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to find my brother, and then he and I will go to East Anglia, to a Danish settlement, which is our destination. ‘Tis a simple matter, really.”
    “Not so simple when you are a Dane, your brother has fallen in with bad company, and the money is not yours,” Slayde countered. As a test to prove himself impervious to her touch, he allowed her to keep hold of his hand. “Or deny it now and say that what is in the sack is yours, unfettered by obligations. Then perhaps in addition to shipping you back, I will not also investigate from whom you might have stolen.” 
    She withdrew her hand and pulled the linen tighter around her. “Where those monies came from is complicated and I cannot tell you all. But I will say that I have earned them through my own labors, though the sack is not now wholly my possession ... though through no fault of my own.”
    “You see there, Slayde,” Byrnstan said in her defense. “She said through no fault of her own . Consider she has been a victim.”
    “She talks in riddles, now, Byrnstan.” Slayde reached for the money purse. “Let us have a look inside for a clue.” He untied the knot in the drawstring and opened the sack, pouring its contents onto the deck floor.
    “Your interrogation leaves her little wiggling room,” Brynstan said leaning in. But his hopeful expression turned to disappointment at the sight of the damaging evidence.
    Slayde shook his head in disbelief as he viewed the small fortune. “Coins from across foreign lands.” He sifted through the pile. The jangling of loot and the sun reflecting from precious metals raised curious stares from his rowing crewmen and brought Ailwin to stand behind his ealdorman. “Gems, bracelets and brooches of all sorts. And rings.”
    Llyrica inhaled audibly. Slayde picked out two silver bands, twins save their difference in size. He recognized at once the insignia on the rings, but made no comment aloud. 
    “What labors procured you this treasure,” Slayde asked as he returned the rings to the pile, “which is usually reserved for merchants or travelling kings? Until you tell me otherwise, I suspect this is ill-gotten by such services for which certain women are paid well. Or that it is indeed stolen. How else would you come by such?”
    “Tell him this coin is an inheritance.” Byrnstan insisted on grasping at straws. “Or that you have some other talent with which you have earned this.”
    “And why you then took the money, risked your life in a barrel, at sea, without food and without kin to greet you at the end of a desperate journey,” Slayde added.
    Llyrica now addressed the priest, whom she must rightly perceive as an ally. “I agree that the circumstances of my arrival cast me in a guilty light, and fear bids me not admit or deny a crime which brought my brother and me here. But might I be forgiven, after which I will go and sin no more?” She molded the priest like clay. “Our Lord bestows this favor. Will you?”
    Byrnstan answered swiftly. “Indeed, child. To forgive is my foremost duty.”
    “But you will not go, save by my leave,” Slayde said. He tired of the debate after a long day, and the soft tones of her voice agitated him. “And then it will be on the next ship bound for Denmark. Whether or not you sin again is your affair.”
    The time which elapsed during Llyrica’s silence was filled with the heaving sounds of men rowing and the OnyxFox surging through coastal waters. The ship neared the estuary that would take them to Benfleet, the home of StoneHeart’s living quarters and training ground for his troops. The Viking-built fortress, protected by the great earthworks surrounding it and the Saxons now living there, boasted the conquest over its Danish occupants just months before. The Saxon possession of this fortress was tenuous, on the very edge of Danelaw. It was muddy, treeless place, with a vast view of the sea.
    Slayde thought that his would be the final words and he nearly arose to occupy