And it was then that I planned to lead the smaller force into the city and give the enemy a gut-stroke like that which had killed Heorstan. But just as flesh closes around a sword, sometimes making it almost impossible to drag the trapped blade free, so Æthelhelm’s men would close on us and outnumber us. It was Father Oda’s conviction that the East Anglians would change sides, but I reckoned that would only happen if we had first killed or captured Æthelhelm and his nephew King Ælfweard. That was why I was going, not just to retrieve Serpent-Breath, but to kill my enemies.

‘The enemy knows you’re coming!’ Benedetta protested.

I smiled at her. ‘The enemy knows what I want them to know. That’s why we let Heorstan’s men ride south yesterday, to mislead the enemy.’

‘And that will be enough?’ she asked. ‘To mislead them? You will win because of that?’ She was scornful. I said nothing. ‘You lie to me because you are not well! Your ribs! You are hurting. You think you can fight? Tell me what you believe!’

And still I said nothing, because lurking in my heart was the temptation to break my oath to Æthelstan. Why kill his enemies even if they were mine? If a great war broke out between Wessex and Mercia then my country would be safer. For all my adult life I had watched Wessex grow stronger, defeating the Danes, subduing Mercia, and conquering East Anglia, and all in pursuit of King Alfred’s dream that there should be one country for all the folk who spoke Ænglisc, the language of the Saxons. But Northumbria also spoke that language, and Northumbria was my land, and Northumbria was ruled by the last pagan king in Britain. Did I want to see Northumbria swallowed into a greater land, a Christian land? Better, I thought, to let Æthelstan and Ælfweard fight it out, to let them weaken each other. And all that was true, except I had given my oath and I had lost my sword. Sometimes we do not know why we do the things we do, we are driven to it by fate, by impulse, or by mere stupidity.

‘You’re not speaking,’ Benedetta said accusingly, ‘you’re not answering me.’

I stood and picked up the sword that I would carry to the fight and felt the sharp loss of the sword I wished I was carrying. I pushed the blade into its scabbard. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘But you—’ she began.

‘I swore an oath,’ I interrupted her harshly, ‘and I lost a sword.’

‘And what of me?’ she asked, almost crying. ‘What of Alaina?’

I stooped and looked into her beautiful face. ‘I will come for you,’ I said, ‘and for the children. When it’s over we’ll all go north.’

I thought of Eadith in Bebbanburg and thrust that uncomfortable thought away. For a heartbeat I was tempted to touch Benedetta’s cheek, to assure her I would come back, but instead I turned away.