I woke at close to dawn, my body stiff and creaky from having curled itself into a fetal position overnight in a futile attempt to keep warm. The animals were gone, let outside by someone who hadn't seen fit to wake me, or bring me anything to eat. I tried my restraints again, and found them still tightly knotted. It was dark on the lower floor of the Lord's house, with the fire long gone out and the winter wind coming through the gaps in the walls until it felt as if I had never been warm in my life.

My thoughts were with my family almost as soon as I'd shaken off the mental torpor of a bad night's sleep. It was morning where I was, and so it was morning in 2017. They would be calling, texting, asking me if I'd booked a flight. One small point of comfort was the thought that if I didn't answer right away they might assume I was already on my way home, but even that was tenuous, given how easy it would be to call my security detail and be told I'd gone off for a drive on my own the day before and had yet to return. It dawned on me, then, that my hired security had almost certainly noted my absence already – and probably called my parents in response.

I had to get home. I had to get home and it had to be soon, or when I did get home it was going to be a shit-show of such epic proportions I was probably going to wish I'd stayed in the 9th century, with its abundance of violent men and its distinct lack of efficient indoor heating.

There would be no time to ponder further, though, because Esa soon came to me, with an air of annoyance about him and a chunk of stale bread in his hand.

"God willing the Lord decides what to do with you today," he grumbled as he loosened my restraints and handed me the bread – which I shamelessly began to devour. "This is women's work, tending to prisoners, and I'm wasted spending my time on the likes of you."

I chewed the dry bread, swallowed and then swallowed again when it refused to go down the first time. "If it's women's work," I asked Esa, who was sullenly cleaning his fingernails with a small twig while I ate, "why are you doing it?"

He shrugged and sighed heavily. "I've no knowledge of the Lord's plans, girl. Eat your bread and keep your mouth shut."

I didn't sense any hostility from Esa, not really. There was no underlying wish to hurt me – or even kill me – like I'd sensed with Baldric. But he didn't care, either. I was an animal to him, like one of the bristle-haired pigs, a thing to be cared for as long as it served his Lord's purposes to do so. Although he seemed to have no wish to dash my brains out with the heavy stone axe tied around his waist with a rope made of twisted straw, I didn't doubt for one second that he would do it if ordered to – and that he wouldn't lose sleep over it afterwards.

When I was finished eating, Esa wrapped his enormous, fat fingers around my upper arm and led me outside to relieve myself. It was embarrassing, squatting down in the dirt while various curious children and animals looked on – but what could I do?

And before I'd even managed to cover myself again, a familiar voice made itself heard.

"Bring her to me, Esa. I'll walk the grounds with our prisoner with morning."

That's how I found myself strolling out of the front gates with the Lord, as four guards trailed us at a not-far-enough-away-for-me-to-try-running distance. He'd ordered a woolen cape to be thrown over my shoulders, and stiff leather to be tied around my feet, the soles of which were still bloody and purple after the barefoot walk (where had my shoes gone? I must have lost them in the struggle) through the woods the previous day.

"You've had some sleep now, and bread to eat," the Lord said. "I've given you a wool dressing and leather for your feet. Perhaps now you can bring yourself to tell me where it is you're from, and how it is you came to attack my men so savagely on my land – not once, either, but twice!"

In the brighter light of the sunny day, I got a better look at the man who was in charge of the estate. He was slightly shorter than me, but he moved and carried himself with a sense of iron-clad confidence – the certainty of a man who knows that when he speaks, others will listen. His eyes were hazel, focused and intelligent – not only was I aware that running would be pointless, I was starting to think that lying would be, too. But how could I tell him the truth?

"And don't tell me," he added, as if reading my mind, "that you wandered here from Essex or Wessex or any southern parts – nobody 'wanders' that far without a motive."

"You're right," I started quietly, eager to show the Lord that I took him seriously. "I didn't wander here from the south. But I didn't come here – to your land, or your estate – with a purpose, either. It was an accident, I am looking for a friend of –"

At that moment, there was a sudden hue and cry behind us in the woods.

"Lord!" Someone shouted, and then another, as they rushed down the path towards us. "Lord Cyneric!"

