The distance from Fayford to York was short, short enough that on a clear day, the crumbling gray Roman walls stood out against the horizon.
William was contemplating his new course of action. Currently, he was absolutely penniless; some of the beggars he'd passed were probably richer than he. So, after much internal debate, he finally settled on the most reliable solution to their immediate crisis.
Lots and lots of hunting. it was genius! How did no one think of that? Hunt high-value animals like boars or bears, mostly boars, as bears are too dangerous, and sell them in York!
William glanced back at the boy. Harold was dragging his feet, the mud clinging to his worn leather shoes. The pale light filtering through the trees made the squire look even smaller and more frightened.
"Let's go, Harold. We are going hunting," William announced, his voice muffled slightly by his helm, and stepped deliberately off the rough mud track, heading straight into the deeper shadow of the forest.
Harold stumbled to a halt. "Hunting?" he asked, his voice thin with apprehension. "Hunting what?"
"Boars," William replied simply, not breaking his stride. The heavy Warhammer shifted slightly on his shoulder.
Harold frowned, trying to keep up. "But... why boars, Sir?"
"Because we have no money, Harold," William said flatly, the truth cutting through the idealism like the sharp end of his hammer.
The boy's brow furrowed in confusion. "But I thought... I thought lords were rich?."
"I am not a lord, Harold, and I am not rich," he stated, the words simple and absolute. "I am just a man in armor who has to work for our dinner."
Harold let out a weary, shaky sigh, the first admission of defeat and fear. He adjusted the pitifully light pack on his back and followed the massive, armored figure into the encroaching gloom of the wood.
[Meanwhile in York]
York, known then as Eoforwic, was the proto-capital of Northumbria and the seat of King Æthelred I. His rule was turbulent and disastrous, far more unstable than even that of his counterpart in Wessex, King Beorhtric.
Æthelred had been violently deposed once before in 779AD and was only recently restored to the throne in a hail of bloodshed. His second reign began with the assassination of three prominent thegns, sending shockwaves through the Northumbrian nobility and plunging the kingdom into near-constant civil war. The king, acutely aware that his life was constantly at risk, was almost always absent from the capital.
This instability meant the vast, vulnerable territory of Deira was ruled by delegated power. Northumbria was far too anarchic for a single, long-reigning Ealdorman.
The king could trust no one, and thus, authority in York fell to the local military chief: the Ealdorman of Deira.
This constant threat of deposition and murder had made the current Ealdorman, Wulfgar, fiercely aggressive and extremely paranoid. Wulfgar knew the city was a strategic jewel, still protected by its towering Roman walls, but he also knew his tenure depended entirely on ruthlessness. To Wulfgar, every powerful stranger, every whisper of treason, and every unexplained event was a knife aimed at the King, or worse, at his own throat.
And to survive this long, Wulfgar possessed two things his predecessors had not. The first is spies, a vast, unseen network spread across the kingdom. None reported to him directly; each answered to a superior, who in turn answered to another, until finally their secrets reached Wulfgar himself.
The second was the twins.
Wulfgar could not call the twins' initial appearance his doing. He was asleep in his bed with his wife when the sound of fighting tore the night open. In an instant he knew: this was the end, just as it had been for his predecessors, assassins in the dark.
When the noise died down and the door swung wide, two giants stood in the doorway: a man and a woman, both oddly calm and asking for work.
His wife went white and fell to the floor. Wulfgar hardly needed to see the three beaten men crumpled on the threshold, bloodied and barely breathing, to understand the chance that had been offered him.
Since that night, it became a grim pattern: nobles were found butchered in their halls; entire families struck down.
Looking down at the parchment in his hands, Wulfgar sat in heavy contemplation.
The report was brief but troubling: a strange man, armed with a great, unfamiliar hammer and clad in metal unlike any known forge, had been seen near Fayford, heading into the woods with a peasant boy in tow. And a suspected pagan.
For most, blind kings, stupid thegans, and dull-witted peasants, it would mean nothing. Just another wandering sellsword, another stranger in a land crawling with them.
But Wulfgar was not most men. He knew the worth of such oddities. The world was changing, and he meant to grasp every glittering fragment of it, or see it all burned if he could not.
He folded the parchment carefully and rose from his seat. The movement was slow, deliberate, the weight of thought settling into action.
"Guard," he said, his voice cutting through the quiet.
The door opened at once.
"Summon my new huscarls," Wulfgar ordered. "The twins. Tell them I have work for them."
The guard bowed and hurried away, boots echoing down the stone hall.
The guard bowed and hurried away, his boots echoing down the stone hall.
Among the servants and guards, word spread fast that the Ealdorman had called for his new huscarls again. Everyone knew who that meant. The twins.
Even now, months after they first appeared, no one really spoke of that night. How could they? One moment there was shouting, steel clashing, and the next the manor fell silent. When the doors opened, Wulfgar's men were lying on the floor, beaten and half-alive, and standing in their place were two strangers, A man and a woman.
The man they could understand, warriors come and go. But the woman… she was different. She carried a sword, fought like a man, and wore armor as if she had been born in it. No one in the hall had ever seen such a thing.
Those halls were clean once… now they're tainted with pagans.