Wilf stood up.
Ragna stared at him with her mouth open, horrified. She could not conceal her distress: this was too much. I can’t bear it, she thought.
“Sit down, for God’s sake,” she hissed. “Don’t be a fool.”
He looked at her and seemed surprised; then he looked away and addressed the assembled diners. “Unexpectedly,” he began, and they all started to laugh. “Unexpectedly, I find I am called away.”
No, Ragna thought; this can’t be happening.
But it was. She struggled to hold back tears.
“I shall return later,” Wilf said, walking to the exit.
At the door he paused and turned back, with the instinctive feeling for dramatic timing that he had always had.
He said: “Much later.”
The men roared with laughter, and he went out.
Wynstan, Degbert, and Dreng left Shiring quietly, in the dark, leading their horses until they were outside the town. Only a few trusted servants knew they were leaving, and Wynstan was determined that no one else should find out. They had a packhorse loaded with a small barrel and a sack as well as food and drink, butthey took no men-at-arms with them. Their mission was a dangerous secret.
They were careful not to be recognized on the road. Even with no entourage, anonymity was not easy. Degbert’s bald head was conspicuous, Dreng had a distinctive reedy voice, and Wynstan was one of the best-known men in the region. So they wrapped up in heavy cloaks, buried their chins in the folds, and shrouded their faces by pulling forward their hoods—none of which was unusual in the cold, wet February weather. They hurried past other travelers, spurning the usual exchanges of information. Rather than seek hospitality at an alehouse or monastery where they would have had to reveal their faces, they spent the first night at the home of a family of charcoal burners in the forest—surly, unsociable people who paid Wynstan a fee for the license to follow their occupation.
The nearer they got to Dreng’s Ferry, the greater the danger that they would be recognized. They had a mile or two to go on the second day when they suffered a tense moment. They met a group coming in the opposite direction: a family on foot, the woman holding a baby, the man with a bucket of eels that he must have bought from Bucca Fish, and two more children trailing behind. Dreng murmured: “I know that family.”
“So do I,” said Degbert.
Wynstan kicked his horse into a trot, and his companions did likewise. The family scattered to the sides of the road. Wynstan and the others rode past without speaking. The family were too busy getting out of the way of the flying hooves to take a good look at the riders. Wynstan thought they had got away with it.
Soon afterward, they turned off the road onto a near-invisible track through the trees.
Now Degbert took the lead. The woods thickened, and they had to dismount and walk the horses. Degbert found his way to an old ruined house, probably once the home of a forester, long abandoned. Its broken walls and half-collapsed roof would provide some shelter for their second night.
Dreng gathered an armful of deadfalls and lit a fire with a spark from a flint. Degbert unloaded the packhorse. The three men made themselves as comfortable as they could as night fell.
Wynstan took a long pull from a flask and passed it around. Then he gave instructions. “You’ll have to carry the barrel of tar with you to the village,” he said. “You can’t take the horse—it might make a noise.”
Dreng said: “I can’t carry a barrel. I’ve got a bad back. A Viking—”
“I know. Degbert can take it. You’ll carry the sack of rags.”
“That looks heavy enough.”
Wynstan ignored his grumbling. “What you have to do is simple. You dip the rags in the tar, then tie them to the bridge, ideally to the ropes and the smaller wooden components. Take your time, tie them tight, don’t rush the job. When they’re all attached, light a good, dry stick, then use that to ignite all the rags, one by one.”
“This is the part that worries me,” said Degbert.
“It will be the middle of the night. A few burning rags won’t wake anyone. You’ll have all the time in the world. When the rags are alight, walk quietly back up the hill. Don’t make a noise, don’t run until you’re out of earshot. I’ll be waiting for you here with the horses.”
“They’ll know it was me,” said Dreng.
“They’ll suspect you, perhaps. You were foolish enough tooppose the building of the bridge, a protest that was doomed to be ignored, as you should have known.” Wynstan was often infuriated by the stupidity of men such as Dreng. “But then they’ll recall that you were in Shiring when the bridge was set on fire. You were seen in the great hall two days ago, and you’ll be seen there again the day after tomorrow. If anyone is smart enough to realize that you were out of sight during a period long enough to get to Dreng’s Ferry and back, I will swear that the three of us were at my residence the whole time.”
Degbert said: “They’ll blame outlaws.”
Wynstan nodded. “Outlaws are useful scapegoats.”
Dreng said: “I could hang for this.”
