Inghen laughed. It was like the bark of a she-wolf.

'Of course not!' She shrugged carelessly. 'Some of us come with the kings, to conquer new lands. Others, like myself, live on plunder. But we are not common thieves. We fight for freedom and for glory.'

'Freedom and glory? You're ill-disciplined, lecherous, thieving murderers!'

'Nonsense!' laughed Inghen, glancing knowingly at Thorir. She shook her head. 'You clearly have no conception as to what it takes to be a Viking. We don't accept just any peasant into our ranks!' She began to declaim:

'Listen now to the laws of the Vikings:
Never shall we eat raw, or ill-cooked meat,
but only the oxen we hew on the strand.
Never shall we plunder peasants or traders,
except only to cover immediate needs.
Never rob women, whether rich or poor,
and if a warrior takes a woman against her will,
whether carle or earl, for his crime he shall die.'

She shook her head again. 'You've been listening to the sensationalist lies your Church has spread about us - mainly because, unlike your native church-robbers, you can't excommunicate us when we put your hoarded gold to some use more practical than adorning churches. Just think about it! We're warriors, and good ones at that. Whoring and drinking, raping and looting - they all mix very poorly with a life as a disciplined fighter; that's what peasants do when they go to war, not warriors.

'Look, if we behaved in the lurid way your church insists we do, we'd never bother getting out of bed in the morning to fight you! You know nothing about the realities of life, stuck out here on this rock in the middle of the sea...'

'Ah, that's not in fact the case...' Thorir interrupted her flow with his diplomatic voice.

'What are you talking about, Thorir?' sneered Inghen, a little peeved at having her pontifications cut short. 'What could they possible know about the real world? Nothing! Nothing at all.'

He frowned, and was about to speak when the Abbess took a step forward.

'Yours is not the first ship to be wrecked on Innis Cotrice,' she said quietly. 'A month ago, another longship sank off the shore, and most of the men went to their maker with all their many sins upon their heads. But five men survived, and they have been terrorising us ever since. Big, burly men, hairy and ugly, who come demanding the gold from our chapel and our virtues which are Christ's alone to take...'

'Berserkers,' Thorir explained tersely. 'A group of berserkers escaped shipwreck. They want to get back to the mainland, but the man who brings these nuns their supplies only comes twice a year.'

Inghen shook her head. Berserkers were not known for being bright; frequently they were the exception who proved the rules she had been explaining. She disliked them on the whole - it had been a berserker who had killed her father - but these seemed to be behaving worse than usual. 'What's wrong with these fools? Can't they wait till the next time this man comes here?'

'Well, they are waiting, it seems,' Thorir answered. 'But you know berserkers, they've got no patience. And they seem to think the gold in the chapel would do them very nicely to buy a new longship and crew. As for the nuns' virtue - well, you know the reputation berserkers have...'

'Gunnholm has never raped a woman, to my knowledge,' Inghen replied defiantly. Gunnholm Finsson was the ship's berserker, the only one of a band of brothers to inherit his father's mysterious powers. A useful warrior, very loyal and obedient, fiercely dedicated to Inghen and her enterprises. Nothing like the berserkers you heard about, or the treacherous bastard who had killed her father.

'Gunnholm would never dare. He's fanatically loyal to you,' Thorir explained, 'and he'd do nothing to offend you. But these berserkers have no-one to lead them except their own bellies. They are the kind of people who give Vikings a bad name.'

Inghen stood pensive for a moment. She was about to speak when the Abbess interrupted again.

'So, will you repay us by dealing with this scourge? They have already raped and murdered three of my girls, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. They are evil. Even if the Lord sent them here to punish us for our sins, then He also sent you here, to slay them. Providence wrecked your ship upon Innis Cotrice.'

'Did he?' snarled Inghen in angry confusion. 'What the hell did he do that for?'

'She means that her god sent us here,' said Thorir helpfully. 'You know, to help them out.'

Inghen snorted, and she raised her voice to be heard over a sudden outburst of howling and barking from outside. 'So you expect us to kill our own countrymen just because you were weak enough to aid us when we were at your mercy, instead of slipping a quiet dagger in our backs?' She laughed mirthlessly. 'Don't be absurd.' She clicked her fingers. 'Come on, Thorir. We're going down to the ship.'

Thorir stared at her in surprise. The barking was continuing. He waved his hand vaguely towards the door.

'What's that noise?' demanded Inghen in irritation. She turned to the Abbess. The woman's face was pale.

'They've come back!' she moaned. 'It's the berserkers! Heaven knows what they want this time.'

Inghen shrugged.

'I suggest you give them what they want, and...'

A hoarse voice came from outside.

'Hey! Woman! We want another of your girls! The last one broke.' Rough laughter followed this. 'Come on, bitch!' the hectoring voice urged. 'Varg the Black wants another woman.'

Inghen's eyes narrowed, and she stood still for a second, her impassivity broken by a look of slight consternation.

'Varg the Black?' she muttered. 'The man my brother refused to slay?'

'What's that?' asked Thorir. She looked over at him.

'Of course, you weren't with us back then. When my brother Thrond became leader of the fleet, after our father was killed, he refused to avenge our father's death. It was a berserker called Varg the Black who slew him, and Thrond was too much of a coward to go against him. That's why I conspired with the other skippers to banish him, and took his place...'

'Come on, woman!' the voice shouted again. 'Send one of your girls out, or we'll come in and get one. And we won't be gentle.'

Inghen turned swiftly to Thorir.

'Your sword!' she demanded. 'I'm going to settle this matter once and for all.'

'But...' said Thorir. Before he could make a more coherent complaint, Inghen grabbed his sword hilt and pulled the weapon from his scabbard. It glittered briefly in the light from the door, and Inghen turned and strode out.

'But they'll kill you...' Thorir gulped.

But she was gone.

Inghen strode confidently out of the building into a yard at the centre of a circle of beehive huts. In the middle of this lounged five men, all of them big and burly, with long beards and grimy clothes. At their centre stood one paunchy, black-bearded man who was leaning casually on his axe-haft. The rest of the men were nondescript, in a hairy and mad-eyed way, apart from one whose neck was at a permanent thirty-degree angle; the result of some battle, Inghen presumed.

She stood before the five berserkers, small but impressive, glaring unafraid at the slobbish warriors who returned her gaze scornfully. 'Who's this?' guffawed the black-bearded berserker. He looked at her more closely with his wildly glaring eyes. 'You're no nun. Don't I know you from somewhere?'

'They call me the Red Daughter in these parts,' she replied coldly. 'But you probably remember me, Varg the Black, as Inghen Raudisdottir.'