‘Which doesn’t mean they won’t fight,’ Merewalh had pointed out.

‘But for who?’ I had retorted. ‘They hate the West Saxons! Which was the last army to invade East Anglia?’

‘The West Saxon.’

‘And East Anglia,’ I had argued, ‘is a proud country. It has lost its king, it has been ruled by Danes, but now Wessex has imposed a king on them and they don’t love him.’

‘But will they love us?’ Merewalh had asked.

‘They will follow the enemy of their enemy,’ I had said, and did I believe that?

It was possible that some East Anglians would fight on the side of Mercia while others might refuse to fight altogether, but it is hard to persuade men to rebel against their lord. Men hold land from their lord, they look to their lord for food in hard times, for silver in good times, and even if that lord served a harsh and cruel king, he is still their lord. They might not fight with enthusiasm, but most would fight. I knew that truth, and Merewalh knew it too, yet in the end he was persuaded. And perhaps that persuasion did not come from my arguments, but rather from a passionate speech given by Father Oda.

‘I am an East Anglian,’ he had said, ‘and a Dane.’ There had been murmurs at those words, but Oda stood tall and stern. He had presence, an air of authority, and the murmurs had faded. ‘I was raised a pagan,’ he had continued, ‘but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ I have come to His throne, I have become one of His priests and one of His people. I am one of Christ’s people! I have no country. I fled East Anglia to live in Wessex, and there I served as a priest in the house of Æthelhelm.’ Again there were murmurs, but low and cut short when Oda lifted a hand. ‘And in the house of Æthelhelm,’ he had continued, making sure that his voice was heard throughout the whole square, ‘I looked upon the face of evil. I saw a lord without honour and a prince in whom the devil has found a home. Ælfweard,’ he spat the name, ‘is a boy of cruelty, a boy of deceit, a boy of sin! And so I fled again, this time to Mercia, and there I found a prince of God, a man of honour, I found King Æthelstan!’ And then the murmurs were approving, but again Oda had held up a hand to still the crowd.

‘The East Anglians will fight!’ he had continued. ‘But what is East Anglia? Is it a country? Their last Saxon king died a generation ago, they have been ruled by the Danes and now by West Saxons! They are a people without a country and they yearn for a country and in our scripture Saint Peter tells us that those who have no country belong to the country of God. And in that country God is our lord, God is our ruler, and Æthelstan of Mercia is His instrument. And the dispossessed of East Anglia will follow us! They will fight for our god because they want to dwell in God’s country and be God’s people! As are we!’