‘Thirty?’ again Brihtwulf sounded uncertain.

‘And how far away are Æthelstan’s men?’ I asked, though I did not ask it of Brihtwulf or of anyone else because the question was unanswerable until we had climbed the ramparts and could see the country to the north.

‘So what do we do?’ Brihtwulf asked.

I touched my mail where it covered the silver hammer. I looked westwards, but knew that the next city gate was built into the walls of the fort, and that would mean first capturing an entrance to the fort. It was this nearest gate, I thought, or else abandon the whole madness. ‘What we do,’ I answered Brihtwulf, ‘is what we came to do. Wihtgar! Take forty men. You’ll climb the stairs to the right of the gate.’ I looked up at Brihtwulf. ‘I need thirty of your men for the steps to the left. I’ll lead them.’ He nodded, and I turned to Rumwald. ‘And I’ll need your banner. You take every man that’s left and follow Brihtwulf to the gate. You tell the bastards you’ve been ordered to make a sally northwards. They probably won’t believe you so you can start killing them, but open the damned gates first. And once the gate is open,’ I looked up at Brihtwulf again, ‘you will ride like the wind to find Æthelstan.’

‘And if the king doesn’t come in time?’ Father Oda asked.

‘We die,’ I said brutally.

Oda made the sign of the cross. ‘The Lord of Hosts is with us,’ he said.

‘He damned well better be,’ I said grimly. ‘So let’s move.’

We moved.

The city had seemed deserted as we came up from the river, but now we could see men all along the walls, others waiting just inside the gate, and small groups of men, women, and children watching from the edge of the wasteland. Many of those city folk were accompanied by priests, presumably hoping that the clergymen could protect them if the Mercians invaded the city. They might be right, I thought. Æthelstan was famously as pious as his grandfather Alfred, and would doubtless have given his troops dire warnings against offending his god.

We followed a track eastwards until we reached a fine new church, the lower walls of stone, the upper of bright timber, which stood at the edge of the houses. We turned north at the church to follow a road of beaten earth that led to the gate. Two goats cropped weeds on the verge where Roman stonework was half buried. A woman watched us, made the sign of the cross, and said nothing. The men resting inside the gate stood as we came nearer. Many of their shields were unpainted, just bare wood, while others were decorated with a cross. None showed the leaping stag. ‘East Anglians?’ Finan muttered to me.

‘Probably.’

‘They look like the fyrd to me,’ Finan said, meaning they were not household warriors, but ploughmen and carpenters, foresters and masons, dragged from their fields or workshops to fight for their lord. Some had spears or swords, but many carried only an axe or a reaping hook.