“You must be happy, father,” I said to the priest, Bledod, who had stayed with me.

“That Cadwallon is safe, lord? Yes.”

“No, that Saxons are killing Saxons.”

He looked at me in surprise, then gave a sly grin. “I’m grateful for that too, lord,” he said.

“The first man I killed in battle was a Welshman,” I told him, taking the grin off his face. “And the second. And the third. And the fourth.”

“Yet you’ve killed more Saxons than Welshmen, lord,” he said, “or so I hear?”

“You hear right.” I sat on the stone seats. Cadwallon, safe with Oswi and Folcbald, was beneath us, sheltering beside the arena’s inner wall, while Cynlæf’s men were surrendering meekly, letting Æthelstan’s warriors take their weapons. Cynlæf himself was still mounted and still carrying a sword and shield. His horse stood in the entrance, trapped between Finan’s shield wall and Æthelstan’s men. The sun broke through the leaden clouds, casting a long shadow on the bloodied ground. “I’m told Christians died here,” I said to Bledod.

“Killed by the Romans, lord?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“But in the end the Romans became Christians, lord, God be thanked.”

I grunted at that. I was trying to imagine the arena as it had been before Ceaster’s masons broke down the high stone seating for useful building blocks. The upper rim of the arena was jagged, like a mountain range. “We destroy, don’t we?” I said.

“Destroy, lord?” Bledod asked nervously.

“I burned half this city once,” I said. I remembered the flames leaping from roof to roof, the smoke thick. To this day the masonry walls of the streets were streaked with black. “Imagine what this city was like when the Romans were here.”

Father Bledod said nothing. He was watching Cynlæf, who had been driven to the arena’s center, where he was now surrounded by a ring of spearmen, some of them Finan’s men and some Æthelstan’s. He turned his horse as if seeking a way out. The horse’s rump showed a brand, a C and an H. Cynlæf Haraldson.

“White-walled buildings,” I said, “with red roofs. Statues and marble. I wish I could have seen it.”

“Rome must have been a wonder too,” Bledod said.

“I hear it’s in ruins now.”

“Everything passes, lord.”

Cynlæf spurred his horse toward one side of the ring, but the long spears came up, the shields clashed as they were braced together, and Cynlæf swerved away. He carried a drawn sword. The scabbard at his left hip was bound in red leather and studded with small gold plaques. The scabbard and sword had been a gift from Æthelflaed, last ruler of independent Mercia, and soon, I thought, they would belong to Æthelstan, who would doubtless give them to the church.

“Everything passes,” I agreed. “Look at the city now. Nothing but thatch and wattle, dirt and dung. I doubt it stank like a cesspit when the Romans were here.”

A word of command from Æthelstan caused the ring of men to take a pace forward. The ring shrank. Cynlæf still turned his horse, still looking for an escape that did not exist.