CHAPTER 1

That morning a Norman cavalry patrol had captured a young Englishman foraging inthe woods south of the River Tyne. After interrogating him, they decided he wasan insurgent and hanged him on a high hill as a warning to the people in thevalley below. The soldiers waited, hunched against the cold, until theirvictim's spasms stopped, and then they rode away. They were still in sight whenthe circling carrion birds flocked down and clustered on the corpse like viciousbats.

Towards evening a group of starving peasants crept up the hill and frightenedoff the birds. They cut down the corpse and laid it on the frozen ground. Eyes,tongue, nose and genitals were gone; its lipless mouth gaped in a silent scream.The men stood around it, billhooks in hand, exchanging neither looks nor words.At last one of them stepped forward, lifted up one of the dead man's arms,raised his blade and brought it down. The others joined in, hacking and sawing,while the crows and ravens skipped around them, squabbling for scraps.

The carrion birds erupted in raucous panic. The human scavengers looked up,frozen in acts of butchery, then rose with a gasp as a man came over the crest.He seemed to emerge from the earth, black against the raw February sky, a swordgrasped in his hand. One of the scavengers shouted and the pack turned and ran.A woman dropped her booty, cried out and turned to retrieve it, but a companiongrabbed her by the arm. She was still wailing, her face craned back, when hebundled her away.

The Frank watched them disappear, his breath smoking in the bitter air, then ranhis sword back into its scabbard and dragged his skinny mule towards the gibbet.Even filthy and travel-worn, he was an intimidating figure – tall, withdeep-set eyes and a jutting nose, unkempt hair coiling around a gaunt face, hischeekbones weathered to the colour of smoked eelskin.

His mule snorted as a crow trapped inside the corpse's ribcage thrashed free. Heglanced at the mutilated body without much change of expression, then frowned.Ahead of him, pale in the twilight, lay the object that the woman had dropped.It seemed to be wrapped in cloth. He tethered the mule to the gibbet and walkedover, stretched out one foot and turned the bundle over. He looked into thewizened face of a baby, only a few days old, its eyes tight-shut. His mouthpursed. The baby was alive.

He looked around. The carrion birds were beginning to settle again. There wasnowhere to hide the baby. The birds would be swarming over it as soon as he leftthe summit. The merciful thing to do would be to end its suffering now, with onesword thrust. Even if its mother returned, the baby wouldn't survive the famine.

His eye fell on the gibbet. After a moment's indecision, he lifted the baby inhis arms. At least it was well swaddled against the cold. He trudged back to hismule, opened a saddlepack and took out an empty sack. The baby gave a grizzlingsound and its mouth moved in reflexive sucking gestures. He placed it in thesack, mounted his mule and tied the sack to the end of the hangman's rope, abovethe reach of wolves. It wouldn't keep the birds off for long, but he guessedthat the mother would return once he'd left the hill.

He smiled a wintry smile. "Hanged before you're a week old. If you live, youmight make a reputation for yourself."

The birds flared up again as another man shuffled onto the ridge. He stopped inhis tracks when he saw the gibbet.

"Hurry up," cried the Frank. "It will be dark soon."

Watching the youth approach, the Frank shook his head. The Sicilian was awalking scarecrow. Another night without food or shelter might finish him off,but the only place they would find bed and board would be among the men who'dhanged the wretched Englishman.

The Sicilian reeled to a standstill, eyes dark and dull in his bloodless face.He stared at the ruined corpse and made a sound of disgust.

"Who did that?"

"Starving peasants," said the Frank, taking the mule's reins. "They were stillhere when I arrived. It's lucky it wasn't you who was leading the way."

The Sicilian's eyes skittered in all directions and settled on the sack.

"What's that?"

The Frank ignored the question. "They won't have gone far. For all I know,they're lying in wait for us." He led the mule away. "Stay close unless you wantto end up in a cooking pot."

Exhaustion rooted the Sicilian to the spot. "I hate this country," he muttered,so weary that he could only form thoughts by articulating them. "Hate it!"

A faint mewing made him lurch back in fright. He could have sworn that it camefrom the sack. He looked for the Frank and was alarmed to see his outlinealready sinking below the horizon. The sack mewed again. Birds fell out of thestone-dead sky, black tatters landing all around him. One of them hopped ontothe corpse's skull, cocked an eye at him and crammed its head into the yawningmaw. "Wait!" cried the Sicilian, wobbling over the grisly summit in pursuit ofhis master.

The Frank hurried into the dying light. The ground began to slope away and theoutlines of distant hills came into view. Another few steps and he sank to hishaunches, looking into a wide valley. Shadows flooded the river plain and hemight not have spotted the castle if it hadn't been so new, its whitewashedtimber keep still showing the wounds of the axe. It was tucked between theconfluence of two tributaries, one flowing from the north, the other loopingfrom the west. He traced the course of the river until it vanished into thedarkness rising in the east. He rubbed his eyes and took another look at thecastle. Norman without a doubt, laid out in a figure-of-eight, the keep perchedon a motte within its own stockade, the hall and a scattering of smallerbuildings occupying the lower enclosure. Not a bad position, he thought.Protected by rivers on two sides, each tributary spanned by an easily defendedbridge.

His gaze lifted to another line of defence on the ridge a couple of miles behindthe castle. In a lifetime of campaigning, he'd seen nothing like it – awall punctuated by watchtowers marching straight across the landscape with noregard for natural obstacles. That must be the barrier the Romans had built toprotect their northernmost frontier from the barbarians. And yes, against thedarkness of oncoming night, the wintry hills beyond did have an end-of-the-worldlook.

A blur of smoke hung over the castle. He fancied he could see figures inchingtowards it from the surrounding fields. Not far downriver was a sizeablevillage, but the houses had a caved-in look and the outlying farmsteads weresmudges of ash. Since crossing the Humber five days ago, the travellers hadn'tpassed a single occupied village. The harrying of the north, the dereliction wascalled – Norman revenge for an English and Danish uprising at York twowinters ago. In the last of the light the Frank worked out that the way to thecastle led through a wood.

The Sicilian flopped down beside him. "Have you found it?"

The Frank pointed.

The Sicilian peered into the gloom. The spark of excitement faded and his facecrumpled in disappointment. "It's just a wooden tower."

"What did you expect – a marble palace with gilded spires?" The Frankpushed himself upright. "On your feet. It will be dark soon and there'll be nostars tonight."

The Sicilian stayed on the ground. "I don't think we should go down there."

"What do you mean?"

"It's too dangerous. We can hand over the documents to the bishop in Durham."

The...