“And Sigvarthsson?” prompted Dolgfinn.

The grin spread wider, teeth showing like a rictus. “He will have his chance. We will have to see he doesn’t take it. Now, get down to the boats, Dolgfinn, and tell them to unload the machines. But not this bank. The far bank, understand? A hundred paces back. And rig a sail over each one as if it was a tent. Have men ready to look as if they’re taking them down when the English come in sight. But take them down English-style-you know, as if you were ten old gammers comparing grandchildren. Have the slaves do it.”

Dolgfinn laughed. “You have trained the slaves to work better than that these months, Ivar.”

The mirth had drained completely from Ivar’s face, the eyes gone as colorless as his skin. “Then untrain them,” he said. “The machines on that bank. The men on this.” He turned back to his survey of the army coming forward, six-deep, banners waving, great crosses on standard-carts behind its center. “And send up Hamal. He will lead the mounted patrol today. I have special orders for him.”

From his vantage point beneath a great flowering hawthorn, Shef looked out at the developing battle. The Army of the Way lay in its ranks behind and to either side of him, well spread-out and under cover of wood or hedgerow. The bulky pull-throwers were still not assembled, the twist-shooters with their horse-teams well to the rear. English bagpipers and Viking horn-blowers had all alike been threatened with disgrace, torment and forfeiture of a week’s ale ration if they sounded a note. Shef was sure they had remained undiscovered. And now, as the battle seemed likely to be joined, both sides’ wandering scouts would have been called into the center. So far so good.

And yet, already there was a surprise. Ivar’s machines. Shef had watched them being swayed from the boats, had noted the way the yards dipped and the boats heeled: heavy objects, whatever they were, far heavier than his own. Was that how Ivar had taken Lynn? And they had been put on the wrong bank. Safer from attack, maybe, but unable to move forward if the battle shifted the other way. Nor could even Shef’s keen sight see how the machines were constructed. How would they affect his plan to fight the battle?

Even more, his plan not to fight the battle.

Cwichelm the marshal, veteran of many battles, would have halted the army if he could, as soon as his advance-guard reported the dragon-boats on the river in front of him. A Viking fleet was not what he had expected to fight. Anything unexpected should be scouted first—especially when dealing with the folk of the Way, whose many traps he remembered from the fight in the marsh when Sigvarth had died.