The voices were urgent, serious. I automatically stepped aside as 3 men came to a halt in front of my walking companion.

"What is –" the Lord of the estate started, but one of the men cut him off. I watched his eyes widen at this apparent rudeness, and saw one of the guards raising a gloved hand to strike the man who had given offense. Before he could do so, though, another man spoke.

"Northmen," he gasped. "My Lord –"

"Coming from the North," a second man took up the sentence that the first was panting too hard to finish. "Across the – the marshes are frozen, Lord – the land. They're coming from the –"

"Back!" Lord Cyneric – for I had just heard his full name for the first time – barked suddenly, breaking into a run as two of the guards each took one of my arms and swept me back along the path to the estate. "Back inside the walls!"

The walls, I thought as I was hustled back to the estate. What walls?! It's a tall fence at best!

The wooden gate, heavy as it was when it was pushed closed and then latched with a large piece of tree trunk, wasn't going to hold anyone – or anything – off. Was it? A large number of women and children had taken shelter within the bosom of the Lord's house and grounds and I watched as they disappeared, some of them dragging squealing pigs or leading irritated-looking cows – into the lower floor of the house itself. Should I be going with them? All around was an air of fear and anticipation. I looked around, searching for instruction on what to do. None came.

Before I, too, could turn and run into the security of the house, there came a noise from outside the estate and I watched as the Lord's men – and the Lord himself – heard it too. The ones that weren't already holding their weapons at the ready pulled them now from the leather and straw straps securing them around their waists. Hammers, axes, spears, swords. The guards, dressed in the heavy, dark woolens I was already learning to associate with their place in this small society, had the best and strongest-looking weapons. But it wasn't just guards standing wait for whatever was heading our way. Peasants lined up, with in their dirty tunics and their broken-toothed grimaces, raising flimsy-looking wooden spears – wooden spears! – over their heads in a way that did nothing to reassure me of their defensive prowess.

I swiveled my head again, sensing the rising tension, and spotted Esa headed my way with a heavy axe in each of his hands. When he went to walk by me without a word I reached out and clutched at his shirt.

"What should I do?" I whispered. "Esa, what –"

He looked down at me then, and I could tell from his expression that he hadn't even noticed me before I'd spoken. "What are you doing out here?" He responded angrily, shoving me back towards the house. "Get inside with the women and children, girl! Now!"

I did as I was told, breaking into a run and not quite making it before the sound of men approaching – of many, many men approaching – became so loud I knew they were just outside. It wasn't just the sound of heavy, running footsteps either. No. Horrifyingly, there was another sound – a metallic clanking that I only realized at the last second was the sound of weapons being smashed together, a sound calculated to intimidate.

It worked. Not just on me. As my eyes ran the length of the row of peasants I spotted two whose knee-length linen garments were in the midst of being soaked with urine. Just seeing that made my own bladder warm with terror. Northmen. The Northmen were upon us.

It was a term I'd heard repeatedly since I'd embarked on my visits to the deep past. And it was only as I stood frozen to the spot with terror that it dawned on me that it might be a reference to Vikings. They were from the north, weren't they? And who else inspired fear in 9th century English folk – villagers and nobles alike – than Vikings? If the fearsome racket coming from outside was any indication, their terror was not misplaced.

Something kept me outside the Lord's house as the din died down – curiosity, yes. But it wasn't just that. If they were Vikings, maybe that was a good thing? Paige was with the Vikings now, wasn't she? She had a Viking's baby in her arms the last time I saw her. Surely I could explain to these people, even if Paige wasn't with them, that I wasn't a resident of the estate, that I was a captive and that I felt no loyalty towards my captors.

It was really stupid to think any of those things. From my readings I knew it wasn't a single band of Vikings that raided the east coast of England once. It was many bands, over a period of many decades, tens of thousands of men and, eventually, the women they almost certainly brought with them when they had a mind to settling the land they'd previously used only for plundering and pillaging. I had no reason to believe that Paige Renner would be among the group who threatened me now, and no reason to believe they'd listen to a single thing I had to say. Still, the mind grasps at straws when in a desperate situation.

