the peninsula, and made his way across it for some time until he emerged on the high ground’s southern edge. Then he smiled. He had come home.

The estate that had been the home of Cerdic’s family for the last century and a half lay just below the crest of the great ridge. It consisted of a hamlet and, some way distant, a single thatched hall or farmhouse beside which were wooden outbuildings surrounding a courtyard. From these buildings the ground descended in a long, graciously wooded slope to the valley floor. This was the place known as Bocton.