To one side of it sat Cwichelm and Alfgar, faces set. Wulfgar in his vertical box a pace behind them. The herald waved the six councillors of the Way to stools opposite.

Between the two groups sat one man—young, fair-haired, blue-eyed, a golden circle on his head like the old king in the mound. He had a strange, intense look, thought Shef. As he sat down, their eyes met. The young man smiled.

“I am Alfred, atheling of Wessex, brother of King Ethelred,” he said. “I understand that my brother’s fellow-king, Burgred of the Mark, has appointed an alderman for the shires once belonging to the king of the East Angles.” He paused. “That cannot be allowed.” Sour looks, silence from Alfgar and Cwichelm. They must have heard this already.

“At the same time I will not allow any Viking army from the North to base itself within any English shire, to rob and kill as has been your custom. Rather than do that I will destroy you all.”

Another pause. “But I do not know what to do with you. From what I hear, you fought and beat Ivar Ragnarsson yesterday. Him, I will have no peace with, for he killed my brother’s fellow-king Edmund. Who killed King Ella?”

“I did,” said Shef. “But he would have thanked me for it if he could. I told Ivar that what he did to the king was nithingsverk.”

“On so much we agree, then. The thing is, can I have peace with you? Or must we fight?”

“Have you asked your priests?” said Thorvin in his slow, careful English.

The young man smiled. “My brother and I have found that whenever we ask them anything, they demand money. Nor will they aid us even to keep off the likes of Ivar. But I am a Christian still. I believe in the faith of my fathers. I hope one day even you warriors of the North will take baptism and submit to our law. But I am not a Churchman.”

“Some of us are Christians,” said Shef. “Some of us are English.”

“Are they full fellows of your army? With full rights to share?”

Brand, Guthmund and Steinulf looked at each other as they grasped the sense of the question.

“If you say they must be, then they are,” said Shef.

“So. You are English and Norse. You are Christian and heathen.”

“Not heathen,” said Thorvin. “Wayman.”

“But you can get along together. Maybe that is a model for us all. Listen, all of you. We can work out a treaty: shares and taxation, rights and duties, rules about wergilds and freedmen. All details. But the center of it must be this: