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speech. Was I doomed to die here on this river’s bank? Sigurd believed it, and he was gathering his men for an attack, which, if its result had not been foretold, he would never have attempted. No men, however battle-skilled, could hope to break a shield wall that was as strong as the one I had placed between the bridge’s sturdy parapets, but men inspired by prophecy will attempt any foolishness in the knowledge that the fates have ordained their victory. I touched Serpent-Breath’s hilt, then the hammer of Thor, and went back to the bridge. ‘Light the fire,’ I told Osferth.
    It was time to burn the bridge and retreat, and Sigurd, if he was wise, would have let us go. He had lost his chance to ambush us and our position on the bridge was dauntingly formidable, but he had the prophecy of some strange woman ringing in his head and so he began haranguing his men. I heard their shouted responses, heard the blades beating on the shields and watched as Danes dismounted and formed a line. Osferth brought a flaming torch and thrust it deep into the piled thatch, and smoke thickened instantly. The Danes were howling as I elbowed my way into the centre of our shield wall.
    ‘He must want you dead very badly, lord,’ Finan said with some amusement.
    ‘He’s a fool,’ I said. I did not tell Finan that a sorceress had foretold my death. Finan might be a Christian, yet he believed in every ghost and every spirit, he believed that elves scuttled through the undergrowth and wraiths twisted in the night clouds, and if I had told him about Ælfadell the Sorceress he would have felt the same fear that shivered my heart. If Sigurd attacked I must fight because I needed to hold the bridge until the fire caught, and Osferth was right about the thatch. It was reed, not wheat straw, and it was damp, and the fire burned sullenly. It smoked, but there was no fierce heat to bite into the bridge’s thick timbers that Osferth had weakened and splintered with war axes.
    Sigurd’s men were anything but sullen. They were clattering swords and axes against their heavy shields, and jostling for the honour of leading the attack. They would be half blinded by the sun and choked by the smoke, yet they were still eager. Reputation is everything and is the only thing that survives our journey to Valhalla, and the man who cut me down would gain reputation. And so, in the day’s dying light, they steeled themselves to attack us.
    ‘Father Willibald!’ I shouted.
    ‘Lord?’ a nervous voice called from the bank.
    ‘Bring that big banner! Have two of your monks hold it over us!’
    ‘Yes, lord,’ he said, sounding surprised and pleased, and a pair of monks brought the vast linen banner embroidered with its picture of Christ crucified. I told them to stand close behind my rearmost rank and had two of my men stand there with them. If there had been the slightest wind the great square of linen would have been unmanageable, but now it was blazoned above us, all green and gold and brown and blue, with a dark streak of red where the soldier’s spear had broken Christ’s body. Willibald thought I was using the magic of his religion to support my men’s swords and axes, and I let him think that.
    ‘It will shade their eyes, lord,’ Finan warned me, meaning that we would lose the advantage of the low sun’s blinding dazzle once the Danes advanced within the great shadow cast by the banner.
    ‘Only for a while,’ I said. ‘Stand firm!’ I called to the two monks holding the stout staffs that supported the great linen square. And just then, perhaps goaded by the flaunted banner, the Danes charged in a howling rush.
    And as they came I remembered my very first shield wall. I had been so young, so frightened, standing on a bridge no wider than this one with Tatwine and his Mercians as we were attacked by a group of Welsh cattle thieves. They had rained arrows on us first, then charged, and on that distant bridge I had learned the seethe of