ISBN 1-59201-017-2
Books Unbound E-Publishing Co.
http://www.booksunbound.com
Publication October, 2003
Cover Art by D. Lee
The Earl's Return
Steve Griffiths
Copyright 2002
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Dead Man Talking
It's been a thousand years since I last used a sword in anger. A thousand years I've known no peace.
I thought my actions, and my brave companions, had merited that at least. The 'sleep of the just' was the right--the reward--we expected the next world to hold. True, some still held to the pagan beliefs of eternal battle in the halls of Asgard, but most expected that a restful heaven awaited. We didn't sleep. The voices--echoing down the generations--moved us to anger anew. We listened--watched the slow progress of your world, and learned that the battle was not yet over. Another victory was needed. We had to make sure the world knew the truth. It wasn't to be. With every generation the lies grew stronger, our pain becoming more intense. Of course we'd known that the first years would be hard, for 'History is written by the victor'. When that victor finally died, happily miserable and alone--even admitting his cause was unjust as he breathed his last, we all felt that truth would find its voice. Many who had been there through our victories and defeats lived on well beyond his years of tyranny. They had seen with their own eyes what we had achieved--how close we had been to yet another victory. A victory that would have cemented our title as the greatest warriors the world has ever known. Instead, these spineless survivors stayed silent--and the myths grew stronger. They said that the Normans had mastered us with revolutionary new weapons--huge war-horses and armour-piercing cross bows--that they were stronger--that new strategies and 'combined arms' defeated Harold's Huscarls of Engla-Lond. That somehow we were inferior.
The blood boils at these thoughts. Ghostly muscles tense with anger at the stupidity of history. So one of us was chosen to set the record straight. One whose final honour would give the last Saxon King the merit he truly deserves--and the heroes of Stamford and Senlac their rightful place as paragons of courage and valour. Unequalled by any other warriors the world has ever known.
Heed my words, and I will walk you down a path of honour and glory, massive deeds and improbable victory. Pain, betrayal and defeat that--ultimately, can only lead to death.
And heed too, how amongst the most cunning of plans, the most daring of deeds and the most righteous of causes, the difference between victory and defeat is oft times marked by no more than the merest chance. Good luck here, bad fortune there-a near miss that does no damage or a killing blow that steals a life.
But first I must crave your indulgence while I paint a picture of the prosperous Engla-Lond that William took from us-setting Saxon Engla-Lond back a hundred years or more-reducing your knowledge of our ancestors, friends and families by a hundred fold. The tyrant sought to smite all that was good from Engla-Lond, and remove five hundred years of our struggle for freedom from the pages of history.
Chapter 1
Hwicce - Lond
I was the son of a freeman from Hwicce-a bountiful but troubled land on the borders of the wild Cambrian Mountains. Our farm was some four substantial buildings and a few huts beside a small stream. The main structure was the great hall, not large compared to those of wealthy Thegn lords but what it lacked in scale it surpassed with the beauty of my mother's tapestries and the feasting cloths on our tables. We would usually have about a dozen warriors in the great hall when my uncles and brothers were all assembled, but even these were not enough to crowd our long mead benches. Many a night our feasts would last beyond the dying glow of candles, leaving their horn covers empty and cooling well into the following morn. Our men-folk sat around talking-laughing, singing and joking by the light of the fire. And yes-sometimes after ale had clouded our minds-a fight could break out too. But those were the rare exception, for contentment was our rule.
We generally slept in a separate house with beams of stout oaks, fire- and draft-proofed by the daubing of mud strengthened with straw or powdered limestone. Our windows were covered with sliding wooden shutters, as my father wouldn't spend his hard-earned money on glass, but these did a good job of keeping out winter chills and summer flies.
The stream became a river just a few miles downwards but no more than a brook further up, dammed in places to produce swimming pools (a favourite Saxon sport) or duck ponds and, in the woods, to encourage the scarce beaver. It was part of over five hides of arable land that made our village large enough to merit its own Thegn, Lord Thortrim. The outbuildings included a thatched barn for livestock, although these would sometimes be stabled in the great hall, adding their body-heat at the far end, away from our roaring hearth-fires on cold winter nights. The small workshop-cum-smithy was my father's favourite location. There he mended the farms' tools and made extra money from superbly worked weapons, notably small 'scramseaxes,' the knives that all freemen bore to mark their rank. Used both to eat with and serve as utility tools, scrams would shape wood or crack bone to obtain the marrow jelly hidden deep inside. The ubiquitous Sax had given its name to our race.
Farthest away from our hall was the fowlers' hut, providing roosts for chickens and the source of their valuable, but smelly, dung. The birds roamed free around their brood huts, safe from foxes and other predators protected by our working dogs.
