“Beauty,” he said stiffly, “is the devil’s snare.”

The fires we had placed around the arena lit his face. It was tight, almost angry. He had asked me about Sunngifu, but now it was plain he was uncomfortable talking of her. “And how,” I asked mischievously, “is Frigga?” Frigga was a young girl I had captured near Ceaster some years before and had given to Æthelstan. “She’s a beauty, I remember,” I went on, “I almost kept her for myself.”

“You’re married,” he said censoriously.

“You’re not,” I retorted, “and it’s time you were.”

“There will be a time for marriage,” he said dismissively. “And Frigga married one of my men. She’s a Christian now.”

Poor girl, I thought. “But you should be married,” I said. “You can practice with Sunngifu,” I teased him, “she plainly adores you.”

He stopped and glared at me. “That is unseemly!” He made the sign of the cross. “With Sister Sunngifu? With Bishop Leofstan’s widow? Never! She’s a most pious woman.”

God in his dull heaven, I thought as we walked on, and Æthelstan didn’t know her real story?

I will never understand Christians. I can understand their insistence that their nailed god rose from the dead, that he walked on water and cured diseases, because all gods can do those things. No, it’s their other beliefs that astonish me. Sunngifu had been married to Bishop Leofstan, a good man. I liked him. He was a fool, of course, but a holy fool, and I remember him telling me that one of his god’s prophets had married a whore called Gomer. I forget now why this prophet married a whore, it’s all explained in the Christian holy book. I do recall that it wasn’t just because he wanted to bounce her, it was something to do with his religion, and Bishop Leofstan, who at times had the brain of a mayfly, decided to do the same, and had plucked Sunngifu from some Mercian brothel and made her his wife. He solemnly assured me that his Gomer, as he insisted on calling her, had reformed, had been baptized, and was indeed a living saint, but when he wasn’t looking, Sunngifu was humping my men like a demented squirrel. I had never told Leofstan, but I had tried to expel Sunngifu from Ceaster to stop the frequent injuries caused by men fighting for her favors. I had failed, and here she still was, and, for all I knew, still merrily bouncing.

We were walking toward the firelit arena with snow whirling about us. “You do know that before Sunngifu married the bishop she was—” I began.

“Enough!” Æthelstan interrupted me. He had stopped again and now looked at me fiercely. “If you’re about to tell me that Sister Sunngifu was a harlot before she married, I know! What you don’t understand is that she saw the sinfulness of her life and repented! She is living proof of redemption. A witness of the forgiveness that only Christ can offer! Are you telling me that is falsehood?”