Brihtwulf rode ahead, tall on his stolen horse, pointedly ignoring the first men who stood to question his coming. I trudged behind, sweat trickling down my face, sometimes glancing up at the men on the ramparts. They were watching us too, but not with any alarm because most of them would have no idea what was happening. They knew Æthelstan’s forces were near, they had heard the commotion of the city bells, but ever since that first excitement they would have been told little and understood less. They were hot, they were thirsty, they were bored, and we were just more troops coming to wait in the hot sun for something to happen.

‘This way!’ I called to the men who would follow me. ‘Up the steps!’ I slanted off the road and headed for the stairs leading up to the rampart on the left of the gate. Immar was behind me, carrying Æthelstan’s banner that was tightly furled on its pole. ‘You can’t fight holding that thing,’ I told him, ‘so stay out of trouble.’ Hulbert, one of Brihtwulf’s men, would turn left at the rampart’s top and, with ten men, defend our backs as we captured the gate itself.

Brihtwulf had reached the great archway where he was challenged by an older man who leaned over the arch’s rampart. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘I’m Ealdorman Ealhstan,’ Brihtwulf curbed his horse and stared up at the man. ‘And I want the gates opened.’

‘For God’s sake why?’

‘Because Lord Æthelhelm wants it,’ Brihtwulf called. He was keeping both hands on his saddle’s pommel. His shield, fire-scarred with the cross, hung at his back. His sword hung low to his left.

‘I was told not to open the gates to the Lord God Almighty Himself!’ the man answered.

‘He can’t come,’ Brihtwulf said, ‘so Lord Æthelhelm sent me instead.’

‘Why?’ The older man had seen me and my men start up the stairs. ‘Stop!’ he shouted at me, holding out a warning hand. I stopped halfway up the timeworn stairs, the shield heavy on my back. The troops on the gate’s rampart were not from any fyrd, they were in good mail and carried spears and swords.

‘The pretty boy,’ Brihtwulf shouted, ‘is over there.’ He pointed vaguely north-west. ‘We’re sending men out of the western gates to give him a spanking, but we need to keep him in place. If he sees another force coming from this gate he won’t know which one to defend against. Of course you can always go and ask Lord Æthelhelm himself.’