Æthelhelm’s men spread, hands on sword hilts. Svart, smiling, stood. He was a giant, so tall that he needed to bend his shaggy head beneath the tavern’s smoke-blackened beams. “I haven’t killed a Saxon in days,” he growled, but as he spoke in the northern tongue none of Æthelhelm’s men understood him. But they saw his massive size and not one of them seemed eager to face him.

“The king,” I said, “finds your presence offensive. You smell like lizard shit.”

“The king?” Æthelhelm was momentarily confused, thinking I meant Edward, then Sigtryggr stood beside Svart, and he too was frightening. He had a blade of a face, the one-eyed face of a man who has fought in too many battles and did not fear a mere tavern brawl.

“So sit on the room’s far side,” I said, “and try not to fart.”

One of Æthelhelm’s men, a brave one, took a pace forward, but the priest pulled him back. “There are to be no fights! The king has decreed it! No fights. On pain of your immortal souls!”

For a moment the room was still, then Æthelhelm spat toward us. “This room stinks of pagans. We’ll drink elsewhere.”

They picked up their cloaks and went back into the rain.

In my anger at Sköll I had almost forgotten I had other enemies. And the bitterest of those was now in Tamweorthin.

And, like me, he wanted revenge.

“He has a hundred and twelve household warriors here,” Finan told me.

I swore. “I have you and Berg.”

“Æthelhelm is probably pissing himself in fear then.”

I smiled dutifully. Would Æthelhelm attack me? Or rather would he direct his men to attack me? King Edward was adamant that there be no fighting in Tamweorthin while the Witan convened, but he might as well have ordered men to stop pissing against church walls. In fact he had ordered that, but they pissed just the same. And there were always fights. The town was full of Mercian and West Saxon warriors and, though Edward might be king of both kingdoms, there was small love between them. So yes, Æthelhelm would try to kill me, though he would make sure no one could accuse him of ordering the murder.

“It will be at night,” Finan said. It was the evening of Eostre’s feast, and we were sitting by the Bullock’s fire. Rain still beat on the roof.

“We stay here then,” Berg suggested.

Finan shrugged. “He’ll burn the tavern down.”

“And the whole town with it?” Sigtryggr asked.

“He won’t give a rat’s turd for the town, lord King,” Finan said, “not if he can dance on Lord Uhtred’s bones.”

“In this rain,” Berg said, “a fire would be hard to set.”

And just then there was a hammering on the tavern’s street door.

“Shit,” the King of Northumbria said.

Finan moved to a window and edged back a shutter. He swore. “Too dark to see,” he said. The hammering sounded again, and Finan moved to the left-hand side of the door while Svart went to the right. Both men drew their swords, while Berg and six of Sigtryggr’s warriors made a line behind a heavy bench we had placed a couple of paces from the doorway. Sigtryggr and I went to stand with Svart. The owner of the tavern, a Saxon, hustled his two serving girls out through the back door. The hammering on the door sounded a third time, more urgently, and I nodded to Finan, who reached out, lifted the heavy locking bar, and let it fall.