Ivar’s eyes had shifted past Dolgfinn’s shoulder. He dared to follow them. So—Greppi and the boys had found something after all. But what in the name of Hel, goddess of the dead, could it be?

It was a box, a wheeled box that could be tipped forward and trundled along like an upright coffin. Too short for a coffin. And yet there was a body inside. A dozen grinning Vikings pushed the box forward and tipped it to stand in front of Ivar. The body inside looked out at them, and licked its lips.

Ivar rose, putting down the golden coronet for the first time that evening, and stood in front of Wulfgar.

“Well,” he remarked at last. “Not such a bad job. But not one of mine, I think. Or at least I don’t remember the face. Who did this to you, heimnar?”

The pale face with its bright red, incongruous lips, stared back at him, made no reply. A Viking stepped forward, knife whipping clear, ready to slice or gouge on command, but Ivar’s hand stopped him.

“Think a little, Kleggi,” he urged. “It’s not easy to frighten a man who’s already lost so much. What’s an eye or an ear now?

“So tell me, heimnar. You are a dead man already; you have been since they did this. Who did it to you? Maybe he was no friend of mine either.”

Ivar spoke in Norse, but slowly, clearly, so an Englishman could pick out some of the words.

“It was Sigvarth Jarl,” said Wulfgar. “Jarl of the Small Isles, they tell me. But I want you to know, what he did to me, I did to him. Only more. I caught him in the marsh by Ely—if you are the Ragnarsson, then you were not far away. I trimmed him finger by finger and toe by toe. He did not die till there was nothing left a knife could reach. Nothing you can do to me will equal what I did to him.”

He spat suddenly, the spittle landing on Ivar’s shoe. “And so may perish all you Godless heathen! And it is my comfort. As you die in torment, for you it is only the gateway to the eternal torment. I will look down from Neorxna-wang, from the plain of the blessed dead, and see you blister in the heat. Then you will beg for the smallest drop from my ale-cup to cool your agony. But God and I will refuse.”

The blue eyes stared up, jaw set in determination. Ivar laughed suddenly, throwing his head back, raised the horn in his right hand and drained it to the last drop.

“Well,” he said. “Since you mean to be so niggard with me, I will do what your Christian books say and return you good for evil.

“Throw him in the keg!”