Eadric shrugged. “It was outside, lord.”

The answer to my question proved to be a boy, no more than eleven or twelve, who was dragged in by a grinning Folcbald, the big Frisian. “The little bugger jumped the palisade, lord,” Folcbald explained, “and was running away.”

“Don’t hurt him!” Fritha called. “Lord, please!”

I walked to her, stared her in the eye. “So I’m no longer scum?”

“Please, lord,” she said.

“Your son?” I guessed, and she nodded. “Your only son?” She nodded again. “His name,” I demanded.

“Jogrimmr,” she said the name in a whisper. There were tears in her eyes.

“Where were you going, Jogrimmr?” I asked the boy, though I still looked into his mother’s eyes.

“To get help,” the boy answered, and I could hear the defiance in his unbroken voice. I turned to see him glaring at me. Folcbald loomed above him, grinning.

I looked back to his mother, but still talked to the boy. “And tell me, Jogrimmr, where your father is.”

“Coming to kill you.”

“Many have tried, boy. I’ve filled the benches of Valhalla with men who thought I could be killed. Now tell me what I want to know.”

The boy was stubbornly silent, and it was his mother who answered. “He has gone to join his lord.”

“Arnborg?” I guessed.

“Arnborg,” she said.

“Arnborg is a great lord!” the boy called behind me.

“Arnborg,” I said, “is a piece of toad shit. And where is he?”

I still gazed into Fritha’s eyes and saw a flicker of fear there. “I won’t tell you!” Jogrimmr called boldly.

“Folcbald,” I said, still looking at Fritha, “how do we kill small boys these days?”

Folcbald must have looked bemused because he said nothing, but Kettil, who was searching the hall’s high platform, was quick-witted. “We killed the last one by nailing his head to a wall, lord.”

“I remember,” I said, and smiled at Fritha. “Where is Arnborg?”

“They went east, lord!” she said.

“The nail went in quickly, am I right, Kettil?”

“Much too fast, lord,” he called down to me, “he died before he could tell us anything! You said the next time we must drive the nail slowly.”

“And how did we kill the boy before that?”

“Oh, that one screamed, lord!” Kettil said happily. “Wasn’t he the one we burned to death?”

“No,” Folcbald had at last understood what we were saying, “we skinned that little bastard alive. It was the youngster before him we burned. Remember? He was a fat little boy and he sizzled. Smelled like bacon on a hot rock.”

“Arnborg went east!” Fritha said desperately, “I don’t know where!”

I believed her. “When?” I asked.

“A fortnight ago.”

I heard hoofbeats sounding in the firelit yard and knew the rest of my men had brought the horses safely to the steading that was now ours. The hall began to get crowded as my warriors came into the warmth, and as the men, women, and children we had captured were driven inside. “How many men rode with your husband?” I asked Fritha.