Before I even had a chance to think about the accuracy of my assumptions, though, a great, fierce voice suddenly rang from outside.

"Lord Cyneric!" It boomed. "We told you we would be back. And this time, there are a thousand of us! We have burning oil at the ready to take down your palisades! But if you're an intelligent man – and it is as I know it to be – you would see that you're overwhelmed now and spare your estate the destruction we will wreak upon it if you heed your pride too well!"

Shrieks came from inside the Lord's house, and his guards and men turned their heads towards him, their eyes wide with the adrenaline coursing through their veins, awaiting his response.

"Aye!" He boomed back. "It was not a moon ago that I heard of the raid on the Eastmarsh estate. I do not wish to see my people or my land treated with such malevolence, Ragnar! But nor do I wish to see my women raped or my children slaughtered like lambs if I open the gates for you and instruct my men to lay down their arms!"

The two men knew each other, that was clear. The Northmen were not paying their first visit to Lord Cyneric or his estate. Also, words like 'rape' and 'slaughter' were being tossed around. I turned and looked over my shoulder – not at the house but at the wooden fencing behind it. The Northmen were outside the front gate, they could be heard massing there, all along the northern wall. I heard nothing from the southern side, although that didn't mean there was no one there.

If Lord Cyneric's guards had better things to do than chase down a female prisoner, did I think I could scale the palisade? The tree trunks weren't perfectly smooth, knots remained and stood out against the surfaces. I'd been pretty good at the climbing wall that had been installed in the Grand Northeastern gym during my sophomore year. Did I think I had a chance at hauling myself up and over the defenses of the estate?

I did. Maybe not a good one, but anything was preferable to staying where I was, dumbly awaiting my fate – wasn't it? I would have to wait for the right moment, though. I couldn't do it right away, with every man around me on high alert, just waiting for some signal, some reason to use their weapons. I was a captive – not one of them – and they had no good reason to protect me.

"The Lord of Eastmarsh fought!" Came the reply from outside. "You know we outnumber you ten to one, Cyneric. You know our weapons are sharper, our men stronger! You have my word that those who do not fight us will be allowed to live – now open your gates before my men get impatient and storm them anyway!"

I watched as Lord Cyneric turned around slowly, eying his people. His gaze rested for a longer time on the house that sheltered the women and children than it did anywhere else. He knew the decision was his to make, and he also knew, as far as I could tell from the look on his face, that if he chose to fight he would lose.

"Fuck them!" Came a shout from the crowd of guards. "Lord, let us die defending our land and our families! Don't ask us to put down our weapons while this band of savages from the north –"

"Shut your mouth, Elread!" Someone else shouted in response. "You're too young and stupid to understand what slaughter means – and make no mistake, it will be a slaughter! We –"

"He wishes to surrender! What kind of a man begs his Lord to –"

At that, the two guards launched themselves at each other, and others looked like they were about to join in when Cyneric bellowed at them to stand down.

"It's my decision alone," he growled at the man who had been responsible for the first outburst. "And if I throw caution to the cold winds, and your pretty young wife is raped by Northmen before they cut your unborn son from her belly and toss his body to the pigs, it will be me you hate, my responsibility. Don't speak so lightly of the things you know nothing about, boy!"

The guard, hearing his Lord's words, dropped his gaze to the ground and did not reply. Meanwhile, Cyneric continued, louder now, speaking to all his people.

"I don't have a choice! There are many more of them and you heard as well as I did what happened at Eastmarsh. Ragnar! Our gates will be opened! And all the curses of your northern gods be upon you if your break your vow to leave those who lay down their weapons unharmed!"

At that, the Lord nodded at the guards who stood on either side of the gate and, after a brief look at each other, they began to lift the tree trunk that held the gate against the invaders. When it was removed, the latch swung open with a heavy thud.

And then I watched, transfixed and momentarily unaware of how cold and hungry I was, how eager to leave this place, as a man who looked to be twice the size of lord Cyneric stepped over the threshold of the estate and stood, feet planted about a foot apart, looking over us. Ragnar.

