“We will do this more formally by and by. I just wanted to know we are all agreed.” He turned to Alfred. “And yes, young atheling, I know you have not agreed. But tell your king and brother the way of it is now this. Let him stay his side of the Thames and I’ll stay mine. But north of the Thames and south of the Humber: that belongs to me. All of it.”

Burgred let the tense silence hang a moment and then thought to disperse it. “One strange piece of news they told me. The Ragnarssons have always led the Great Army, but they have all stayed in Eoforwich. Those who marched away are said to have no leaders, or many. But one report is that among their leaders, or their main leader, is an Englishman. A man of the East Angles by his speech, the messenger said. But he could only give me what the Vikings call him, and they speak English so badly I could not make it out as a man’s name at all. They call him Skjef Sigvarthsson. Now what could that be in English? Even in East Anglian?”

“Shef!” It was the silent woman who had spoken. Or gasped. Her eyes, her brilliant liquid eyes, blazed with life. Her husband stared at her like one who measures a back for the birch, while her father-in-law goggled and reddened.

“I thought you saw him dead,” snarled the heimnar accusingly at his son.

“I will yet,” muttered Alfgar. “Just give me the men.”

Nearly two hundred miles to the north, Shef turned once again in his saddle to see if the rear-guard was keeping up. Important to have everyone well closed up, all within earshot of each other. Shef knew that four times his own number were pounding the filthy road behind him, unable to attack while Shef held his thirty hostages, the choirmonks of St. John’s and their abbot Saxwulf. It was important too to keep up the pace, even after their long night’s ride, to outrun the news of their coming and prevent any arrangement being made for their reception.

The smell of the sea led them on—and there, as they came trampling over a slight rise, there as an unmistakable landmark was Flamborough Head itself. Shef urged the vanguard on with a yell and a wave.

Guthmund dropped back a yard or two, hand still clutching the bridle of the abbot’s horse. Shef waved him over. “Keep up—and keep the abbot close to me.”

With a whoop he spurred his tiring gelding forward, catching up just as the whole cavalcade, a hundred and twenty raiders and thirty hostages, stormed down the long slope into the squalid huddle of Bridlington.