‘Freedom is in our blood, we northern folk. We Germans arrived here in Britain without kings. The Danes too. Perhaps it would have been our fate to build, not an empire, but a republic, as the first Romans did, with its capital at Jorvik, sustained by an endless frontier to the west. Freedom, Orm, freedom in a new world. But it was not to be. Instead we English have lost our freedoms to these Norman brutes, and it will take a thousand years to wrest them back.’

‘All this hinged on the battle at Haestingaceaster. The whole world would be different, for ever, if—’

‘Yes. But the chance is gone and that’s that,’ Sihtric said briskly, almost business-like. ‘The Aryan empire is lost. As is the life you might have had with Godgifu.’

Orm stiffened. ‘Sihtric - your sister—’

Sihtric waved him away. ‘She shouldn’t have been fighting in the wall. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t even blame her. Blame the ambitious men who led us to war. Or blame the Devil, or the pagans’ gods of war. Blame Mars - yes, that’s it.’ He looked closely at Orm. ‘You must build a new life,’ he said. ‘Without her. As best you can. As must I.’

Orm nodded, finding it difficult to speak. ‘You forgive me. Perhaps you have it in you to become a good priest, Sihtric.’

Sihtric laughed. ‘Praise indeed.’

But Orm saw a gleam in his eye, a trace of his old calculation. ‘You have a plan. Don’t you, priest?’

He winked at Orm. ‘I’m thinking of travelling.’

‘Where?’

‘Al-Andalus. My friend Ibn Sharaf will host me, in a land of libraries and learning. And, perhaps, we will discuss the strange designs of Aethelmaer.’

‘You always have a scheme in play, don’t you, Sihtric? Well, perhaps you will be safe there.’

Sihtric looked at him sharply. ‘What does that mean? Am I under threat?’

‘Sihtric - the Menologium. When we were crossing from Normandy, Odo approached me ...’ He told the priest how Odo had instructed him to get rid of the prophecy, and Sihtric himself. ‘He believed it could be destabilising, I think.’

Sihtric snorted. ‘A real eye for detail, that man. Well, he can have it.’ He pulled a scroll from his vestment. ‘My only copy. What use is a prophecy whose future was not realised? One thing though—’ He hesitated, then unrolled the scroll. ‘An oddity I noticed only recently, only since the battle. There is an acrostic.’

‘A what?’

‘An embedded phrase made up of the first letters of each line. Like a puzzle. Bede used similar tricks. Look, you can see it clearly in the epilogue. AMEN.’

Orm shrugged, caring nothing for word puzzles. ‘I see no other words here.’

‘No, but look - look at the stanzas, ignore the prologue and the framing lines about the Great Years. Look at the content lines alone. Now can you see?’