“End of the wall here! Here!” That was Berg. Somehow he had managed to bring his precious eagle flag as well as a shield and a spear, and he rammed the flag’s staff into the turf to mark the northernmost end of our shield wall. “Line up on me!” he shouted. “Here!” He spread his banner to make himself more visible. “Here!” He was facing us, and a sudden shift in the fog revealed Sköll’s men beyond him, beyond him and near to him, much too near, men who had left the fort to attack us before our shield wall was formed, gray-helmeted men with snarling wolves on their shields, warriors who came howling from the gray fog.

And Berg had not even drawn his sword.

Then was the clashing of shields. The sea-wolves came,

Furious to the fight. The spear often pierced

The life-house of the doomed . . . They stood fast,

Warriors in combat, warriors falling

Weary with wounds. The dead fell on the earth.

I read Father Selwyn’s lines and flinched as I remembered that sudden attack from the morning fog. “I suppose we did stand fast,” I told the poet, “eventually.”

“Eventually, lord?”

“They surprised us,” I said, “in that fog we were supposed to surprise them, but they surprised us. We weren’t ready. What saved us was that Sköll didn’t send enough men. I don’t think there were more than sixty. He should have sent two hundred.”

“And they were, what is the word, lord? Úlf—”

“Úlfhéðnar,” I said, “but no, these men weren’t crazed, but you’re right, they came furious to the fight.”

Sköll’s men might not have been crazed by henbane, but they still came like wolves, howling, they came to kill, and in that first moment I lost eight men. I blame myself. If you lead men and women then your success is their success, but the failures are all yours. All mine.

I remember the leaping enemy, mouths open, shields held to one side so they could stab with spear or sword. Cerdic, big and loyal, but always slow, was the first of my men to die. He had been going to join Berg and I saw him turn in surprise, he did not even have time to resist and a Norseman’s spear went clear through his body, so hard was that opening thrust. I saw the mail at Cerdic’s back bulge, then the spearhead tore through and a second Norseman slashed his sword across Cerdic’s face and the blood was bright in that gray morning. The enemy was yelling, triumphant. Wulfmaer, another Saxon, was behind Cerdic. He had been one of my cousin’s warriors who had sworn his loyalty to me and I watched him die. He had time to raise his spear, level it, even begin to charge against the mass of men hurling themselves toward us, but he was jarred back by a spear thrust to his shield, he half turned, lunged his own weapon, and a Norseman’s sword knocked it aside and another man drove an ax down through Wulfmaer’s helmet and split his skull like a log.