“What of your divinations, priest?” demanded Broder impatiently.

“If ye fight not on Good Friday, as the Christians call it,” said the priest, “your host will be utterly routed and all your chiefs slain; if ye fight on Good Friday, King Brian will die – but he will win the day.”

Broder cursed with cold venom. “A noble choice is left us, by Thor! Yet if I fall, I would take Brian with me to Helheim. Enough of such mummery! We go against the Gaels on the morrow, fall fair, fall foul!” He turned and strode from the chamber.

He traversed a winding corridor and entered another, more spacious chamber, adorned, like all the Dublin king’s palace, with the loot of all the world – gold-chased weapons, rare tapestries, rich rugs, divans from Byzantium and the East – plunder taken from all peoples by the roving Norsemen; for Dublin was the center of the Vikings’ wide-flung world – the head-quarters whence they fared forth to loot the kings of the earth.

A queenly form rose to greet the sombre sea-king. Kormlada, whom the Gaels called Gormlaith, was indeed fair, but there was deep cruelty in her face and in her hard scintillant eyes. Of mixed Irish and Danish blood, she looked the part of a barbaric queen, with her pendant ear-rings, her golden armlets and anklets and her silver breast-plates set with jewels. But for these breast-plates her only garments were a short silken skirt which came half-way to her knees and was held in place by a wide silk girdle about her lithe waist, and sandals of soft red leather. Her hair was red-gold, her eyes light grey and glittering. Queen she had been, of Dublin, of Meath and of Thomond. And queen she was still, for she held her son Sitric and her brother Mailmora in the palm of her slim white hand.