Devil Take The Hindmost

Chronicle of Wulfrun II

Wulfrun's Heantun, Kingdom of Mercia, 955 AD

Guards dragged a whimpering man forward, pushing their way passed the small cluster of townsfolk who gathered for the regular audience with the ruler of this clump of farms, peasant houses and the amenities supporting them.

The man tripped and fell, falling to all fours in the mud, before being dragged upright and frog-marched forward, his armed escort shouldering onlookers aside with disdain.

The land measured some hundred hides but grew year-on-year as word spread about the preternatural security the place offered in an otherwise perpetually war-torn land. For more than two hundred years, each of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been ravaged by the relentless assault of the Danes, and indeed by each other while vying for supremacy.

The Kingdom of Mercia did not suffer greatly in the early years of the heathen incursions, whose predations fell mostly on the Kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. But once the Danes took Northumbria, the conflict became constant.

But not here.

This place survived ten years or more without so much as a single Northman being sighted. There was no stockade, no watchtowers, and the guards grew fat and happy.

Some said The Good Lord must be watching over the young ruler of these hundred hides, and that the charter awarded by King Aethelred conveyed some blessed grace upon the land. Others muttered darkly that such providence was more likely the work of the Devil.

More pragmatic heads whispered behind their cups, noting that the time their young ruler spent captive amongst the Danes might have conferred some insight into their ways, or most probably indicated they were in league with one another.

Regardless, whether by Divine providence or some other connivance, the town expanded steadily as both peasant, clergy and tradespeople flocked to a place of relative safety and sage oversight.

On the first Sunday of each month the people knew they could attend their ruler in audience, who would hear their pleas and offer succour. In addition, they could air their grievances and disputes and have the local authority sit in judgement with all parties having to abide by the determination made.

So it was that the small party of soldiers shoved their charge towards the low wooden dais, with its single simple high-backed chair, placed carefully in front of the manor house next to the church for the occasion.

Above the dais, a tall pole had been erected from which fluttered a long twin tailed pennant in jet black with the angular and stylised image of a white wolf's head snarling from the centre.

The occupant of the chair noted their arrival with a curt wave of a slender hand, ushering the soldiers away, their duty fulfilled. The men nodded their obedience and sloped off in the direction of the alehouse without a backwards glance at the wretch they delivered to justice.

For his part, the man whom the soldiers deposited before the dais began to tremble; self-consciously rubbing calloused hands over his worn tunic, trying to remove the mud spatters brought about by his fall, but succeeding only on in smearing the muck across his garments.

"Who orders you before me?" the voice from the chair was clear, firm, and strong, despite the owner being no more than twenty years old.

A second man stepped from the crowd to stand before the dais. He was taller, straighter of back and significantly better-dressed than the individual cowering next to him. This was plainly a man of means who both was, and knew himself to be, better than those around him. "I do, my Lady."