His hair was long and dark, with glints of a deep red shining in the thin winter light, and he was as broad and thick with muscle as anyone I had ever seen. He stayed where he was for a long time, his chin raised arrogantly and a smile I couldn't decipher playing at the corner of his lips, until I could hear the Lord's guards begin to shift worriedly and steal glances down at the ground where their weapons lay.

"You've made a wise decision, Cyneric," Ragnar said finally, nodding down at the Lord of the estate.

"Respect!" Someone shouted from the gathered crowd. "Address our Lord with respect, savage!"

The Viking – for there could be no mistaking what he was – laughed at that comment and at once there was a sound of running footsteps, an enraged shout, and I felt my heart leap up into my throat. Ragnar had the time to throw a look at the assembled crowd, of the type you would give to a misbehaving child, before lifting a sword so large, with a blade so sharp its edges glinted in the sunlight, up over his head.

The movement was almost casual, as if the weapon were weightless – but the timing was perfect. I bit my tongue against a scream as Ragnar's weapon carved a smooth arc through the air and cut Lord Cyneric's man down with a single blow. He died so quickly he didn't even have time to make a sound, and the life was gone out of him before he'd even hit the frozen ground.

Ragnar looked up then, drawing his bloody sword across the furs which covered him almost from head to foot, and a deep red stain spread across the frozen earth under the man he had just killed.

"Who else?" He asked, looking plainly from man to man, his eyes an open challenge to anyone who wanted to try their luck.

I stayed where I was, blinking and uncomprehending, unable to look at what seemed, out of the corner of my eyes, to be perhaps a pile of old clothes or a sleeping animal – and not the remains of a human being whose heart had, just moments ago, beat as strong and true as my own.

It struck me then that I had come to a savage place – and it made me wonder why Paige had chosen to live out the rest of her life amidst such brutality. The press hounding and the internet taunts were awful, but was this any kind of alternative? Barely any protection against the weather, a rigid, inescapable hierarchy and the possibility of a violent death as a constant? I reckoned that I would take the intrusive questions from a few reporters.

Ragnar began to explain what was to happen to Lord Cyneric and his men. And what was to happen was surrender. The Northmen – the Vikings – were not at the estate to negotiate. They were there to take what they wanted and leave the rest. Lord Cyneric would be allowed to stay on his land, and to keep a small crew of peasants – enough to ensure neither he nor his wife and children would starve or freeze to death – but everything else, including the Lord's sworn loyalty, belonged to Ragnar and his warriors.

And at once, they set to claiming their spoils. I watched as grain stores were raided and livestock carried off. The estate's people watched, too, averting their eyes when they thought the Vikings were observing them, staring with open contempt when they thought they weren't. And as naive as I was to the ways of that world, it couldn't have been plainer to see that, given the chance, the villagers would take their revenge.

The cold seeped through the leathers on my feet and, after watching for a short time longer, fascinated and still not entirely sure that I wasn't just having the most realistic dream of my entire life, I turned to return to the main house, where maybe I could find a spot close enough to the fire to rid my body of the chill.

"YOU!"

I froze. Surely he wasn't talking to me?

"Yes, girl, you! Turn back around!"

I turned around, shifting my glance from side to side, wondering what it was I'd done to draw the Viking leader's attention. Had I offended him?

"We've a camp set up by the sea," he began, addressing everyone. "And scouts posted in the woods, so you'd be wise not to send word to the King too quickly! I hear your King is being kept busy by my people, as it is, so best not to risk your life begging the help of a weakened man. We've taken all but one thing that we need from you now."

All but one thing? When Ragnar paused I looked around, trying to figure out what it was the Vikings hadn't yet taken possession of. When I glanced up again, his eyes were on me.

"We need people!" He declared. "We need farmers, soldiers, herdsmen for the animals. We need midwives and healers. And most of all right now, we need companionship – women to keep our beds warm through this long winter."

And then Ragnar nodded, almost imperceptibly, at the guards standing to either side of him. With no ceremony at all, they strode out into the crowd of villagers, grabbing people as they went, demanding to know who was who, who played what role, who was the best at this or that task. Lord Cyneric hung his head, unable to watch.

"Girl!"

I turned my head up as Ragnar approached me, forcing myself not to take a step back when he was close, so as to avoid showing him just how intimidated I was.

