‘How are you feeling?’ Benedetta asked.

‘Just a bit sore,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’ My body felt stiff, my shoulders were sore, the muscles of my arms ached, my skin’s lacerations stung, the inside of my cheek was swollen, my head throbbed, and my ribs were bruised if not broken.

‘You should not go,’ Benedetta said firmly and, when I did not reply, repeated herself. ‘You should not go, it is dangerous.’

‘War is dangerous.’

‘Father Oda,’ she said, ‘was speaking to me last night. He said the thing you plan is madness.’

‘It is madness,’ I agreed, ‘but Father Oda wants us to attack. He was the one who persuaded Merewalh to attack.’

‘But he said it is the madness of God, so you will be blessed.’ She sounded dubious.

The madness of God. Was that why my own gods had sent me no sign? Because this was the madness of the Christian god, not of my gods? Unlike the Christians, who insist that all other gods are false, even insisting that they do not exist, I have always acknowledged that the nailed god has power. So perhaps the Christian god would give us victory? Or perhaps my gods, angered that I harboured that hope, would punish me with death.

‘But God is not mad,’ Benedetta went on, ‘and God will not want you dead.’

‘Christians have been praying for my death for years.’

‘Then they are mad,’ she said with great certainty and, when I smiled, she became angry. ‘Why are you going? Tell me that! Why?’

‘To fetch my sword,’ I said, because I did not really know the answer to her question.

‘Then you are mad,’ she said with finality.

‘It doesn’t matter if I go,’ I said, speaking slowly, ‘but I should not be taking other men with me.’

‘Because they will die?’

‘Because I will lead them to their deaths, yes.’ I paused and instinctively touched my hammer, but of course it was gone. ‘Or perhaps to a victory?’ I added.

She heard the doubt in my last few words. ‘In your heart,’ Benedetta pressed me, ‘which do you believe?’

I could not admit the truth, which was that I was sorely tempted to tell Merewalh that we should abandon the assault. The easy course was to let Æthelhelm and Æthelstan battle out their quarrel while I went north, went home, went to Bebbanburg.

Yet there was a chance, a slight chance, that what we planned could end the war almost before it had begun. Merewalh was to lead two hundred horsemen south to attack Æthelhelm’s small garrison at Toteham, then ride on towards Lundene. He would be close to the city by nightfall and would doubtless encounter forage parties who would flee to tell Æthelhelm’s men that an enemy force was approaching. Then, as dark fell, his men would light fires, as many as they could, on the heaths that lay some three miles north of the city. The glow of those fires would surely convince the city’s garrison that a besieging force had come and, in the dawn, they would be gazing northwards, readying to send patrols to discover the enemy’s strength and ensuring that the walls were fully manned.