“You use a pulley. Or a windlass. A little one, not a great big one like the Norse-folk use on their ships. Fix it to your belt, wind on one end of the rope, hook the other end of the rope over the bowstring, pull it up as far as you like.”

Shef handed the primitive crossbow back to Udd. “There’s the answer, Udd. Set the trigger further back, so the bow can flex as far as the steel will let it. Make a winding gear with a rope and a hook to go with every bow. And make a bow out of every strip of steel you have. Take all the men you need.”

The Viking shouldering his way through the crowd looked suspiciously at the jarl surrounded by a throng of midgets. He had arrived only that summer, called from Denmark by incredible stories of success, wealth and profit, and of the Ragnarssons defeated. All he had seen so far was an army drawn up to fight that had then suddenly stopped in its tracks. And now here was the jar] himself, talking like a common man to a crowd of thralls. The Viking was six feet tall, weighed two hundred pounds, and could lift a Winchester bushel with either hand. What sort of a jarl is this? he wondered. Why does he talk to them and not to the warriors? Skraelingjar such as these will never win a battle.

Out loud he said, with a minimum of deference, “Lord. You are called to council.”

His message delivered, he turned away, contempt in the set of his shoulders.

Greatly daring, Oswi asked what all had wondered: “Battle this time, lord? We got to stop that Ivar sometime. We wouldn’t have minded if we’d done it sooner.”

Shef felt the reproach, overrode it. “Battle always comes soon enough, Oswi. The thing is to be ready.”

As soon as Shef stepped into the great meeting tent, he felt the hostility that faced him. The whole of the Wayman council was present, or seemed to be: Brand, Ingulf, Farman and the rest of the priests, Alfred, Guthmund, representatives from every group and unit of the joint army.

He sat down at his place, hand groping automatically for the whetstone-scepter left lying there for him. “Where is Thorvin?” he said, suddenly noting one absence.

Farman started to give a reply, but was immediately overridden by the angry voice of Alfred—the young king—speaking already in a fair approximation of the Anglo-Norse pidgin the Wayman army and council so often used with each other.

“One man here or there does not matter. What we have to decide on cannot wait. Already we have waited too long!”

“Yes,” rumbled Brand in agreement. “We are like the farmer who sits up all night to watch the hen-roost. Then in the morning he finds the fox has taken all his geese.”

“So who is the fox?” asked Shef.