Early April brought the first greening of the hedgerows and the scent of thawed earth. After settling affairs in the north, Rurik at last arrived in Oxfordshire with twenty-five hundred men and a long train of siege engines rumbling behind him.
"You took your time," Ragnar said dryly.
In the days before Rurik's arrival, he had scoured the surrounding countryside with small detachments, capturing nearly six hundred prisoners but finding no sign of King Æthelwulf. The land seemed to have swallowed him whole.
Leaving three hundred men to garrison Oxford, Ragnar took the rest southward toward Winchester. Midway along the road, his column met another—dusty, disordered, and dragging behind it a long line of captured horses. At its head rode Ivar, exhausted but triumphant, with a thousand Saxon militiamen hot on his heels.
The pursuers were swiftly cut down. Ragnar rode forward, reining up beside his son.
"What in the name of the gods happened here?"
