Obeying his own orders, Shef lay alert in his tent, listening to the muted bustle of the army waking. Today was a day of crisis, he thought. But not the last crisis. Maybe the last one he could plan. It was critically important, then, that this day should go well, to. provide him with the start, the reserve of force that he would need before all was over.

On the pallet beside him lay Godive. They had been together four days now, and yet he had still not taken her, not so much as stripped off her shift. It would be easy to do. His flesh was hard, remembering the one time he had done it. She would not resist. Not only did she expect it, he knew she wondered why he had not. Was he another like the Boneless? Or was he less of a man than Alfgar? Shef imagined the cry she would make as he penetrated her.

Who could blame her for crying? She still winced every time she moved. Like his, her back must be scarred forever.

Yet she still had both eyes. She had never faced the mercy of Ivar, the vapna takr. As he thought of the mercy of Ivar, Shef’s erected flesh began to shrink; the thoughts of warm skin and soft resistance dwindled like a catapult-stone going up into the sky.

Something else entered him instead, something cold and fierce and longsighted. It was not today that mattered, nor the fleeting good opinion of his men. Only the end. Stretched out, relaxed, perfectly aware of himself from crown to toe, Shef reflected on how the day might go.

Hund, he decided. Time for another call on Hund.

As the sun sucked up the morning mist, Ivar looked from his place with the ridge-line pickets to the familiar chaos of an English army advancing. Familiar chaos. An English army.

“It’s not them,” said Dolgfinn beside him. “Not the Way-folk. Not Skjef Sigvarthsson. Look at all the Christ-stuff, the crosses and the black robes. You can hear them singing their morning massa, or whatever they call it. So either Sigvarthsson’s challenge was just a lie, or else …”

“Or else there’s another army hiding round here somewhere, to finish off the winners,” Ivar completed for him. The grin was back on his face, pinched and painful, like a fox nibbling meat from the wolf-trap.

“Back to the boats?”

“I think not,” said Ivar. “The river’s too narrow to turn forty boats in a hurry. And if we row on there’s no certainty they won’t mount and catch us. And if they do that they can take us out one boat at a time. Even the English might manage that.

“No. At our Bragi boast in the Braethraborg, my brothers and I swore to invade England and conquer all its kingdoms in revenge for our father. Two we have conquered, and today is the day for the third.”