Finan turned, looked, and shrugged. “Only spearmen on the wall.”

“Your sorcerer!” Sköll insisted.

Ieremias had stopped capering and now raised both arms to the heavens. I assumed he was praying. “My sorcerer died a year ago,” I said.

“His ghost appears though,” Finan added.

“But only to doomed men,” I finished.

Sköll touched his hammer. “You don’t frighten me,” he snarled, though the expression on his face said otherwise. “Snorri,” he snapped, “come.”

The small dog nudged Snorri to his feet and both men walked back toward the waiting horsemen.

“What of my men?” I shouted after Sköll. “Your prisoners?”

“You can have them,” he called without turning. “I captured twelve of your men. The other eight I killed.”

He plucked Grayfang from the sand, turned, and pointed the blade toward me. “When I am king in Jorvik you will come to swear me loyalty. Till that day, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, farewell.” He slammed the long blade into its scabbard, mounted his gray horse, and rode away.

The gods like sacrifice. If we give them something precious it tells them that we hold them in awe, that we fear their power, and that we are grateful to them. A generous sacrifice will gain their favor, while an inadequate offering will bring down their enmity.

Sköll had come to Bebbanburg, and, instead of fighting, he had offered me prophecy and a truce. He had released the four prisoners unharmed, then left as he had come, quickly and without violence. And he and his sorcerer had unsettled me, which was why they had come.

“So, you must sacrifice?” Finan asked me that evening. We were walking on Bebbanburg’s long sand, the endless sea roaring to our left, the looming ramparts gaunt above us. The sun had not yet set, but we were in the fort’s deep shadow, which stretched far across the restless waters.

“Damn sacrifice,” I said, and touched the hammer.

“You don’t believe the sorcerer?”

“Do you?”

Finan paused as a great breaker crashed on the shore. The white foam ran fast up the sand, and I thought that if the foam reaches me I would be damned, but it stopped a hand’s breadth from my foot, and then the water sucked back. “I have known sorcerers tell truth,” Finan said cautiously, “and known them lie through their teeth. But this one?” He left the question hanging.

“He was convincing,” I said.

Finan nodded. “He was. Until the end.”

“The end?”

“He forgot to say you must stay inside the ramparts. Sköll had to remind him.” He kicked some bladderwrack and frowned. “I think Snorri was saying what Sköll wanted him to say, what they had practiced saying.”

“Perhaps,” I said. I was not so sure.

“And what they practiced saying,” Finan went on, “would persuade you not to fight him. He might call you old, lord, but he fears you still.”

“Perhaps,” I said again.

“He fears you, lord!” Finan insisted. “Why else release the prisoners? Because he fears you. He doesn’t want you as an enemy.”