So, better to get your feet planted before you tried to hit, they had agreed. Good idea. But this time it had gone wrong. Their feet were planted too long. It was that there King Edmund, most of the customers agreed—or “Jatmund” as they pronounced it—and the only question was, what was making him act so stupid? Easy to ravage his country till he gave in. But they didn’t want to ravage East Anglia, the customers complained. Takes too long. Too thin pickings. Why in Hell didn’t the king just pay up and come to a sensible deal? He’d had a warning.

Maybe too much of a warning, Shef thought, remembering the wasted face of Wulfgar in the horse-trough, and that indefinable buzz of rage which he had felt in the fields and woods on their journey. When he asked why the Vikings were so determined to march on Northumbria, largest but not by any means richest of the English kingdoms, the laughter at that question took a long time to die down. Eventually, when he unraveled the tale of Ragnar Lothbrok and King Ella, of the old boar and the little pigs who would grunt, of Viga-Brand and his taunting of the Ragnarssons themselves in the Braethraborg, a chill fell on him. He remembered the strange words he had heard from the blue-swelling face in the snake-pit of the archbishop, the sense of foreboding he had known at the time.

Now he understood the need for revenge—but there were other things about which he remained curious.

“Why do you say ‘Hell’?” he asked Thorvin one night after they had put their gear away and were sitting mulling a tankard of ale on the cooling forge. “Do you believe there is a place where sins are punished after death? Christians believe in Hell—but you’re no Christian.”

“What makes you think Hell is a Christian word?” answered Thorvin. “What does heaven mean?” For once he used the English word, heofon.

“Well—it’s the sky,” answered Shef, startled.

“Also the Christian place of bliss after death. The word was there before the Christians came. They just borrowed it, gave it a new meaning. Same with Hell. What does hulda mean?” This time he used the Norse word.

“It means to cover, to hide something. Like helian in English.”

“So. Hell is what is covered. What’s underground. Simple word, just like heaven. You can put what meaning you like to it after that.

“But your other question: Yes, we do believe there is a place of punishment for your sins after death. Some of us have seen it.”

Thorvin sat silent for a while, as if brooding, unsure how far to speak further. When he broke the silence it was in a half chant, slow and sonorous, like the monks of Ely Minster Shef had heard once, long ago, singing on the vigil of Christmas Eve.

“A hall stands, no sunlight on it,