“Why come at all?”

“They promised safe conduct,” he evaded my question.

I could hear singing coming from the church at the hill’s top. King Edward was in the gaunt wooden building, as was Æthelstan and most of the nobility of Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia. I had a sudden memory of the night Ragnar’s hall burned. Kjartan the Cruel had set that fire and had reaped the screams of the trapped, the slaughter at the door, and the shriveled corpses in the ashes. The singing went on, a drone of monks, and we turned into the Mallard, a big tavern by the lane that led up the hill. It was almost empty because the law said that folk must go to church on Eostre’s day and Tamweorthin’s six churches were doubtless full, but a pair of servants were putting new rushes on the tavern floor and happily brought us ale. We sat by the hearth.

“Why did I come?” Sigtryggr asked, gazing at the flames.

“Stiorra would have told you to stay at home.”

“She would, yes.”

“They’re humiliating you,” I said.

Svart growled in protest at my words, but Sigtryggr just nodded agreement. “They are,” he said, “and we’ll find out how tomorrow.” The Witan always began on Eostre’s feast, but the first day, the Sunday, was given over to the priests, and the Witan’s real business would wait till the morning. Sigtryggr stretched out a foot and pushed a log into the heart of the fire. “I sometimes wish you’d never made me King of Northumbria,” he continued. “I could be in a good ship at sea with the whole world waiting to be robbed.”

“So go back to sea,” I said.

He smiled ruefully. “I’m a king!” For a moment his one eye glistened. “Stiorra would never forgive me,” he went on. “She wants, wanted, our son to be king. You know what she called me? The last pagan king. And you can’t be the last, she always said that. You can’t be the last.”

Stiorra had been right. I had never thought of it before, but Sigtryggr was the last pagan king in all Britain. The Saxon lands were all Christian. Alba, which some folk called Scotland, was Christian, though I suspected that some of their mountain savages, all hair and grunts, probably still worshipped sticks, stones, and stumps. The Welsh were Christian, though that never stopped them raiding Christian Mercia to steal cattle and slaves. There were a few pagans still clinging to their steadings in the hills of Cumbraland, but even there the Christians built churches and cut down the ancient groves where the old gods lived. Only Northumbria, my country, was ruled by a pagan. Yet when I had been a young man, all fury and sword-skill, the last kingdom had been Wessex. My people, the Saxons, had been driven southward by the pagan Northmen until the only lands they could call their own were the sea marshes of Sumorsæte. Then we had fought back. We had killed the sword-Danes, slaughtered the spear-Danes, we had clawed our land back, and now Northumbria was the last kingdom, the last realm where folk could worship whatever god they chose.