Hamal caught the eye of one of the rowers, mimed wiping sweat from his brow. Ivar killed a man a day now on average, mostly from the valueless slaves of the minster. At that rate they would have no one left to wind a machine at all by the time they met the enemy. And no one could be sure who Ivar would turn on next. He could be diverted, sometimes, by sufficient cruelty.

Thor send that we meet the enemy soon, thought Hamal. The only thing that will cool Ivar’s temper for good is the head and balls of the man who bested him—Skjef Sigvarthsson. Without that, he will destroy everyone around him. That is why his brothers have sent him out this time on his own. With me as his nursemaid, and the Snakeeye’s foster father to report.

If we don’t meet the enemy soon, thought Hamal, I am going to desert the first chance I get. Ivar owes me his life. But he is too mad to pay. And yet if he takes his rage out in the right quarter, something tells me there are fortunes yet to be gained, here in the rich kingdoms of the South. Rich and ripe to fall.

“It’s a bugger,” said Oswi, once slave to St. Aethelthryth’s of Ely, now captain of a catapult-team in the Army of Norfolk and the Way. There were nods of agreement from his crew as they looked thoughtfully at their much-loved but not-quite-trusted artillery piece. It was one of the torsion-catapults, the wheeled twist-shooters. Every man in the crew was desperately proud of it. They had given it a name weeks before: “Dead Level.” They had polished every wooden part of it many times over. Yet they were afraid of it.

“You can count the turns you give to the cogwheels,” said Oswi, “so it don’t tighten too much.”

“And I put my head right down on the ropes every time and listen to ’em,” said one of his mates, “till I can hear they’re in tune like a harper’s harp-strings.”

“But she’ll still bloody well break one day when you don’t expect it; they always do. Break one or two of us for breakfast.”

A dozen heads nodded gloomily.

“What we need are stronger wooden arms,” said Oswi. “They’re what goes.”

“Wrap ’em with rope?”

“No, that would work loose.”

“I used to work in the forge at my village,” the newest member of the team said hesitatingly. “Maybe if they had iron supports …”

“No, those wooden arms bend a bit,” said Oswi firmly. “They have to. Anything iron would stop them doing that.”