“Your uncle.”

“He is called Sköll,” he went on, “Sköll Grimmarson. Have you heard of him?”

“No.”

“You will. He is ambitious. And he has a feared sorcerer,” he paused to touch the bone-hammer, “and he and his magician are in your country.”

“In Northumbria?”

“Northumbria, yes. He landed north of here, far north. Beyond the next river, what is it called?”

“The Ribbel.”

“Beyond the Ribbel where he has gathered men. Sköll, you see, craves to be called King Sköll.”

“King of what?” I asked scornfully.

“Northumbria, of course. And that would be fitting, would it not? Northumbria, a northern kingdom for a Norse king.” He looked at me with his ice-blue eyes and I remember thinking that Ingilmundr was one of the most dangerous men I had ever met. “To become king, of course,” he went on in a conversational tone, “he must first defeat Sigtryggr, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And he knows, who does not, that King Sigtryggr’s father-in-law is the renowned Lord Uhtred. If I were Sköll Grimmarson I would want Lord Uhtred far from his home if I planned to cross the hills.”

So this was why he had sought me out. He knew I had been lured across Britain, and he was telling me that his uncle, whom he plainly hated, had arranged the deception. “And how,” I asked, “would Sköll do that?”

He turned to stare again at the river. “My uncle has recruited men who settled south of the Ribbel, and that, I am told, is Mercian land.”

“It is.”

“And my friend Æthelstan insists that all such settlers must pay tribute and must accept his missionaries.”

I realized he was talking about the monk. Brother Osric. The man who had led me on a wild dance across the hills. The man who had lied to me. And Ingilmundr was telling me that his uncle, Sköll Grimmarson, had sent the monk on his treacherous errand. “How do you know all this?” I asked.

“Even we simple farmers like to know what is happening in the world.”

“And even a simple farmer would like me to take revenge for his father’s betrayal?”

“My Christian teachers tell me revenge is an unworthy thing.”

“Your Christian teachers are full of shit,” I said savagely.

He just smiled. “I almost forgot to tell you,” he went on calmly, “that Prince Æthelstan asked that you should join him. I offered to carry the message. Shall we stroll back, lord?”

That was the first time I saw Ingilmundr. In time I would meet him again, though in those later encounters he shone in mail, was hung with gold, and carried a sword called Bone-Carver that was feared through all northern Britain. But on that day by the Mærse he did me a favor. The favor, of course, was in his interest. He wanted revenge on his uncle and was not yet strong enough to take that revenge himself, but the day would come when he would be strong. Strong, deadly, and clever. Æthelstan had said I would like him, and I did, but I also feared him.