Sigtryggr glanced up at the roof-hole as a gust of wind swirled the smoke and dashed in a shower of raindrops. “You want to know why I’m here,” he said. “In Lindcolne I have forty-six household warriors, in Eoferwic I have a hundred and seventy-three. That’s when they’re not ill. I can count on the men of Dunholm, and I have your warriors. If it comes to war,” he hesitated, “when it comes to war, I can lead maybe four hundred really good troops. The jarls will give me another three hundred. The host? Maybe a thousand who can half fight. Am I wrong?”

“The jarls will give you more than three hundred,” I said.

“They won’t! Remember that bastard Thurferth?”

“I do,” I said grimly.

“A dozen jarls have followed him. Now they’re under Edward’s protection. They’ve been baptized.” Thurferth was a rich Dane who owned estates on the southern border of Northumbria and, threatened by Mercian invasion, had chosen to become a Christian and bend his knee to the Saxon king. “If I fight Thurferth and his followers,” Sigtryggr went on, “I’m fighting King Edward. And I’ll get no help from the west, will I?” He meant Cumbraland, which was supposedly a part of Northumbria.

“No help,” I agreed.

“And meantime that bastard Constantin would love to take Bebbanburg’s land and make it Scottish. So,” he struck his fingers one by one, counting his enemies, “I have the Scots to the north, my fellow Norsemen to the west, and Saxons to the south, and fewer than two thousand men to fight them all. And that is why I’m here.” He drained his ale. “Being humiliated,” he added bitterly, “is a price worth paying to ensure peace with the biggest of my enemies.” He fell silent as a flurry of voices sounded outside the tavern door, which was suddenly thrown open to let in a group of rain-soaked men. They were warriors, judging by the swords they wore, and with them was a priest.

“Christ on his cross,” one of the warriors said, “I thought that bastard would never stop preaching. You!” the last word was shouted at one of the servants. “We need ale. Mulled ale!”

“And food!” another man called.

They took off their cloaks and I put my hand on Serpent-Breath’s hilt because all the rain-darkened cloaks were red, and I only knew one man who insisted that his followers wear the same color cloaks. “We’ll have the fire too,” the first man said with the easy arrogance of a lord who was accustomed to having his own way. He was clean-shaven and had a thin face unscarred by disease or war. There was gold at his neck and on his wrists. He strode toward us, then saw me and stopped. I saw the flicker of fear in his eyes, instantly gone as he counted us and realized he had twice the men we did. “I said we’d have the fire,” he challenged us.

It was Æthelhelm the Younger, whose father, my enemy, had died a prisoner in Bebbanburg and whose sister was my son’s wife. “I’m not finished with the fire,” I answered.