“There is an old saying,” it said. “‘When the army-leader weakens, then the whole army wavers.’ What do you expect it to do when he spews his guts out?”

Stand fast, thought Shef, and wait till he’s better. Please, Thor. Or God. Or whoever. Just do it.

Ivar, his eyes as pale as watered milk, stared out across the battlefield for the trap he knew must be there. At his feet—he had fought by choice at the tip of the wedge of his ship’s crew—lay three champions of the Mark, each in turn eager for the fame that would ring through the whole of Christendom for the bane of Ivar, cruelest of the pirates of the North. Each discovering in turn that Ivar’s slim height belied his extraordinary strength of arm and body, though not his snakelike speed. One of them, cut through mail and leather from collarbone to ribcage, moaned involuntarily as he waited for death. Quick as a snake’s tongue Ivar’s sword licked out, stabbing through Adam’s apple and spine beneath. Ivar did not want sport, for the moment. He wanted quiet, for consideration.

Nothing in the woods. Nothing to either flank. Nothing behind him. If they did not spring the trap soon it would be too late. It was almost too late already. Round Ivar his army, without orders or briefing, was crying out one of its many experienced battle-drills: securing a battlefield after victory. It was one of the many strengths of Viking armies that their leaders did not have to waste their energies in telling the rank and file how to do anything that could be turned into a routine. They could watch and plan instead. Now, some men went forward in pairs, one to stab, one to guard, making doubly and triply sure that no Englishman was lying still but conscious, ready to take a last enemy with him. Behind them came the loot-gatherers with their sacks, not stripping the dead of everything, as would be done later, but taking everything visible and valuable. In the ships, leeches were splinting and binding.

And at the same time every man kept a tense eye on their leader, for further orders. All knew that the moment of victory was a time to exploit advantage. They carried out their immediate tasks with savage haste.

No, reflected Ivar. The trap had been set, he was sure of that. But it had not been sprung. Probably the fools got up too late. Or were stuck in a marsh somewhere.