text: Dunston tried to make himself comfortable. But no matter how much he stretched and turned, he could not find a position that would allow him to rest. His back was stiff and despite the hay and straw he had piled up to lay upon, his spine cried out if he lay flat on his back. When he turned on his side, his knee was agony, twisting if he bent it, and seizing up if he straightened it. In the dark of the barn he sighed to himself, a grim smile playing on his lips at the irony of his predicament.
  
  He could almost hear the voice of Guthlaf speaking to him through the veil of time.
  
  "The best trait of any warrior is to be able to sleep anywhere and anytime," the grizzled warrior had said to him. "You, Dunston, are deadly with a blade, but your ability to sleep in an instant makes you a truly great warrior." They had been resting beside a cracked old Roman road. They'd marched for two days already and Dunston had been exhausted. It had seemed as nothing to sleep on the verge, even as rain fell and thunder rolled over them.
  
  Now, despite the relative comfort of the straw beneath him and the shelter provided by the barn's roof and walls, he was unable to find the relief of sleep. Guthlaf would have not thought him such a great warrior if he could see him now. But Guthlaf was long in his grave, and it had been many years since Dunston had considered himself to be a warrior.
  
  He had never thought of himself as great.
  
  Sighing, he rolled over onto his back, staring up into the blackness of the roof space.
  
  Again he regretted finding the corpse and the girl. If only he had chosen a different path, he would now be asleep in his hut, far from here and the machinations of men. And yet, would he truly wish for Aedwen to have been left, alone and defenceless in the great forest of Sealhwudu? She might have survived, he supposed. Perhaps she would have even found her way back here, to Briuuetone. But then what? What would have become of her?
  
  He snorted in the darkness. What had become of her anyway? Yes, he had seen her safely here, but she had been taken away and here he was, locked inside a barn, with no prospect of freedom for at least three weeks.
  
  Three weeks!
  
  He ground his teeth in the gloom as he recalled Hunfrith's words.
  
  "You will remain in my care until the next meeting of the Hundred-moot," he'd said.
  
  "When will that be?" asked Dunston.
  
  "The next meeting will be on the feast of Saint John the Baptist."
  
  "But that is nearly a month from now," Dunston had raged.
  
  "Indeed. Do not fear, you will be fed. No harm will befall you."
  
  Dismissing him then, Hunfrith had left three of his retinue to lead Dunston to this barn. They had opened the door and ushered him inside, and after a moment's hesitation, he had entered without further complaint.
  
  He had already begun to think of ways in which he could prove his innocence. Who would swear oaths for him before the moot? Would Aedwen speak out in his favour? Would anyone listen to her. She was a stranger and a child. If he was found guilty, he would need to face the trials by ordeal. Which did he believe he might survive? He had shuddered to recall others tried by the ordeal of iron, forced to grip a rod of glowing hot metal. This was then wrapped and, if after three days the wound was not healing well, the tried man was found to be guilty. Dunston was a smith of some renown and worked his forge on most days, so he had suffered many burns. But he doubted there was justice to be had from seeing how quickly such wounds healed or whether they became elf-shot.
  
  Still, fire and iron he could face. The ordeal of cold water, where the accused was thrown into the river after drinking holy water, terrified him beyond anything he had ever confronted. If the accused floated, he was deemed to be guilty. If he sank, he was found innocent. Dunston was no swimmer. He imagined the cold water washing over his face, his breath running out and his lungs burning, while he prayed frantically that he would be dragged from the water and saved.
  
  No, he must prove his innocence. He was no coward, but the thought of facing the ordeals filled him with dread.
  
  Left alone in the dark, Dunston's mind had turned to Hunfrith's last words to him. He had not thought that he was in any immediate danger; that he had weeks to think of the means to secure his release and prove his innocence. That was until he heard those words. Now he was not so sure.
  
  "No harm will befall you."
  
  Why say such a thing? Unless…
  
  By the bones of Christ. Three weeks cooped up in here. And what of Odin? The dog had gone with Aedwen. Dunston hoped she would feed him. Still, the hound could take care of himself. He was a good hunter. But what would happen to Wudugát, his goat? He had left the poor creature tethered. There was plenty of food and water for her for the time being, but he had never intended to be gone for more than a couple of days at most. Dunston's mind turned then to the snares left untended in the forest. His heart twisted to think of the animals that would be caught, only to die lingering deaths and then have their carcasses consumed by foxes and other carrion feeders. What a waste of good skins.
  
  Dunston shifted again in the straw and groaned at the ache between his shoulder blades. The pain was in just the place where Lytelman had been hacked open.
  
  What was happening here? Dunston felt like a child watching a game of tafl being played. He knew strategies were in place, could feel the shift and slide of the pieces, but he did not understand the rules of the game.
  
