Finan spurred his horse alongside mine. “You’re such a weakling, lord,” he said.

“I am?”

He grinned, turned, and nodded toward Beadwulf and Wynflæd who were mounted on the same horse, a big, placid gray gelding we had taken from Arnborg’s stables. The squirrel sat in front, enfolded by the monk’s arms. “I felt sorry for her,” I said.

“That’s what I meant.”

“Killing him would be too easy.”

“So what will you do with him?”

I shrugged. “Let them both go, I suppose. I don’t care what happens to them. I care about Stiorra and my grandchildren.”

Stiorra was my daughter, and sometimes I thought she should have been my son because she was the strongest of my children. My eldest boy shared her strength, but he had become a Christian, a priest no less, and that made him no son of mine. My second son, named Uhtred like me, was a good warrior and a good man, but he had none of Stiorra’s strength of will. She had married Sigtryggr, who had once been my enemy, but was now my son-in-law and King of Northumbria, and they lived with their two children in the old Roman palace in Eoferwic. “Eoferwic’s walls are strong,” Finan said, reading my thoughts.

“But to Sigtryggr and Stiorra,” I said, “the enemy are the Mercians. Not the pagans. If Sköll comes to their gate they’ll likely invite him into the city.”

“Not if he has an army with him,” Finan retorted. He glanced toward the setting sun. “If I know Sigtryggr,” he said, “then Sköll Grimmarson and his men are slaughtered by now.” He saw he had not convinced me. “If two or three hundred warriors turned up at the Skull Gate at Bebbanburg, would you let them in?”

“Of course not.”

“And you think Sigtryggr would?”

I touched the hammer hanging at my neck and prayed he was right.

We spent that night in the remnants of the Roman fort at Ribelcastre, a fort that had guarded the ford where the road that led north to Cair Ligualid crossed the Ribbel. I had thought that some of the Danes or Norse who had fled to this wild country would have taken the fort for themselves, but it was deserted, nothing but weather-worn turf walls and the rotted stumps of an ancient palisade. “They fear the place, lord,” Beadwulf told me. “They believe it is a haunt of ghosts.” He crossed himself.

“So you’re still a Christian?” I asked sourly.

“Of course, lord!” He frowned uncertainly. “It’s just that the monastic life . . .” he shrugged, evidently lost for words.

“Only lets you hump other monks?” I finished for him.

“Please, lord!” he protested, blushing.

“So what will your abbot do when he finds you’ve broken your vows?”

“If he finds me, lord? He’ll beat me.”

“I just hope Wynflæd is worth the beating,” I said.

“Oh she is, lord! She is!”

We had ridden from Arnborg’s home through good farm country, but we had seen few people, and those we did see were old, children, or women, which was hardly surprising if most of the men of fighting age had followed Sköll Grimmarson eastward. The first few steadings we had passed all belonged to Arnborg’s men, who I assumed were now somewhere close to Eoferwic. I touched the hammer again, praying they were not in the city that lay some three or four days’ journey across the high moors.