‘And for her sons too?’

‘Of course!’ He sounded annoyed that I had even asked. ‘They are my nephews.’ He sipped wine, his eyes brooding on the tables below us. ‘And I hear you hold Aethelwulf as a prisoner?’

‘I do, lord King.’

‘You will send him to me. And release the priest.’ He did not wait for my assent, but simply assumed I would obey him. ‘What do you know of Guthfrith?’

I had expected the question, because Guthfrith, brother to Sigtryggr, had taken the throne in Eoferwic. Sigtryggr had died of the plague and that was almost all the news Æthelstan knew of the north. He had heard that the sickness had ended and he had ordered the roads to Eoferwic to be opened again, but of Bebbanburg he could tell me nothing. Nor did he know of the fate of his sister, Sigtryggr’s queen, nor of my grandchildren. ‘All I know, lord King,’ I answered him carefully, ‘is that Sigtryggr wasn’t fond of his brother.’

‘He’s a Norseman.’

‘Of course.’

‘And a pagan,’ he said, glancing at the silver hammer I still wore.

‘And some pagans, lord King,’ I said sharply, ‘helped keep the Crepelgate open for you.’

He just nodded at that, poured the last of the wine into his goblet, then stood and hammered the empty jug on the table to silence the hall. He hammered it at least a dozen times before the noise subsided and the warriors were all looking at him. He raised his goblet. ‘I have to thank the Lord Uhtred,’ he turned and inclined his head to me, ‘who this day gave us Lundene!’

The warriors cheered and I had wanted to remind the king that Brihtwulf had helped, and poor Rumwald had died helping, and so many good men had fought at the Crepelgate where they had expected to die for him and some had, but before I could say anything Æthelstan turned to Father Oda who sat on his left. I knew he was inviting the Danish priest to serve in his household, an invitation I knew Oda would accept.

Æthelhelm was dead. He had been caught trying to escape through one of the western gates, and Merewalh, who had joined Æthelstan’s army, had been one of the men who pierced him with a spear. Ælfweard had become separated from his uncle and with just four men tried to escape across Lundene’s bridge only to find the fort at the southern end barred to him by the handful of men we had left there. He had begged them to let him pass, had offered them gold which they accepted, but when he rode through the opened gate they had hauled him from his horse and taken both his gold and his crown. His four men had just watched.

Now, after the feast, when men were singing and a harpist playing, Ælfweard was brought to Æthelstan. Candles lit the hall, the shadows thrown by their flickering flames leaping about the high rafters. The boy, he was twenty years old but looked six or seven years younger, was escorted by two warriors. He looked terrified, his moon face crumpled by crying. He no longer wore his fine mail, but was dressed in a grubby shift that hung to his knees. He was pushed up the stairs of the high table’s dais, and the harpist stopped playing, the singing died, and Æthelstan stood and walked to the front of the table so that every man in the now silent hall could see this meeting of the half-brothers. One was so tall and commanding, the other looked so pathetic as he dropped to his knees. One of the two men guarding Ælfweard was holding the crown the boy had worn in the battle, and Æthelstan now held out his hand and took it. He turned it in his hands so that the emeralds flashed in the candlelight, then he held it out to Ælfweard. ‘Wear it!’ he told his half-brother. ‘And stand.’