My cousin’s men had been bloodied in the alleyways where they had been torn apart by the sheer savagery of our assault, and now they were looking for refuge. They could not reach the great hall, I had barred their route to the southern gates, where, I suspected, my cousin was gathering his forces, and so they had fled northwards. The great stone fortifications of the Sea Gate promised them safety, and so they headed that way, and then they saw Gerbruht’s wall forming. It was a small shield wall, but it filled the width of the gate’s archway and it offered death to the first men brave enough to make an assault. The fugitives hesitated. No one led them. No one told them what to do. The church bell was still ringing its panic, there were sounds of fighting beyond the Sea Gate, and so, leaderless and scared, they paused.

And Finan struck them from behind.

Finan, knowing better than anyone what slaughter would follow if the Sea Gate was opened, did not wait to form his men into a wall, instead he just fell on the enemy with Irish fury, keening his crazed battle song. He had the advantage of the high ground, he sensed the enemy’s fear, and he gave them no time to understand the advantage they possessed. They had allies in Æthelhelm’s hard-pressed survivors beyond the gate, and all they needed to do was overcome Gerbruht’s dozen men, unbar the doors, and push them outwards, but instead they died. Finan’s men, with the cruelty of warriors finding a terrified enemy at their mercy, showed none. They turned the rock steps into a flight of blood, and Gerbruht, seeing the slaughter, led his men out of the arch and attacked uphill. By the time I reached the upper gate my cousin’s men were all either dead or captive. ‘Do we want prisoners?’ Finan shouted up to me. There were about thirty men kneeling, most holding out their hands to show they had no weapons. About half that many were dead or dying, cut down by Finan’s ferocious attack. Not one of his men, so far as I could see, had even been wounded.

I did not want prisoners, but nor did I want to kill these men, some of whom were scarcely more than boys. Many were doubtless the sons of Bebbanburg’s tenants, or the grandsons of folk I had known as a child. If I won this day then they would be my people, my tenants, even my warriors, but before I could shout an answer to Finan there was a hammering on the gate. ‘Gerbruht!’ I shouted. ‘Get your men back on the fighting platform!’

‘Yes, lord!’

‘And Gerbruht! Well done!’

A voice shouted from outside the Sea Gate. ‘For pity’s sake! Let us in!’ The man beat on the gate again. I suspected that he was a survivor from among those of Æthelhelm’s men who had stayed to defend the ships and who had been cut down by the Scots and by Einar’s Norsemen. I shared Finan’s pity for them. They had been brought to this raw coast only to find themselves thrown into a merciless battle against savage northerners. It would have been a mercy to open the gate and let the last survivors inside, and some of those West Saxons might even have fought for me, but that was a risk I dared not take. The Sea Gate had to stay closed, and that meant Æthelhelm’s men trapped outside the wall must die and that our prisoners had to remain inside the fortress. ‘Finan,’ I called, ‘strip the prisoners naked! Throw their weapons over the wall!’ I would have preferred to send the captives out of the fortress, but that would have condemned them. Stripping and disarming them would be enough. It would leave them helpless.

The hammering on the gate had stopped and I heard a bellow of rage as Gerbruht hurled a stone from the ramparts. A man shouted a curse in Norse, which told me that only Einar’s men and the Scots, both of them my cousin’s enemy, were now outside the Sea Gate. ‘Guard it well!’ I shouted to Gerbruht.

‘They’ll not get inside, lord!’ he called back. I believed him.

‘Father,’ my son had pushed through the men crowded at the upper gate and touched my mailed arm, ‘you’d better come.’

I followed him back through the upper gate to see that a shield wall had formed across the centre of the fortress. The wall began just beneath the high crag on which the church and the great hall were built and stretched all the way to the sea-facing ramparts. A banner flew at the line’s centre, my banner of the wolf’s head, and beneath it was my cousin who had at last assembled his forces. His men were clashing their swords against their shields and stamping their feet. There were still more men making a smaller shield wall by the church, and both walls were uphill of us. ‘How many?’ I asked.

‘A hundred and eighty on the lower rock,’ my son said, ‘and thirty up by the church.’

‘Just about equal numbers then,’ I said.

‘It’s a good thing you can’t count,’ my son said, sounding more amused than he had any right to be, ‘and there’s more of the bastards,’ he added as a large group of men pushed into the centre of my cousin’s shield wall, which spread apart to make room for them. I guessed those men had been garrisoning the High Gate, and my cousin had summoned them, trusting the guards at the Low Gate to deter any assault by the Scots. I could see my cousin more clearly now. He had mounted a horse and was joined by three other riders, all of them behind the banner at the centre of the larger shield wall on the lower rock. ‘He’s become fat,’ I said.

‘Fat?’

‘My cousin.’ He looked heavy on his big horse. He was too far away for me to see his face framed by his helmet, but I could see he was just staring at us as his men clashed their blades against their shields. ‘We’ll take him first,’ I said vengefully. ‘We’ll kill the bastard and see if his men have any fight left in them.’

My son said nothing for a heartbeat. Then I saw he was staring at Bebbanburg’s summit. ‘Oh, sweet galloping Christ,’ he said.

Because the leaping stag had come to Bebbanburg.

‘How in God’s name did they get inside?’ my son asked, no amusement in his voice now, only astonishment, because Æthelhelm’s red-cloaked men were appearing on the fortress’s high crag. They were in mail, they made a new shield wall, and they cheered when they saw how few we were. Finan’s men were still out of their sight, down the steps by the Sea Gate, and Æthelhelm’s troops must have believed we numbered fewer than a hundred men. ‘How in God’s name did they get inside?’ my son asked again.

I had no answer, so said nothing. Instead I counted the red-cloaked warriors and saw there were at least sixty men, and still more men were coming from the fortress’s southern end to join my cousin’s shield wall. My cousin, heartened by the arrival of his ally, was shouting at his men, as were two priests who harangued the thickening wall, doubtless telling them it was the nailed god’s wish that we should all die. Above him, on the heights of the fortress, Æthelhelm stood tall in a dark cloak and bright mail. He too had a priest, who walked along the growing shield wall offering his god’s blessing on the household warriors who were readying to kill us.

There were vengeful Norsemen waiting outside the gate, and death making two shield walls inside. I had fought badly so far, leading my men in wasteful attacks, and then been forced into a panicked retreat. Worse, I had given my enemy time to recover from his surprise and form his troops, but suddenly, as I saw that enemy ready and waiting, I felt alive. I had been wounded in the right thigh, stabbed by the spearman who had died screaming in the alley, and I touched my fingers to the wound and they came away bloody. I touched the blood to my cheek-pieces and then held the fingers to the sky. ‘For you, Thor! For you!’

‘You’re wounded,’ my son said.

‘It’s nothing,’ I said, then laughed. I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remember best of all, though, was the sudden certainty that the gods were with me, that they would fight for me, that my sword would be their sword. ‘We’re going to win,’ I told my son. I felt as if Odin or Thor had touched me. I had never felt more alive and never felt more certain. I knew there would be no more mistakes and that this was no dream.

I had come to Bebbanburg and Bebbanburg would be mine.