His name was Wistan and though he was perhaps four or five years older than me, he was no fighter. I remember staring into his eyes as the sun rose over the North Sea on that summer’s morning long ago, and all I saw there was a righteous burning fury. In his hand he held a sword that Runolf had lent him. It was a well-made but simple weapon, with wooden grip and iron pommel. It had belonged to one of the Norsemen who had attacked Werceworthe the year before, and in the hands of a skilled warrior, despite its lack of adornment, that sword would kill as well as any other. But Wistan held the sword’s grip so tightly in his fist that his knuckles were white. He had no battle-skill. His talents lay in working wood, toiling and learning in his father’s shadow. Wistan’s arms were strong from chopping, splitting and planing timber, but strength alone does not win a sword fight.

On his left side, much of Wistan’s body was concealed behind a circular, iron-bossed shield. The hide that covered the board was painted the red of blood. Upon that crimson field, the shield bore the sigil of a black bird. A raven, Runolf had said, for they were the sacred birds of Óðinn, the father of his people’s gods. Most of the shields we had taken from the Norsemen had been repainted. My own was now daubed in white, with a scarlet cross to show my faith in the Lord. Runolf had left the pagan symbol on the shield he had taken. Though baptised, he seemed to enjoy shocking the rest of us, flaunting his heathen ancestry.

“Put aside that sword and walk away,” I said, stepping to my left, circling around so that Wistan would have to stare into the rising sun. It was early summer and the sun blazed bright beneath a brooding bank of dark clouds far out over the sea. The view was dazzling. The sun’s rays reflected from the waves, as if the water had been fashioned from polished patterned steel.

With practised ease, I drew my own sword from its plain leather-wrapped sheath. Like Wistan’s, it too was unadorned. The metal was clean and burnished, but it did not bear the patterns like water or a serpent’s skin that came from the twisted rods of metal being beaten together by a master bladesmith. There was little difference in our swords, but there was much to separate the men who wielded them.

“You must pay for what you have done,” Wistan said, his voice wavering with the passion he felt. “What you have taken from me.”

I sighed.