“I wouldn’t know, lord,” the steward muttered.

“You put a king in a small shitty tavern because he’s a pagan?” I asked, and the steward had no answer to that so I put him out of his misery. “It will do for us too,” I said, then smiled at the scrawny young priest. “We’ll all be pagans together, sacrificing virgins at midnight.” The poor boy made the sign of the cross, and I pointed my bloody hand at him. “Make sure I’m on the list for the Witan too,” I snarled, “otherwise we’ll sacrifice you as well.”

“Yes, lord,” he said.

“You’ve got dirt on your forehead,” I said, “so has he,” I pointed to the other priest.

“Because it’s Good Friday, lord. The day our Lord died.”

“Is that why they call it good?”

They just stared at me, appalled, and we went to the Bullock.

And next day Sigtryggr arrived.

He was angry. What did I expect? And there was no one except me on whom to vent that anger. “You didn’t kill him?” he demanded of me. “And you had your sword at his throat?”

I let him rage. He got drunk that night, and I saw that a one-eyed man could weep like any other. Svart, the commander of his household troops, helped him to bed, then came back and poured himself a pot of ale. “Horse piss,” he said in disgust, “Saxon horse piss.” Svart was a huge man, a great beast of a warrior with broad shoulders and a thick black beard into which were woven two lower jawbones of wolves. “We were in Lindcolne,” he said, “when Sköll attacked Eoferwic.”

“Why Lindcolne?”

He shrugged. “King Edward sent men to talk. It was about this,” he waved a huge hand around the room, meaning that the Saxon delegation had gone to Lindcolne to invite Sigtryggr to the Witan. “The queen said we shouldn’t go. She said that if they wanted to talk that meant they weren’t wanting to fight, so we should ignore them. Let them worry, she said. Then Hrothweard persuaded him.” Hrothweard was the Archbishop of Eoferwic, a West Saxon and a good man. My son-in-law had ever tolerated Christians, offering them hospitality and protection, favors that the Christians never offered to pagans in their own lands.

“I was told the Mercians had invaded,” I said, “and that was why you went south.”

He shook his head. “No, it was just men talking. Ten crows and three lords.” He meant ten priests.

“I should have been there. In Jorvik.”

“We’ve all been saying that.” He poured more ale. “She was a clever one.”

He meant Stiorra. I nodded. “She was clever from a child.”

“Now he doesn’t know what to do.”

“Kill Sköll.”

“Besides that.”

I took the jug and poured more horse piss. “His children?” I meant my grandchildren.

“Safe in Jorvik,” Svart said.

“Stiorra’s mother,” I said, “cast the runesticks and said Stiorra would be the mother of kings.” Svart said nothing. A draft flickered the rushlights on the table. “Another wise woman,” I went on, “said I would lead armies. That there would be a great battle, and seven kings would die.”