PROLOG
15 September, 1066
The woods were foggy, the air moist and sweet like the memory of honey. Most nights were dark and black and cold, this one was bright, the moon was full and hunters stalked the undergrowth.
It was a strange night for a hunt, but perhaps stranger yet was the man who led it. A man of middling height, the lead hunter sported a thick dark beard underneath a woollen black hood and cloak. He wore felts and thick leathers, a good deal of wealth to any churl that showed his status as a honourable Thegn. Beneath the hood, his face was hidden entirely but for two pale-blue eyes that swept the forest searching for the slightest twitch. In his hands he bore a short-bow, easier to aim and keep steady than any long warbow, as he preferred. He did not need the strength to bore a hole through steel with an arrow, he just needed to thunk an arrow in the right place at the right time.
Behind the man more men bore bows and horns and knives, wearing shades of grey and brown. It was difficult to tell how many there were with him, when tree-shadows swallowed them up, but he guessed around six or seven that he could remember.
Nearby, he heard the soft stomping of the ground, as hooves pawed the hard cold soil. More hunters yet to come when the hunting horn was blown and corner the beast.
“How eald was the stag dung thu got?” he asked quietly, to the man ahead of him, a bull-horn with iron rings clutched in his hand.
“Hmm.. thri, mebbe four houres ago now,” he rolled the pebble of shit in his hands, contemplating, before kneeling down and feeling the ground, sweeping some twigs out of the way. Revealed were tracks, barely visible in the moonlight, but he felt them. “The stag went this way.”
“Good.”
They passed tree after tree, shrub after shrub, trailing the stag. A few times there was rustling, an arrow let loose too soon. One man caught a rabbit, but nothing else.
Suddenly they stopped, “Thegn Eadric. Why-”, Eadric turned and clamped a hand over the offending man’s mouth, “do not spec,” he pointed behind him, “the Stag.”
And there a stag stood. It was large, with a proud head crowned with long antlers, and a thick clean brown coat. The beast easily seemed as large as the largest of Eadric’s warhorses, and the hunters gazed in wonder at it.
Eadric pulled his shortbow over his head, and as quietly as he could, nocked a long sharp arrow to his bowstring. He breathed once, and when the air had left him, he eyed the stag’s chest. The subtle thump of its heart.
1.. 2.. 3!
He let loose, and the arrow flew true, sailing with a whistle into the Stag’s chest. It looked shocked and stood still, Eadric’s arrow sticking out of its chest and then, in a heartbeat, kicked its hooves and fled. Eadric tapped the shoulder of the horn-blower, and the man, startled, blew long and loud. A droning sound like a dying cow filled the woods that followed the fleeing Stag.
“Hors! Get me a fuccan hors!” Eadric shouted, a rider came through, dropped and handed the reins to him. He mounted quickly, and he raced through the woods, the neighing of the other’s huntsmen’s horses behind him. Wood and branch broke before the horse’s gallop.
He took a spear in his hand, as the backside of the Stag disappeared into shrub and tree before reappearing again and again, dark red blood dripping from its chest. Eadric stayed on it, running it down. The Stag got slower, and slower as it grew weaker, until the chase came to a large clearing free of trees.
Eadric rode it down, spearing it in the head. With a final twist of its head, the Stag swung its antlers like a mace towards Eadric, who narrowly missed it and fell off his horse. But the deed was done, and when Eadric came to his feet he found his spear-point embedded through its neck, dead.
…
The hunters emerged out of the woods, into the early morning with lanterns in hand. At the head rode Eadric, who smelt of deer, the wild kind. Deer and blood. Dark red smears covered his clothes, and the smell of dead Stag followed him. The Stag carcass was strapped to the back of his horse.
The retinue passed through the fields of Shropshire, avoiding the woods filled with nightgenga this early in the morning as they returned with their prize. Many nameless villages they passed through, some lonely fires flickering in the dark, sometimes illuminating a sleeping face, mostly not.
Come dawn, light washed over the town of Shrewsbury. With wooden walls and houses made of mud and stone and straw. Cocks crowed and a cacophony of sheep and poultry and pigs woke up, bringing their human masters to waken. The hunters arrived, coming through the front gate watched by some black-eyed guardsmen with long spears. Eadric removed his hood, and rode forth into his township. Yawning geburs and churls moved out of the way at his approach, nodding their heads towards their liege-lord.
