“Lord?”

“Show them my banner.” The wolf’s head of Bebbanburg would challenge the snarling wolf of Sköll.

I waited till the banner was flying, then rode slowly toward Sköll. Finan came with me and, when we were halfway between the Norsemen and Osferth’s troops I rammed my spear-blade into the turf and ostentatiously turned my shield so that the wolf’s head was upside down. Then I waited.

I heard the hoofbeats behind me. “Is that Osferth?” I asked Finan. I did not want to look around, but kept my eyes on Sköll.

“It’s Osferth,” Finan confirmed, “with his priest.”

Osferth reined in to my left. He said nothing, just looked at me resentfully. The priest stayed behind him.

“Sköll sent scouts along the western hill,” I told Osferth, “and they were supposed to come down through the trees and attack you from the rear.”

“You might have told me,” he said.

“You mean you didn’t see them?” I asked, pretending to be surprised.

He scowled, then shook his head ruefully. “Thank you, lord,” he said. He looked at Sköll. “What’s he doing?”

“Planning our deaths,” I said.

“He surely won’t fight?”

“Not now,” I said, “and if your men were mounted I’d attack him.”

“We could . . .” he began, then paused. He had either been about to suggest that we could advance anyway, but that would take his shield wall away from the wood that protected their left flank, or else he was going to say they could fetch their horses, but that would mean breaking the wall and giving Sköll a chance to charge. “I should have kept them mounted,” he said.

“I would have done,” I said mildly.

“My father . . .” he began, and again paused.

“Your father?” I asked.

“Always said you were a fool, lord, but a clever fool when it came to a fight.”

I laughed at that, and just then Sköll spurred his horse forward. We numbered four men, and so he brought three of his own warriors, all riding slowly toward the inverted spear that, with my shield turned upside down, was a sign that we wanted a parley. “He’s not going to fight now,” Finan said.

“No?” I asked.

“He hasn’t brought his sorcerer with him.”

“What difference does that make?” Osferth asked.

“If he planned to fight,” Finan said, “he’d want us to see his sorcerer and be frightened.”

And that, I thought, was probably true. I remembered that the sorcerer had advised Sköll not to attack Eoferwic, and that forecast had turned out to be true, and I had just seen Snorri turn his back and ride away from us. “They haven’t used their magic ointment either,” Oda the priest said scornfully.

“How can you tell?” Osferth asked.

“They’d be screaming at us, even charging us.”

We fell silent as Sköll and his companions drew nearer. I stared at him. This was the man who had killed Stiorra, and I felt the rage rise. Finan later said I was shuddering and that I was oblivious to the hand he laid on my arm. I do remember bile souring my gullet as I watched the Norseman approach. He was younger than I expected, perhaps around forty. He was broad shouldered and made even bigger by the heavy white cloak. Beneath it he wore glittering mail and a hammer of gold. There was gray in his beard, but the hair showing beneath the helmet’s chased rim was blond. His face was deep-lined, his nose broad and broken, while his eyes were blue, narrow, and shrewd. He stopped a pace or so beyond the spear. For a moment he said nothing, but just looked at us with what seemed like amusement, and, when he spoke, his manner was surprisingly mild.