  There was some dark contest afoot here, something that he was not aware of. Nothing else made any sense. The manner of Lytelman's slaying, and then Hunfrith's instant accusation. And what of Rothulf? Was his death somehow connected to all this? Perhaps there was no link. Dunston could certainly see none. But he was sure that the recent events he had become embroiled in held some dark secret.
  
  He could barely believe that Rothulf was no longer alive. The old reeve would have known how to approach this problem. He was an astute man, able to unravel the most tangled of problems. Dunston sighed. By God, he would miss him. He had looked forward to their meetings. They would sit up late into the night drinking and talking of the past. And yet, while much of their chatter had been reminiscing over years gone by, they often spoke of the present and the future. Rothulf travelled widely and he listened wherever he went. And so he had become Dunston's only source of tidings of the lands beyond Briuuetone and Sealhwudu. Dunston had chosen to hide himself away from the day-to-day life of Wessex, but it would not do to completely shut himself off from the world.
  
  He wondered now at the state of the kingdom. He had heard from Rothulf of the increasing frequency of raids from the Norsemen in their dragon-prowed ships. As the king's ally in Frankia, King Louis, had become embroiled in a vicious civil war with his sons, so the Frankish ships had ceased to patrol the waters that surrounded Britain. This had soon led to the Norse becoming emboldened, and not a year went by without some of their number striking along the coast, snatching what treasures and slaves they could, and then fleeing before the fyrd could be assembled and brought to the defence of the realm.
  
  Only two years previously, Rothulf had recounted to Dunston how thirty-five Vikingr ships had landed at Carrum. The king had gathered his hearth warriors and the fyrds of the local hundreds and set upon them. The men of Wessex had been crushed, the king fleeing westward leaving the heathens to sack the lands there about with impunity.
  
  Dunston had been saddened by the tale. Could this be the same King Ecgberht who had defeated the Mercians at Ellandun? The proud and wise man who had expanded Wessex to encompass the people of the Centingas, Éastseaxe, Súþríeg and Súpseaxe. Who had even taken the oath of Eanred, king of the Northumbrians, making Ecgberht the ruler of all of the Anglisc?
  
  Dunston pulled up his knee and massaged it, wincing as his probing fingers pressed into the joint. No man remained young for ever. Even kings grew old.
  
  Even warriors who once basked in battle-fame and were renowned as being bold.
  
  From outside the door, came the muffled sound of voices. Earlier, one of the reeve's men had brought him a bowl of pottage and a hunk of dark, gritty bread. Perhaps he had been just outside ever since and was now, halfway through the night, being relieved of his duty.
  
  The barn was stoutly built from planks of oak and the door was barred from without. But it seemed Hunfrith had taken the extra precaution of having his men guard the exit. Dunston thought on his situation for a moment. Would he attempt to flee if he could? Again his mind turned to the trials he might face, and the uncertainty of being judged by this new reeve and the people of Briuuetone without the guiding hand of Rutholf who was not only wise, but as honest as any man Dunston had known. Yes, Hunfrith was probably right to guard against his escape. Dunston knew he could survive in the forest for the rest of his days, he was not so sure of the outcome of the moot.
  
  Perhaps his chance to run had already passed; the moment when he could have yet fought his way out, standing face to face with the reeve and his men. He was old and stiff, it was true, but armed he was still dangerous. He could have slain them and fled, he was certain. But Aedwen had watched on and she might have been hurt.
  
  And he was innocent.
  
  He had only ever fought his king's enemies. He was, or had been, a warrior, not a murderer. No, he would face the justice of the moot and pray that the people of Briuuetone would vouch for him.
  
  The voices outside became louder. One laughed, a jagged harsh sound in the stillness of the night. Dunston strained to hear what was being said.
  
  "… sliced the great bastard open like a…" The voices became muffled once more, then louder again. "… almost bit me… got my spear instead. Jaws like iron." Dunston didn't breathe, waiting for confirmation of what he was hearing. After a few more words that he was unable to make out, the louder of the two said, "No. The one-eyed beast was as fast as the Devil. It ran off, but I cut it good."
  
  They must have moved further from the door then, for their words became unintelligible.
  
  Dunston lay in the darkness and thought of interpretations of the words he had heard. He could think of none save that the bastards had cut Odin, and badly from the sound of it. He wondered whether the dog had attacked them. Had he been trying to protect Aedwen?
  
  For a long time Dunston imagined the many ways he would hurt the man who had struck Odin. Whatever secrets were being hidden by the death of the peddler, and no matter the outcome of the moot, Dunston swore a silent oath in the darkness that he would make the man pay for hurting his dog.
  
  At long last, with thoughts of vengeance spiralling in his mind, the fatigue from the day finally took its toll, pulling him down towards the welcome respite of sleep. His eyes closed and he was beginning to snore, when a sudden loud shouting woke him with a jolt.
  
  "Fire!" screamed a woman's voice, splintering the still of the night.
  
  Dunston pushed himself up with a groan. Through the cracks between the planks that made up the barn's door, the crimson flicker of flames was clear.