Ferox heard Crispinus breathe out. ‘Are we in danger?’

‘We have been from the start,’ he whispered back. ‘But we are guests of the high king and this is his hall. We should be safe here.’

The bard resumed his song, but the mood had shifted and become uneasy. It took a while for talk to grow again. Most of the guests drank heavily, saying little, and for a while there were no more arguments.

‘I do not like that priest,’ the German growled. ‘He is…’ He struggled to find the right word and said something in his own language first. ‘He is a bad man. He likes to kill.’

Ferox thought back to the beheadings earlier in the day, and the calm skill with which this big man had performed them. ‘Sometimes it is necessary. We are warriors.’

‘To kill enemy, yes. To kill when our lord tells us to kill his enemy, yes. To kill for pleasure, no.’ The big man grinned at him, his beard still stained with food. ‘If your friends had not come, I kill you that day.’

‘Yes.’ Ferox did not see any point pretending otherwise.

‘Now we are friends, until the king say different.’ It sounded as if this was the most he had said all year. ‘You are brave and know how to fight. Share a drink.’ He offered his cup. Ferox took it, drank what he guessed to be half and handed it back.

‘I like you,’ the German rumbled and clapped the centurion hard on the shoulder, the friendly blow feeling as if it would drive him a foot into the floor.

‘I like you,’ Ferox replied, a little surprised to find that he meant it.

The German bellowed for more drink.

It was always hard to judge time at a feast like this. The beer and wine kept coming, as did the food. Crispinus was struggling, but Ferox admired the way the man persisted and could not help being impressed by his capacity for drink. Vindex was already slumped forward on the table, head on his folded arms and snoring away in satisfied contentment. The Brigantian was not a great drinker, but neither was he the only one, and a good quarter of the chiefs had also fallen either forward or back and no longer moved.

The German showed no signs of diminished hunger or thirst, and probably always spoke and thought slowly. Opposite them the priest drank little and spent most of his time watching them, his spiked hair and the harsh shadows of the fire making him seem like a creature from the Otherworld. The bard still sang, but now he told old tales of love and hate, of raids and battles, and most people were too drunk or too concerned with their own talk to pay much heed.