"Show me your hands, girl!"

I was so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing that I hadn't even listened to what he was saying. "Uh – what?" I babbled. "I'm sorry, I didn't –"

Ragnar did not ask to see my hands a second time. He simply reached down and grabbed my arms himself, inspecting my hands and wrists. I briefly wondered if he was checking for signs of wear, for hints at what my task might be in the small society of the estate. But it wasn't that he was interested in. He ran his fingers over my wrists, where the tell-tale bruises from the rope I'd been tied with darkened the skin.

"And who are you that they've seen fit to bind you?" He asked.

I couldn't quite look at him, not with him right there in front of me, mere inches away. But even without seeing him I could feel him – his presence, his sheer size. I could smell the sea and the cold winter air on his body, too.

"I – I –" I stammered, staring at the ground, terrified after what I'd just witnessed happen to the last person who displeased the Viking. "I was –"

"You're not one of these people, are you?" He asked, grasping my chin and forcing me to look up at him.

His eyes were the color of ice, limpid blue and cold and set in a broad, noble face. I got the distinct impression, looking up into Ragnar's eyes, that he had never suffered a moment's self-doubt in all his life. I shook my head in answer to his question, and then coughed when nothing more than a whisper came from my throat when I tried to speak.

"What was that? No? Who are you, girl? A prisoner?"

"A prisoner for a damned good reason!" A voice piped up. Baldric. "She attacked the Lord's men – twice! Tried to poison two of his guards, good men, men I've known –"

"Does this man speak the truth?" Ragnar asked, his eyes suddenly dancing with what might have been amusement. "You attacked the Lord's guards?"

I turned to Baldric, who was looking unreasonably smug for a man whose Lord has just given most of their winter food stocks to an invading force. "Is it an attack when the other person strikes first?" I asked, addressing my erstwhile captor directly. "That's not an attack, it's simple defense. Why shouldn't I have fought back when you tried to take me on the beach? Did you expect me to give in as meekly as you've done here, today?"

Baldric erupted with showy indignation at that comment. "What?!" He yelled, as his cheeks reddened. "Baint! I won't be spoken to like that by a –"

But Ragnar's laughter soon drowned out any remaining fire Baldric had in him. "Twice she attacked, you say?" He asked Baldric. "Now it's three times – three times a woman's got the best of you. I'm not surprised you're so eager to condemn her."

I could hear shrieks around me. People were being taken. Kidnapped. But I knew I couldn't betray any unease. It was good for me if the Vikings thought I wasn't one of the villagers – it put me on the same side as them, and it's always good to be on the same side as the victors.

"What's your name, girl?" Ragnar asked me, after Baldric had slunk away, defeated.

"Emma."

"You've no people here?"

I shook my head.

"You were a prisoner?"

I nodded.

"Then you'll be pleased to come with us, then."

I didn't know if 'pleased' was the right word for him to use. I was 'pleased' to leave the estate in one piece. Beyond that, I didn't know enough about what was about to happen to me to have any opinions on it. All I wanted was to get back to the tree. The Vikings had a camp near the sea – the tree was near the sea. Hopefully I would be able to find my way back to it.

My quiet optimism seemed warranted when, upon leaving the estate, the Vikings chose to bind the wrists of the villagers – and not me. We walked in a group with Ragnar and half of his strongest guards at the front, two in the middle to keep an eye on the captives, and a further twenty or so taking up the rear. I noticed that their numbers were nowhere near what the Viking leader had stated, when they stood outside the estate and threatened Lord Cyneric with brutality if he did not surrender.

The light was fading by then, too – it had taken the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon to claim a large portion of the estate's wealth – but I kept my eyes up even as my head stayed down, trying to catch a glimpse of something even vaguely familiar.

I smiled to myself at the sight of the path back to the tree, leading away from the area where the remains of a few huts littered a clearing in the woods. Even as the Vikings led us down a different path, in the direction of the sea, it was enough to have seen the way home – even if I couldn't yet get to it. They hadn't tied me up. I could slip out after dark, find my way back to the tree and then back to 2017 where my family and the rest of my life awaited me.