Peering through the slit between brown soil and black wood, Va had watched the horses go by, the infantry go by, and finally the cattle-drawn carts laden with supplies. It had taken half the morning, and now there were the followers that tagged along behind every army. Wives, whores, thieves, cooks, musicians; some of them all those roles in one.

The last pair of feet disappeared from view, and Va turned onto his back. ‘It’s only a small army. A thousand fighting men, a hundred horse.’

‘But none of them landless peasants being led to their slaughter by some crazed mercenary sick with love.’

Va swallowed hard. ‘No, I suppose not. But it looks like High King Cormac is going back for another try.’

Elenya stood up and stretched. ‘Who isn’t the real High King at all, just some upstart from Mumhan.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder and started for the gap in the hedge. ‘This isn’t going to be easy, you know,’ she said.

‘It still has to be done.’

‘You can’t just march in and demand the book back.’

‘macShiel said this Ardhal is an honourable man. Honourable men don’t like the idea of owning stolen property. So, yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

‘Except you’ll need me to translate for you, or did you think he spoke Rus? I could tell him that you’re some odious tree-worshipper from the far south holding me hostage, and that I’m throwing myself on his mercy if only he’d free me from your cruel ownership. And you wouldn’t be able to tell until they fetched the rope to hang you.’

‘You wouldn’t do that.’ He frowned at her slight. ‘I do know some World.’

‘Va, when you commanded your vast armies, how did you manage to tell them what you wanted them to do?’

‘I had people.’

‘It’s a good job you still do. Now it looks like An Cobh is going to be under siege again, you’ll have to work out a way of getting in and out without being killed by either side as a spy.’

Va knocked a stone out of his sandals. ‘God will provide.’

‘Whenever you say that, I know you’re going to do something stupid and trust to luck.’ Elenya searched her bag for the hard yellow cheese macShiel’s wife had given her. ‘The problem is, it always works, doesn’t it?’

She twisted the lump of cheese this way and that until it broke into two unequal portions. She kept the smaller and gave Va the larger.

They trailed the army until noon, when they stopped at the top of the hill overlooking An Cobh. The soldiers marched on and started to arrange themselves in the valley below, slowly working their way round to cut the promontory off from the land. The horsemen darted this way and that, issuing orders and rounding up the livestock that hadn’t been withdrawn inside An Cobh’s stone walls.

‘This is a rubbish siege,’ said Elenya. ‘They can still get supplies in by boat. They’ll give up in a week and go home.’

‘If they had any boats. Didn’t macShiel say Cormac burned them all last time?’

‘True. But they can always make more.’

‘They don’t seem too worried.’ Va stood as tall as he could, his hand shading his eyes. ‘Ah. They’ve got a couple of galleys coming into the bay.’

‘So it’s not so rubbish.’ Elenya watched the valley as the soldiers put up tents and built fires at intervals around the walls. ‘This rabble seems quite organized. Bit of a setback for you.’

‘Something will turn up.’

The gates of An Cobh were closed. The walls were crowded with figures, going this way and that, all too far away to tell what they were doing. Wood smoke started to obscure the scene further.

‘All this for just one book,’ said Elenya.

‘I know. But you said the thieves were led by a black man.’

‘I said a man in black. I couldn’t tell the colour of his skin.’

Va looked at the way the sentries were arrayed. ‘I should be able to slip through the picket during the night. The walls are climbable. I might need some rope.’

‘And what about me? How do you propose to get me in?’

Va tutted. ‘That’s up to you.’

‘You won’t leave me behind.’ She put her hand lightly on his arm.

He flinched and put his own hand to cover where she had touched him, as if burned. ‘I need to check on the defences on the far side of town.’

‘Then we’ll walk together.’

They were halfway round the horseshoe curve of the surrounding hills when fresh black smoke rose in two pillars behind An Cobh. Va tried to make out what had happened, but the rock on which the town sat hid the shore from view.

‘They must be firing the port.’

‘Who, Cormac or the king?’

‘I can’t tell. It doesn’t make sense, either way. Cormac will want to take the town; the King of Coirc will want to keep it. There’s no sense in burning it all to the ground.’

Then one of the boats hove into view. Its rigging was alight, along with most of the foredeck. It was abandoned, and it heeled over to starboard without check. The crew were tiny white splashes in the choppy sea.

Pushed by the wind, the hull turned towards the shore, the flames whipping up along the deck in great roiling tongues. The mast tilted, wobbled and fell hissing into the water.

‘What happened to that?’ said Va. He took a faltering step back, then steadied himself. It reminded him too much of the other fire, the other boats.

He started down the hill. He had to conquer his fear.

‘Va! Va! Stop.’ Elenya jumped at him, took him around the waist with both her arms and dragged him down onto the scrubby emerald grass.

He tried to push her away without touching her, and twisted his body so that she was forced to let go. By the time he looked up again, the sky was cut with a dozen smoky lines, arcing out from the town walls and aiming high over the encamping army.

The first trail stopped with a sharp cracking sound and a puff of white smoke. Instantly all the other trails bar one did the same, the noise blending into barrages of noise that echoed down the valley.

The High King’s men turned from the stricken boat to look upwards.

The first few to be hit simply couldn’t believe it. They grasped the sharp metal flights suddenly protruding from their bodies and tried to pull them free. The ground bristled with spikes, and finally one man raised his shield in time as his comrade next to him sank to the ground, his open mouth neatly skewered.

Va tried to get up, and again Elenya pulled him down. Another section of the wall had loosed burning fingers of smoke that reached up and out. The horsemen in the line of fire wheeled about, uncertain what was happening to them, undecided which direction to run. Those who dithered were cut down by the hard rain.

A new tactic: more smoke and fire, this time aimed directly at the reeling foot soldiers. The streaks hit the soft earth at a shallow angle. Some buried themselves, others skidded across the sheep-cropped grass. All paused for breath, then vanished in a flash of light, a snap of thunder. Anyone close by fell down as if dead.

‘Think about the book,’ said Elenya in Va’s ear. ‘Think of what I’d have to tell the patriarch – that you threw your life away.’

‘But they’re dying,’ he groaned.

‘And you can’t save them. Lie still.’

The High King’s tent seemed out of range of the King of Coirc’s devilry. He had to watch his army being massacred before him, yet remain untouched himself. Each section of the wall threw high spikes, followed it with the low-aimed explosions, and those left alive ran from the field screaming and crying.

The King of Coirc had one last trick. A single stripe of sooty smoke burst from a tower, wrote a dark line across the strange-smelling sky and petered out. Then it flashed into life again, falling beyond Cormac’s camp and destroying a blackthorn tree. The would-be High King got the message. He leaped on his horse and fled back over the hill. His abandoned kinsmen kicked over the fluttering banner and rode to the top of the hill. There they stopped and waited for the remnants of the army to straggle their way back to them.