We were surrounded by low, often densely wooded hills and could ride to the slave markets of Bristol to the south or the salt streams of Droitwich to the north in just a few days on a small horse. But we would only make such journeys outside, of course, the busy ploughing, mowing and harvesting seasons.
The barbarians all around took turns to inflict their woes upon us. One season it would be the Scandinavian Wyking--Vikings you call them now. Then next year more Wykinga or Celts from across the Western Ocean. Their long Dragonships cruised our coasts seeking out our every weakness. Even the primitive Britons we had yet to properly conquer from between the Wessex and Mercian Saxon kingdoms could rise in revolt or plunder our lands when we seemed weak. The Danes were also a constant menace. Dark-haired Wykinga we sometimes called them. They had ruled all the land in my father's time, a reign that lasted a quarter century. Cnut ruled for all but a few of those years, encouraging the growing power of Harold's Godwinson family. The favours of this Viking master led ultimately to my beloved Harold's brief reign as the last Saxon King. These Danes lived amongst us in some numbers, and many felt we were as much Anglo-Danish as Anglo-Saxon. Mostly we were friends together, but almost any Wykinga invader could be guaranteed support from amongst their kinsmen, and both Angle and Wykinga Northumbrians had a history of inviting the Scandinavians, dark Danish or fair Norse Vikings to be their Kings. I truly hated these treacherous Northumbrians. Not for nothing were they counted savage brigands. Men had to band together in caravans of twenty or more to trade with their rich capital, Jorvik, for less could not survive in such a barbarous land.
Northumbria would never support Mercia or Wessex in our quest to make a southern Saxon Bretwalda, a King of all the Engla-Lond Kings. They longed for an independence that they largely already had. So jealous were they of the prestige and power of their own kin in the south, their Angle or Wykinga kings would always look to their Southern borders for territorial gain. These treacherous Northumbrians once gave Engla-Lond to the Viking Sweyn I, Cnut's father, with scarcely a fight.
To my great shame Mercia also betrayed a Saxon King too. After all Engla-Londs sufferings under the hopeless Aethelred, we abandoned the greatest Saxon leader since Alfred. Swein Forkbeard's son Canute became our Bretwalda, our King of Kings, when Mercians failed and betrayed the men of Wessex as they were set to defeat his Viking hordes--and regain freedom for all the Englisc, for the sixth successive and perhaps decisive time.
And always there were the Cymru and Silures in the western lands. They stole our livestock and sought to take us as slaves, and we did unto them as they did unto us. We took them by force or simply bought their children from their poor parents. So many of our slaves were Welsh that Weallas became our word for any slave. But I cannot hate the Silures much for all the wrongs, the raiding, killing and burning that they did. These Welshmen are my kin through my mother's side and, had it not been for them, I would never have come to know my lord Harold, and perhaps not have secured so lovely a bride.
My homeland of Hwicce was usually part of Angle Mercia, but sometimes ruled from Saxon Wessex. Since Alfred, it had been the sons of the Wessex Kings who became Engla-Lond's Bretwaldas, our Kings of Kings, elected by the Witan at Witancester. Witancester was the greatest Saxon City with its magnificent Cathedral and fine Churches, although London had probably grown larger.
Until the time of Aethelred, the great Bretwaldas from Wessex never knew defeat. We Saxons were the greatest military power in all Europe.
Between the great Kingdoms of Engla-Lond, Scotland and Wales were the disputed grounds that acknowledged no lord, and even within our Kingdoms were dangerous lands beyond civilised homes, and the best hunting was there, but the risks were high. Locally, our Thegn or his Eldorman would lead a mounted war party against the most pesky villains every Summer, sometimes devastating our foes but more often failing to trap any significant number. The Thegns were forever scheming to increase their personal powers. A good marriage, appointments gained from an Earl's favour or outright intimidation and even murder were not uncommon. One Thegn had killed a rival and forty of his men in the presence of the Danish king Cnut, but stupidly he left his enemy's son alive and later died by the son's vengeful hand.
This is a sample chapter from
The Earl's Return
by
Steve Griffiths
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Books Unbound E-Publishing Co.
www.booksunbound.com
hope you will enjoy the entire book!
Author's Biography
Steve Griffiths was born in Staffirdshire, England in 1956. He has a long-standing interest in Anglo-Saxon history and how people lived 1000 and more years ago. That led to his writing The Earl's Return. Steve also enjoys science and natural history, and participates in re-enactments of historical events.
Steve currently lives in Kent (southeast England). He has three children: Alex (14), Elliott (8) and Gracie (2).
Steve's website is devoted to providing costumes, equipment and weaponry that can be used by the re-enactor, film, TV and museum markets. Visit it at Ancient Battle Crafts.
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