He laughed. “Which means they won’t be happy to see us.”

Nor were they. The guards at the burh’s northern gate let us through without a challenge, despite the hammer hanging from my neck, but when I found the steward in the gatehouse of the palace the welcome turned sour. He was a bald, middle-aged man with a red face and gray mustache, helped by three clerks who sat at a table heaped with lists. “Who are you, lord?” he asked. The “lord” was grudging, provoked by the gold chain around my neck. He saw the hammer too and grimaced.

“Ealdorman Uhtred,” I said, “of Bebbanburg.”

That, at least, drew a satisfying reaction. He stiffened, looked frightened, then flapped a hand at the clerks. “Find Lord Uhtred,” he said, then bowed to me, “a moment, lord.”

Two of the three clerks were priests, which was to be expected. King Alfred had started schools throughout Wessex and encouraged them in Mercia, hoping that folk would learn to read and write. Some had, but almost all the literate men became priests, and so they were the men who codified the laws, copied the charters, wrote the king’s letters, and drew up the countless lists of royal property.

The youngest priest, a scrawny boy with a boil on his cheek and a dirty mark on his forehead, cleared his throat. “There’s no Lord Uhtred on the lists,” he said, frightened out of his wits. He held up a sheaf of papers with a quivering hand. “I know,” he said weakly, “because I copied all the lists, and there’s no . . .” his voice faded away.

“You have tents, lord?” the steward asked hopefully.

“I just need quarters for four men and four horses,” I said.

“But you’re not on the list,” the steward complained, then looked alarmed as I drew a small knife from my belt. “Lord!” he protested, taking a step back.

I smiled at him, drew the knife across the ball of my thumb, then picked up a clean quill. I dipped the nib in my welling blood, pulled one of the lists toward me, and wrote my name. “There,” I said, “I’m on the list.” I sucked the shallow cut, then wiped it on my leggings. “Where are you quartering King Sigtryggr?”

The steward hesitated, glanced at the clerks, then looked back to me. “He’s in the Bullock, lord.”

“That’s a tavern?”

“Yes, lord,” the steward said.

“King Sigtryggr isn’t being given quarters in the palace?” I asked, though the question was really an indignant protest.

“He’s given the Bullock, lord. No one else will be there, just the king and his followers.”

“So it’s a big tavern?”

The steward hesitated again, and the three clerks stared down at their lists. “No, lord,” the steward finally admitted. “King Sigtryggr is only bringing sixteen men, lord.” I suspected he meant that Edward had insisted that Sigtryggr did not arrive with a small army.

“Sixteen men,” I said, “so it’s a small tavern with rancid ale and rotten food?”