To reach the city the travellers had to cross a bridge, Roman-built, decayed, eroded, scarred by fire, but still solid, and busy with travellers. From the bridge Cynewulf peered down at a crowded waterway. Danish ships made their way with oars plashing, sails furled, and masts lowered so they could make it under the bridge. But there were lesser vessels too: log-ships each carved out of a single tree-trunk, and boats that were little more than leather-covered frames, like the currachs that had once carried the Irish monks into the ocean. These smaller craft, piled high with fish, eels and dried bundles of reeds, were manned by English folk whose ancestors had made their living from the river for generations before the Danes.

Once they were over the bridge they followed a good road that ran up from the river bank, through a jumble of slumped wooden buildings, straight to a gatehouse in the solid Roman walls. After centuries of weather and war the walls were much repaired, but they still stood twice as tall as a man. In one corner a tower had been erected, much cruder than the original Roman structures, perhaps planted there by a long-dead Northumbrian king. Leofgar said that for a while the Danes had installed a puppet English king here, but now Danish kings had taken over, and the latest ruler was planning a proper palace, a timber marvel to be built in the south-east corner of the walls.

At the gatehouse they were stopped by tough-looking Danish warriors who demanded a toll. Once Arngrim had paid up Leofgar led them all confidently into the town.

Inside the walls the place felt even more cramped than Cynewulf had expected, full of low wooden buildings crammed in around the feet of the vaster Roman ruins. He was overwhelmed by the crowds, the yells of vendors, and above all by the stink, of human sewage and rotting thatch and animal droppings. It was like walking into a vast compost heap. But this crowded place was full of life, and Cynewulf, unused to cities, felt excitement stir in his soul.

The people dressed brightly, in tunics and leggings dyed yellow, red, black and blue. They wore cloaks against the winter cold, but the men kept them thrown back so one side of their bodies was always exposed, and they all carried at least one weapon, a sword, axe or knife. They were tall, well-muscled, intimidating - and you couldn’t tell at a glance who was Danish and who English.

If the people were impressive, their homes were less so. Built on rough timber frames, they were roofed by ragged straw or turf, and their walls were of woven hazel or willow packed with mud or dung. The Danish occupation of Jorvik was only a dozen years old, so none of these huts was older than that - and yet, pounded by northern rains, their misshapen hulls were already slumping into the filthy earth.