The men around him formed into rough ranks. There was some jostling as the men tried to find a place in the front rank - or to squeeze back out of it, depending on their courage - and there was a clatter of shield on shield as they practised forming the wall. These fellows close to the front were thegns or the sons of thegns, and some of the healthier and braver of the fyrd; they were Alfred’s best soldiers, with the best equipment. Looking around, Arngrim was dismayed to see how much younger than him most of them were. At his right hand side, for instance, was Ordgar, Aethelnoth’s man, who had stopped him on his return from Eoforwic. He must have been a good ten years Arngrim’s junior.

Perhaps that was why he felt a curious detachment about today. He felt none of the pulsing energy he used to know in battle, the longing to pound an enemy’s flesh - the secret thrill that surely fuelled man’s lust for war, the knowledge that it was fun. Perhaps Arngrim was too old for such fun. But even so he must do his duty, and he hefted his stabbing sword, getting used to its weight.

Ordgar was nervous, though he was trying to hide it. ‘We outnumber them,’ he said. ‘The Danes. And we have the advantage of the higher ground. But they are all warriors. We are farmers. They have the cream of armour and weaponry robbed from all the English kingdoms. We have pitchforks.’

‘We have advantages; they have advantages.’ ‘The best of us are here. But it is a thin crust, and if they break through ...’

‘We must be sure they do not.’

‘Yes.‘ Ordgar looked down the hill. ‘I have fought before. I have killed Danes. But I have never served in a shield wall.’

Arngrim growled, ‘It is the ultimate test.’

‘Will I fail?’

Arngrim knew there was little he could say. Even Alfred could not be certain of surviving the day; kings had fallen before. Alfred had given orders that if he fell today his wife and family were to be taken to the kingdom of the Franks, where an infant king would be raised in exile. ‘Ordgar, you are thinking too much. But don’t worry. In the thick of it there is no time to think—’

Something flashed in the comer of Amgrim’s vision, like a bird flying.

A man cried, ‘Lift your shields!’

A spear thudded harmlessly into the ground before the front rank. But a second flew further, and pierced the body of an English warrior. His blood was bright as a flower in the spring sunlight.

More spears flew.