“Come on, don’t stand there like young maidens who’ve just seen the bull!” Shef gestured angrily at the men clustered in the tower’s exit. “It will take them an hour to wind their machines again. Follow me now and we’ll see they don’t get the chance.”

He turned and loped along the walkway behind the battlements, Ulf striding like an enormous nursemaid a pace behind.

They found Brand just inside the now-opened gates, in an open space scattered with the familiar debris of battle: split shields, bent weapons, bodies, incongruously, a torn shoe somehow parted from its owner. Brand was breathing hard, and sucking a scratch on his bare arm above his gauntlets, but otherwise was unhurt. Men were still pushing through the gates, being hailed and directed by the skippers according to some plan already agreed upon, all done with an air of frantic haste. As they approached, Brand called two senior warriors over to him and gave brief instructions.

“Sumarrfugl, take six men, go round all the bodies here, strip all the Englishmen and pile what you find over by that house there. Mail, weapons, chains, jewelry; purses. Don’t forget to check under their armpits. Thorstein, take another six and go do the same job up along the walls. Don’t get cut off and don’t take any risks. Bring back all the stuff you find and pile it with Sumarrfugl’s. When you’ve done that you can sort out our own dead and wounded. Now—you there, Thorvin!”

The priest appeared through the gates, leading a laden pack-horse.

“You’ve got your gear? I want you to stay here till we’ve secured the Minster and then come right along as soon as I send a squad for you. Then you can set your forge up and start melting down the take.

“The take!” Brand’s eyes gleamed with delight. “I can smell that farm in Halogaland already. Estate! County! All right, let’s get going.”

Shef stepped forward as he swung on his heel and grabbed an elbow.

“Brand, I need twenty men.”

“What for?”

“To secure the shooting-machine up in the corner tower, and then go on to the throwing one.”

. The champion turned, still eying the confusion around him. He grasped Shef’s shoulder in enormous metal fingers, squeezed gently.

“Young madman. Young snotnose. You have done great things today. But remember—men fight to rake together money. Money!” He used the Norse word fe, which meant every form of property together, money and metal and goods and livestock. “So forget your machines for a day, young hammerer, and let’s all go get rich!”

“But if we have—”

Shef felt the fingers tighten crushingly on his collarbone.