But deep under the earth, where the corpse serpent gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, there are three spinners, three women who make our fate. We might believe we make choices, but in truth our lives are in the spinners’ fingers. They make our lives, and destiny is everything. The Danes know that, and even the Christians know it. Wyrd bið ful āræd, we Saxons say, fate is inexorable, and the spinners had decided my fate because, a week after the witan had met, when Exanceaster was quiet again, they sent me a ship.
