‘Father Oda believes there may be three thousand men in Lundene,’ I went on, ‘so even if we succeed in opening a gate for Merewalh, we’ll be outnumbered by what? Five men to our one? Six to one?’ The numbers had haunted me through the short summer night.

‘How many of those are East Anglians?’ Brihtwulf asked.

‘Most of them,’ Wihtgar muttered.

‘But will they fight against their lords?’ I asked. Brihtwulf had been right when he said that the East Anglians hated the West Saxons, but that did not mean they would lift a sword against Æthelhelm’s troops. I had sailed to Cent hoping to raise a force of Centishmen to fight Æthelhelm, and that had failed, now I was pinning my hopes on East Anglians, a hope that seemed as frail as that which had faded in Fæfresham. ‘If I lead you into the city,’ I said, ‘and even if we succeed in opening a gate for Merewalh, we all die.’

‘And we just abandon Merewalh?’ Brihtwulf asked indignantly.

‘Merewalh and his horsemen will retreat north,’ I said, ‘and Æthelhelm won’t pursue too far. He’ll fear a trap. And besides, he wants to destroy Æthelstan’s army, not a handful of horsemen from Werlameceaster.’

‘He wants to kill you,’ Finan said.

I ignored that. ‘If Merewalh sees horsemen coming from the city he’ll retreat. He’ll go back to Werlameceaster.’ I hated abandoning the plans that we had persuaded Merewalh to join, but all night I had brooded, and the dawn had brought me to my senses. It was better we should live, than die uselessly. ‘Merewalh will survive,’ I finished.

‘So we just …’ Brihtwulf began, then paused. I suspect he was about to say that we would just run away, but he curbed the words. ‘Then we just go back to Werlameceaster?’

‘Serpent-Breath,’ Finan muttered to me.

I smiled at that. In truth I was wondering whether the west wind was truly a sign from the gods that I should abandon this reckless adventure and instead seize three good ships and fly in front of the wind to the sea and safety. I remember Ravn, the blind poet and father to Ragnar, often telling me that courage was like a horn of ale. ‘We begin with a full horn, boy,’ he had told me, ‘but we drain it. Some men drain it fast, maybe their horn was not full to begin with, and others drain it slowly, but courage lessens as we age.’ I was trying to persuade myself that it was not a lack of courage that made me want to leave, but rather prudence and an unwillingness to lead good men into a city filled with enemies, even if those good men wanted to fight.

Father Oda joined us to sit on the great oak block. ‘I said a prayer,’ he announced.

You need to, I thought, but stayed silent.

‘A prayer, father?’ Finan asked.

‘For success,’ Oda said confidently. ‘King Æthelstan is destined to rule over all Englaland and we today make that possible! God is with us!’