Father Cutha has Ivar banished from Nazeing for not repudiating the spay wife Braenda. Ivar rides west for Wales with Oslac and Cyneweard. They are joined not long later by Saeward and Theodolf, who save Ivar from the clutches of Gilbert de Warenne at Bruning's inn near Oxford. Riding west, they meet Osgod and Harding, on their way from Jorvik to fight the Normans alongside Eadric and the Welsh princes Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. In Wales Ivar learns his old nemesis Copsig has been appointed earl in Northumbria and is on his way north to take up his duries. Crossing Shropshire and the Pennines in company with his friends and Harding, Ivar avoids ambush, takes the Norman earl William fitzOsbern hostage and crosses paths with Copsig in the winter wilderness. Copsig is cornered by Earl Gospatric and his kinsman Osulf at Newburn on Tyne, and Ivar finds himself tested in the first of many confrontations during the year following William's coronation.