If death is what you want, it can be arranged quickly and silently.’ With a black-toothed grin, Harald Redteeth shook his axe a finger’s width from Alric’s defiant face. The younger man slumped on the cold stone steps of the church tower where he had fallen.‘Archbishop Ealdred would never condone my murder within the minster,’ he spat.The Viking surveyed his prisoner’s pale face and saw the fear behind the bravado. ‘You think that old churchman cares one whit about you? His thoughts are on greater matters – power and glory, and who will soon be sitting on England’s throne and whether that new king will have need of an even newer archbishop. Now walk, or die.’Alric resisted for only a moment, and then dragged himself to his feet and continued up the tower steps. The monk still had some fire in him, Redteeth thought, but it would do him little good. He would have to endure the agony of one of the church’s ordeals – water or iron – but the outcome was not in doubt.
