“You don’t defend a burh by staying on the walls. Everything to the north of Mameceaster is pagan country, and they raid constantly. Treddian just watches them! He does nothing! I want a man who’ll punish the pagans.”

“By invading Northumbria?” I asked sourly.

“Sigtryggr is king of that land in name only,” Æthelstan replied forcefully. He saw me flinch at the uncomfortable truth, and pressed his argument. “Does he have any burhs west of the hills?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Does he send men to punish evildoers?”

“When he can.”

“Which is never,” Æthelstan said scornfully. “If the pagans of Northumbria raid Mercia,” he went on, “then we should punish them. Englaland will be a country ruled by law. By Christian law.”

“Does Ingilmundr accept your law?” I asked dubiously.

“He does,” Æthelstan said. “He has submitted himself and his folk to my justice.” He ducked beneath the splintered branch of an alder. We were riding through a narrow belt of woodland that had been pillaged by the besiegers for firewood and the trees bore the scars of their axes. Beyond the wood I could see the reed beds that edged the flat gray Mærse. “He has also welcomed our missionaries,” Æthelstan added.

“Of course he has,” I responded.

Æthelstan laughed, his good humor restored. “We don’t fight the Norsemen because they’re newcomers,” he said. “We were newcomers ourselves once! We don’t even fight them because they’re pagans.”

“We were all pagans once.”

“We were indeed. No, we fight to bring them into our law. One country, one king, one law! If they break the law, we must impose it, but if they keep it? Then we must live with them in peace.”

“Even if they’re pagans?”

“By obeying the law they will see the truth of Christ’s commandments.”

I wondered if this was why Æthelstan had demanded my company; to preach the virtues of Christian justice to me? Or was it to meet Ingilmundr, with whom he was so plainly impressed? For a time, as we rode along the Mærse’s southern bank, he talked of his plans to strengthen Mameceaster, and then, impatient, he spurred his horse into a canter, leaving me behind. Mudflats and reed beds stretched to my right, the water beyond almost still, just occasionally ruffled by a breath of wind. As we drew closer to the burh I saw that Æthelstan’s flag still flew there, and two low lean ships were safely tied at the wharf. It seemed Cynlæf’s men had made no attempt to capture Brunanburh, which, as it turned out, had been garrisoned by a mere thirty men, who opened the gates to welcome us.

As I rode through the gate I saw that Æthelstan had dismounted and was striding toward a tall young man who went to his knees as Æthelstan came close. Æthelstan raised him up, clasped the man’s right arm with both hands, and turned to me. “You must meet Ingilmundr,” he exclaimed happily.

So this, I thought, was the Norse chieftain who had been allowed to settle so close to Ceaster. He was young, startlingly young, and strikingly handsome, with a straight blade of a nose and long hair that he wore tied in a leather lace so that it hung almost to his waist. “I asked Ingilmundr to meet us here,” Æthelstan told me, “so we could thank him.”