‘Serpent-Breath,’ I said, and the thought of that great blade in my enemy’s hands made me sit up. It hurt. Every muscle and bone hurt, but I sat up. Benedetta put out a hand to help me, but I refused it. I swung my legs onto the floor rushes and, with an agonising lurch, stood. ‘Help me dress,’ I said, ‘and find me a sword.’

Because we were going to Lundene.

‘No!’ Merewalh said the next day. ‘No! We are not going to Lundene.’

There were a dozen of us, sitting just outside Werlameceaster’s great hall, which looked much the same as Ceaster’s hall, which was no surprise because both had been built by the Romans. Merewalh’s men had dragged benches into the sunlight where the twelve of us sat, though around us, sitting in the dust of the big square that lay in front of the hall, were close to a hundred men who listened. Servants brought us ale. Some chickens scratched by the hall door, watched by a lazy dog. Finan sat to my right while Father Oda was to my left. Two priests and the leaders of Merewalh’s troops made up the rest of the company. I hurt still. I knew my body would hurt for days. My left eye was still half closed and my left ear clogged with scabbed blood.

‘How many men garrison Lundene?’ Father Oda asked.

‘At least a thousand,’ Merewalh said.

‘They need two thousand,’ I said.

‘And I have only five hundred men,’ Merewalh said, ‘and some of those are ill.’

I liked Merewalh. He was a sober, sensible man. I had known him since he was a youngster, but his beard and hair had turned grey now and his shrewd eyes were surrounded by deep wrinkles. He looked anxious, but even as a young man he had always appeared worried. He was a good and loyal warrior who had commanded Æthelflaed’s household troops and had led them with unshakeable loyalty and an admirable caution. He was no risk-taker, and perhaps that was good in a man who saw defence as his deepest responsibility. Æthelstan plainly trusted him, which was why Merewalh had been given command of the fine troops who had captured Lundene, but then Merewalh had lost the city, tricked by a false report that an army was advancing through Werlameceaster.

Now he held these walls instead of Lundene’s massive ramparts. ‘What are your orders now?’ I asked him.

‘To stop reinforcements reaching Lundene from East Anglia.’

‘Those reinforcements don’t go by road,’ I said, ‘they go by ship, and we saw them arrive. Ship after ship loaded with men.’

Merewalh frowned at that, but it was surely no surprise to him that Æthelhelm was using ships to strengthen Lundene’s garrison. ‘Mercia has no ships,’ he said as if that excused his failure to stop the reinforcements.

‘So you just guard the roads coming from East Anglia?’ I asked.

‘Without shipping? That’s all we can do. And we send patrols to watch Lundene.’