At the centre of the town rose a structure taller than all other buildings, a motte of stone and wood surrounded by a palisade of spikes with a bigger gate. A retainer walked out through the gate, a blonde mophead of a man with big brawny arms and a thin mouth. “My Thegn Eadric, wel cum baec, good hunten?” he looked at the dead Stag hung across the horse’s back.
Eadric dismounted and with a nod to the hunters behind him they also dismounted, “Ælfnoth! Good mergen, it is good to seen sum of my huscarls worcing proper,” he pointed a thumb at his kill, “it was a good cwell. Tac the stag and slege it for diner later this daeg.”
“Yes my Thegn,” though the man pauses, and he turns back to Eadric, “Waltheof and thine Burthen want to seen thu in the hus, they has news for thu”.
“Wel afin, I will cum soon,”, he waved his hand.
…
Eadric would come into the motte and would enter the room at the back, he would be accompanied by a huscarl close behind, their hand hovering over their sword, their eyes sweeping every corner and crevice for danger to the Thegn.
As he walked he thought of the two men that waited for him. Waltheof was impossible to miss, a giant of a man that liked to dress in red and made such a habit of reading the Thegn’s letters as a young lad Eadric appointed him Heahwita, a position he had maintained through a surprising amount of competence.
The other, shorter man, was Cenfus. A bold man, he wore all black all the time ever since his appointment as Burthen, and from the very start had made his general dislike of Eadric plain enough for anyone to see. Eadric didn’t like him either, but he found a deeper level of understanding with Cenfus than most of his retainers.
As Eadric entered the room, Cenfus spoke first, “Thegn, I abeden news from the south, of the duc of the Frenc. The duc saes he is triewe cyng of the anglisc, and he cums with a great fyrd”.
Eadric hung his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose, “fuccan hell,” he muttered, “hierde where Cenfus?” he asked.
“I’ve hierde fyrs spec of eald cyng Edweard bean of half frenc blud gifen the corona of Angland to the duc. Harald cyng saed also that Angland was the duc’s by right, now he cums in great ire to tac the corona and Harald’s heafod with it.”
Eadric sighed, “I’ve cum baec from a good hunt to this, I cnaw of the bastard thu spec of. I cnaw of what he is capax of”. He put his hands together, his eyes blank, thinking. Thinking. He noticed his councilors had not yet left the room, “Is there more? Spec then.”
Waltheof the Ent turned to him, “Yes, Thegn, news from the north also. That of the Denes, the Dene Harald cyng cums also at the word of our Harald cyng’s brothor Tostig claiming the corona of Angland.”
Eadric turned silent once more. He knew of the Thunderbolt of the North. Men called him Hard Ruler, Harald Hardrada, and his was an iron fist. The Bastard of Normandy was coming, and now, so was this man.
Was the whole world ending, doom coming to the land of the Saxons?
Was King Harold a fool? To anger his brother so?
Maybe he was, but Eadric thought of it. Harold was a Saxon, of the same blood, of the same land, of the same history that flooded Eadric’s veins. England was a land of Saxon men, not French nor Northmen.
“Ingengas efrywhere, when will it end?” he sighed.
He stood up, “call the fyrd, I will naht be cwelled in my father’s hus’, ” he said. He would not lose what was his by right, the gift of his father.
Note: There is a lot to unpack here I know, I was overwhelmed myself the first time I read my own prologue after finishing. But I will go through meanings of the trickiest words first that don't really have a direct translation to modern English. Any other confusion just comment and I will try my best to remedy that.
Thegn - An noble that held substantial amounts of land in one or more counties. Lower than an Earl (or Eorl) and the King, but higher on the rank than everybody else
Cyng - King, in dialogue you probably noticed I used "Harald Cyng" instead of "Cyng Harald", that is on purpose because for whatever reason that was how the king was referred during those days
Nightgenga - Demon of the Night
Diner - Breakfast, the first big meal of the day, and does not mean dinner
Gebur - a peasant farmer without land that owes the Thegn labour
Churl - a free man, a peasant that isn't tied to the land
Burthen - An anglicised version of BúrÞén, which is essentially the Spymaster council position
Heahwita - An anglicised version of Héahwita, which is essentially the Chancellor council position
Fyrd - A conscript army or just an army in general
Dene - Dane, or a term used by the Anglo-Saxons to denote anybody from Scandinavia, note how King Harald is "Dene Harald Cyng" even though he's Norwegian.
Ingenga - Intruder, can also mean visitor, it is a borrowed word from the Norse when the Knytlings were in power.
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