Sköll said nothing, but I could see my words were hurting him. I could also see him trying to calm himself, trying to plan an attack that would devastate me. “Can your son control his bowels?” I asked. “Or does he spew shit like a drunken goat?”

“Bastard,” was all he said, and he sprang at me, sword swinging from my left, and I simply stood and let the shield hang on my left and Serpent-Breath on my right, and because his swing had been aimed at my left leg and my shield now protected it, the blow was wasted. Grayfang crashed hard against the shield’s iron boss, but did no damage. The blow had been struck in anger, which made it futile, and Sköll knew it. He tried to disengage the sword from my shield by stepping backward, but I moved with him, then feinted myself by bringing Serpent-Breath up, and he twisted away from the threat, going back fast, and I laughed at him.

“When are you going to begin to fight?” I asked. Men at the edges of the square echoed my laughter, and that mockery galled Sköll, who came at me fast and angry, again swinging from my left, and the years of sword practice took control of me so that I did not need to think, but just parried with my shield or else with Serpent-Breath as he hacked again and again. I did not try to counterattack, but just defended, trying to judge his skill. I fought with the sword every day, matching myself against the best of my warriors, and Sköll, although he was fast and he was strong, was not nearly as fine a swordsman as Finan or Berg. He stepped back after six or seven massive blows. “Was that your best?” I asked him.

“You’re a coward,” he spat, “who fights with a shield against a man who has none.”

“You told me to keep it!” I said. “But I don’t need it.” I let go of the handgrip so that the heavy shield fell from my arm onto the ground. “Is that better?”

Instead of answering, he attacked again, and again on my left, though both blows were easy enough to parry, then he attempted a lunge, quick and low, which I only just avoided by stepping to my right. Grayfang’s blade slid by my waist, I heard it scrape on my mail’s rings, and he jerked the blade up as if to sever my left arm, but there was not enough force in his outstretched arm and my mail stopped his blade. I turned away from the blow and stepped a pace back. “If you want the shield,” I said, “pick it up. It’s yours.”

He took two paces back. He was breathing hard, watching me from beneath the gold-edged rim of his helmet. I had been judging his skill and he had been judging mine, though he must have realized that I had not yet made one offensive stroke. The watching men had begun to cheer as we fought, and they were cheering me, even some of the men who had been fighting for Sköll were joining those cheers. He was feared, not loved, and his terrifying sorcerer was dead, and Sköll himself would soon be dead. He knew it. Even if he killed me, his life would not be spared. The best he could hope for was a quick death and a reputation as the man who overcame Uhtred of Bebbanburg.