Thorvin rose from his stool, too excited to sit. “There is a holy song,” he said, “that the Christians sing. It is called the nunc dimittis, a song that says ‘Lord, You may let Your servant die, for he has seen his purpose fulfilled.’ I have a mind to sing it myself. For more hundreds of years than I can count this Church of theirs has spread, has spread, across first the Southern and then the Northern lands. They think they can conquer all of us. Never before have I heard of the Church giving up what once it won.”

“They have not given up yet,” said Shef. “The king asks you to send missionaries. He cannot say they will get a hearing, or make the folk believe.”

“They have their Book, we have our visions!” cried Thorvin. “We shall see which is the stronger.”

From his chair, Brand’s bass joined in. “The jarl is right, Thorvin. Send freed slaves of the English to do this task.”

“They do not know the legends,” protested Thorvin. “What do they know of Thor or Njörth, of the legends of Frey and Loki? They do not know the sacred stories or the hidden meanings within them.”

“They don’t need to,” said Brand. “We’re sending them to talk about money.”

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

That fine Sunday morning, as every Sunday morning, the villagers of Sutton in the county of Berkshire in the kingdom of the West Saxons drew together, as directed, before the hall of Hereswith their lord, thane of King Ethelred-that-was. Thane now, so they said, of King Alfred. Or was he still only atheling? They would be told. Their eyes roved as they counted each other, assessing who was present, whether any had dared to test the orders of Hereswith that all should be present, to attend the church three miles off and learn the law of God which stood behind the laws of men.

Slowly the eyes turned the same way. There were strangers in the little cleared space before the lord’s timber house. Not foreigners, or not obvious foreigners. They looked exactly like the forty or fifty other men present, churls and slaves and churls’ sons: short, ill-dressed in grubby wool tunics, unspeaking—six of them together. Yet these were men who had never been seen in or near Sutton before—something unprecedented in the heart of the untraveled English countryside. Each leaned on a long stout stave of wood guarded with strips of iron, like the handle of a war-axe, but twice the length.

Without seeming to, the villagers drew away from them. They did not know what this novelty meant, but long years had taught them that what was new was dangerous—till their lord had seen and approved, or disapproved.