Ulf said: “What are you doing?”

Edgar did not reply. With a few blows of the ax he demolished the dog’s shelter. Then he used the blade to excavate the ground beneath. After a few minutes his ax rang on something metal.

He knelt by the hole he had dug and began to scoop out the mud with his hands. Slowly the round outline of a rusty iron object began to emerge. “Ah,” he said as he recognized the shape.

Den asked: “What is it?”

Edgar pulled the object out of the hole and held it up triumphantly. “Ironface’s helmet,” he announced.

“That settles it,” said Den. “Ulf is Ironface.”

Ulf said: “I’m not, I swear!”

Edgar said: “It’s true. He’s not.”

“Then who does the helmet belong to?” asked Den.

Ulf hesitated.

“If you won’t say, it’s you.”

Ulf pointed at his wife. “It’s hers! I swear it! Wyn is Ironface!”

Den said: “A woman?”

Wyn suddenly dashed away, dodging the sheriff’s men near her. They turned to give chase and crashed into one another. Others followed, a few crucial seconds too late; and it looked as if she might get away.

Then Wigbert threw his spear. It struck Wyn’s hip and she fell to the ground.

She lay facedown, moaning in pain. Wigbert went to her and pulled his spear out of her body.

In the fall her left sleeve had been pushed up her arm. On the soft, pale skin at the back of her upper arm was a scar.

Edgar remembered a moonlit night at the farmhouse, only a few days after he and his family had arrived at Dreng’s Ferry. The farm had been silent until Brindle barked. Edgar had seen someone in an iron helmet running away with the piglet under his arm, and had brought the thief down with his Viking ax.

And Ma had cut the throat of one of the other two thieves. That must have been Begstan, the brother of Wyn.

Edgar knelt beside Wyn and measured her scar against blade of his ax. They were exactly the same length.

“That settles it,” he said to Den. “I gave her that scar. She’s Ironface.”

Ragna felt terrible. She had brought Agnes here from Cherbourg and had happily consented to her marriage to Offa. Now Ragna had to preside over a trial that could end in a death sentence for Offa. She was desperate to pardon Offa, but she had to uphold the law.

The shire court was a small affair this time. Most of the thanes and other notables who normally attended were away with Wilwulf, fighting the Vikings. Ragna sat under a makeshift canopy. The world seemed to be waiting for spring: it was a cold day, overcast and intermittently wet, with no hint in it of warm sunshine to come.

The big event was the trial of Wyn, now known to be Ironface. Offa was accused with her, along with Ulf, both clearly Wyn’s collaborators. They all faced the death penalty.