Ieremias shouted as I threw the stone. “We will win! We will win!” He pushed his way between the shields of my front rank to find a safety that I feared was merely temporary. He stooped, picked up the small dog, and beamed at me. “You believed me, lord! The stone of David is cast! We will win!”

But the úlfhéðnar were coming to kill us.

Then carry your willow-shields

Before you, and ring-mail coats too,

And shining helmets into the crowd of foes.

Slaughter their leaders with bright swords,

Their fated leaders. For your foes

Are doomed to die, and you shall have fame.

Glory in battle!

“I didn’t say anything like that!” I told the poet.

“Well, lord—”

“It’s a poem, I know.”

“So what did you say to your men, lord?”

“Probably something like kill the bastards. Or keep the shields tight. You make speeches like that one,” I tapped the parchment, “before a battle, not during it, but Sköll didn’t give us time for speeches.”

Father Selwyn frowned. “Ieremias,” he said uncertainly. He knew the mad bishop was a heretic and he was uncomfortable talking about him. “Had he used the henbane, lord?”

“He stole it from my servant, and yes, he smeared it on his chest. He was shaking when he reached us, shivering and babbling. He collapsed behind us.” I smiled, remembering the small dog licking the mad bishop’s pale face. “I’m not sure the poor man even knew what he’d just done.”

The priest frowned. “He’d provoked an attack by the úlfhéðnar!” he said disapprovingly.

“He had, yes.”

“Did Sköll come with his úlfhéðnar?”

“No, he stayed on the wall and watched.”

“How many wolf-warriors were there, lord?”

“Not many, sixty or seventy. There wasn’t time to count them, we just had to fight them.”

Later, much later, I learned that Sköll had been keeping his úlfhéðnar for the battle’s end, saving their savagery for the slaughterous pursuit as we retreated, but Snorri’s defeat had enraged them, and men who are under the influence of a sorcerer’s potion are incapable of obeying orders. They are like hounds smelling blood, they just want to fight, and so the úlfhéðnar had simply charged through the open gate. No one ordered that charge, Sköll probably did not want it, but he was evidently content to let his crazed warriors make their headlong assault, knowing that even if his úlfhéðnar went down to a bloody defeat that would not change the battle’s outcome.

“But surely he didn’t want to lose them?” Father Selwyn asked me, puzzled.

“You can’t control the úlfhéðnar,” I tried to explain. “It’s as if they’re drunk. They believe they can fly. They believe they’re invulnerable, and, believe me, such men can do an astonishing amount of killing before you put them down. They’re usually the youngest hotheads, men who want reputation, men who want to boast in the mead hall of their exploits. Sköll probably didn’t want to lose them, but it would only add to his reputation if they panicked us. I remember looking at him as they charged, and he was laughing.”