Finan nudged me. “He means you,” he muttered.

Hrothweard waited as the monk translated his last words, then looked sympathetically at Sigtryggr. “Do you accept the terms, lord King?” he asked.

Sigtryggr paused long enough for the hall to become restless. Edward, surprised by Sigtryggr’s silence, sat up straighter. Like everyone else in the hall he had expected Sigtryggr to meekly agree to whatever was demanded. “Do you accept the terms, lord King?” Hrothweard asked again.

Sigtryggr answered directly to Edward, though his words needed to be interpreted by the monk. “You say, lord King, that you cannot trust the oath of a pagan?”

“That is true,” Hrothweard answered for Edward.

“Yet it is the Christians who have broken their pledges,” Sigtryggr said forcefully.

Uproar followed the translation of those words. Hrothweard called for silence, but it was Edward’s frown and upraised hand that finally stilled the hall. “How have Christians broken their pledges?” he asked suspiciously.

“Was I not promised safe conduct if I agreed to attend this Witan?” Sigtryggr demanded.

There was an uncomfortable shuffling in the hall. Men started murmuring, but Archbishop Hrothweard raised his voice. “You were indeed so promised, lord King,” he said loudly, silencing the protests.

“Then how can I trust your words,” Sigtryggr was looking directly at Edward now, and repeating the words we had agreed, “when only last night your men made an attack on my life?” The monk translated, and there was a roar of indignation from the hall’s crowded benches, mainly, I thought, from those men who looked to Æthelhelm for leadership. “I accuse Grimbald!” Sigtryggr had to shout to make himself heard. He waited for the noise to subside, then pointed at Grimbald, “I accuse Grimbald,” he said again. “I accuse him of breaking the king’s peace, of attempting to murder me, of bad faith.” He looked back to Edward. “Give me justice in this matter, lord King, and I will accept all your terms. That is my petition in which I bring Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg as my witness.”

There was renewed uproar, of course, but every man in the hall knew of the bodies discovered in the street of the metalworkers, knew there had been a fight by Saint Ælfthryth’s church, and knew that Grimbald’s men had taken a beating. Some few, those who were the closest allies of Æthelhelm, must also have known that no one had demanded Sigtryggr’s death, that the men had been sent to kill me instead, but that was hardly a defense for Grimbald, who, summoned to answer the accusation, stammered that his men had acted on their own, that he knew nothing of the night’s events, and that he was not responsible for what drunken men did in the middle of an ale-steeped night. “Two men returned to me,” Grimbald said desperately, “and I will punish them, lord King.”

“Yet they confessed they acted on your orders,” Sigtryggr pressed his advantage, “and in witness of their confession I bring Lord Uhtred—”