“He attacked you!”

“The attack failed.” He let go of Tintreg’s bridle and half turned his horse away. “Tell him to go back home.”

I leaned forward and took hold of the spear shaft. “My prince,” I said to Sköll, “has decided to spare your rotten life. He advises you to go home unless you wish a shallow grave in this valley.” I plucked the spear free and turned to follow Osferth.

“You’re cowards!” Sköll shouted. “You run away like slaves!”

And so we did.

We outnumbered them and we ran away. Well, we rode away.

I had been tempted to attack. My hatred of Sköll tried to persuade me that my men would defeat his, but it would have been an expensive and incomplete victory. Men would die on both sides, and, because we were all on horseback, many would escape the slaughter. It is always the same with mounted battles, the moment one side looks as if it has gained the advantage, the other flees, and then it becomes a horse race. Good sense, and I retained just enough in the face of Stiorra’s killer, told me that a fight on horseback between two equal forces would leave both sides weakened, and neither with an overwhelming victory. I wanted to face Sköll, and I wanted to kill Sköll, but I wanted to be certain that I faced him man-to-man, and that I disarmed him before slaughtering him to make sure that his vile face would not offend me in Valhalla’s feasting hall.

If Osferth’s men had joined mine, then our victory would have been certain, but Osferth had been right. He had no quarrel with Sköll, indeed Osferth had no business leading troops into Northumbria at all, so to return to Mameceaster with a report that he had lost a score of men in a fight that was none of his concern would almost certainly end with him losing command of Mameceaster’s garrison.

“I am sorry, lord,” he told me as we rode away.

“Sorry? Why?”

He looked embarrassed. “For your daughter. For your hopes of revenge.”

“My daughter will be revenged,” I said.

“I pray so.”

“You do?”

“I pray for you,” he said, still embarrassed, “I always have.”

“You think your god wants Sköll dead?”

“I think my god weeps for Englaland,” he said. “I think my god wants peace.”

“And Northumbria?”

For a moment he was not sure what I meant, then he bridled. “God wants the Christians of Northumbria to be ruled by a Christian king. One religion, one language, one nation.”

“So you’ll invade us? Force us to our knees?”

He half smiled. “There might be another way, lord.”

“What other way?” I demanded.

“By talking,” he said, “by negotiation.” He ignored my sneer. “You know the Easter Witan is to be held in Mercia?”

“I didn’t know.”

“It will be the first to combine the Witans of Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex,” he said, “and Prince Æthelstan thinks you should attend.”

“Was that his message to me?”