‘With Serpent-Breath.’

‘Aye, with Serpent-Breath, but we’ll fetch her back.’

I said nothing to that. The knowledge of my failure was too harsh, too strong. What had I thought when I sailed from Bebbanburg? That I could pierce the West Saxon kingdom and cut out the rot that lay at its heart? Yet my enemies were strong. Æthelhelm led an army, he had allies, his nephew was King of Wessex, and I was lucky to be alive, but the shame of my failure galled me. ‘How many dead?’ I asked Finan.

‘We killed sixteen of the bastards,’ he said happily, ‘and we have nineteen prisoners. Two of the Mercians died, and a couple have nasty injuries.’

‘Waormund,’ I said, ‘he has Serpent-Breath.’

‘We’ll fetch her back,’ Finan said again.

‘Serpent-Breath,’ I said quietly. ‘Her blade was beaten out on Odin’s anvil, tempered by Thor’s fire, and quenched in the blood of her enemies.’

Finan looked at Benedetta, who shrugged as if to suggest my mind was wandering. Perhaps it was. ‘He must sleep,’ she said.

‘No,’ Finan answered. ‘He must fight. He’s Uhtred of Bebbanburg. He doesn’t lie in a bed feeling sorry for himself. Uhtred of Bebbanburg puts on his mail, straps on a sword, and takes death to his enemies.’ He stood in the room’s doorway, the sun bright behind him. ‘Merewalh has five hundred men here, and they’re doing nothing. They’re sitting around like turds in a bucket. It’s time to fight.’

I said nothing. My body ached. My head hurt. I closed my eyes.

‘We fight,’ Finan said, ‘and then we go home.’

‘Perhaps I should have died,’ I said, ‘maybe it was time.’

‘Don’t be such a pathetic fool,’ he snarled. ‘The gods didn’t want your rotten carcass in Valhalla, not yet. They haven’t done with you. What is it you like to tell us all the time? Wyrd bið ful ãræd?’ His Irish accent mangled the words. ‘Well fate hasn’t finished with you, and the gods didn’t leave you alive for no reason, and you’re a lord, so get on your damned feet, strap on a sword, and take us south.’

‘South?’

‘Because that’s where your enemies are. In Lundene.’

‘Waormund,’ I said, and flinched inwardly as I remembered what had happened beside the hedge in the field of barley. Remembered Waormund and his men laughing as they pissed on my bruised, naked body.

‘Aye, he’ll be in Lundene,’ Finan said grimly. ‘He’ll have run home to his master with his tail between his legs.’

‘Æthelhelm,’ I said, naming my enemies.

‘We’re told he’s there too. With his nephew.’

‘Ælfweard.’

‘That’s three men you have to kill, and you’ll not do that while your arse is in bed.’

I opened my eyes again. ‘What news from the north?’

‘None,’ Finan said curtly. ‘King Æthelstan blocked the great road at Lindcolne to keep the plague from spreading south. Every other road too.’

‘The plague,’ I repeated.

‘Aye, the plague, and the sooner we’re home to find out who’s dead and who lives the better, but I’ll not let you slink home like a beaten man. You fetch Serpent-Breath, lord, you kill your enemies, and then you lead us home.’