The lord's hall is scattered with empty tankards. "Twas quite the feast, my lord." says Cyneswith. She lies on his lap and looks up at his face, a smile upon her own.
"Twas." says the King. He wipes his eyes as they rise from a long wooden pew upon which they slept. "Now go, Cyneswith. We need not have a tale of adultery." She groans, puts on her silk mahogany gown and waltzes away, sipping an almost empty wine cup and grabbing a carrot from the chaotic mess of tables and loose party food.
"I won't say a word, lord King." She snaps a bite of the carrot and winks as she leaves.
A patter of soft feet fills the void left by the King's woman.
"Wait, boy."
The boy pants and keels over, a red flush on his cheeks and sweat sprinting down his forehead. The King slides a pure white silk long shirt over his sturdy, naked frame.
"Proceed."
"I have a message for you, lord King Osmund." The boy hands a muddied scroll to the king. It's bound together by a blue and gold seal.
"Alright, alright. We don't need all the formalities when you have something urgent for me." The King says, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder and softly grinning.
"But it is war, sir! King Offa has declared war!"
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A thorn bush rustles. A boy sits amongst it.
Soldiers march, their faces covered by bejewelled silver and gold masks. Their helmets are rounded, and their armour is avoid of battle, with a sharp moustache silhouette sitting above the mouthpiece brooding the intense sense of class. Each step of their furious march pounds the earth beneath them. A soldier at the back of the band hoists a flag, donning a gold cross upon a blue rectangular background.
The boy stays in his bush, covering his mouth with his hand.
They pass.
"Mercians! Real Mercians!" he whispers to himself.
He bounds down the trail in the opposite direction towards his home village-
"Stop."
A sword hovers calmly at the boy's neck. Each breath of the boy pushes the blade closer to his fragile skin.
"What did you see?", A deep voice says.
The boy's blue eyes resist to look upwards.
"Speak correctly and you will live."
"No- I saw nothing, I swear upon it!"
The sword remains at the boy's neck.
"I- I will say nothing to no one!"
The man turns and walks away, following the steps left by the soldiers. The boy now has a look at the man's back. A man of giant frame, he wears a hood and cloak of a dark brown colour. His boots are of a thick leather, with 4 or 5 miniature daggers sheathed in small loops of leather. He has a swift smoothness to his movements that disagrees with his large build.
He points his sword downwards, dragging it from side to side, cutting the footstep prints out from the mud.
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"I swear it! At least 50 of them! All in armour, ready to fight I bet!" Aethelred bounces in his seat, his eyes ablaze and his face blush.
"Oh, shut up Aethelred." a teenage boy says, smacking his lips as he pops a walnut in his mouth.
"There's not a chance in hell that Mercians would be as south as here, and you wouldn't be left alive to see it. You know what they say about Mercians?"
The teenager starts to line up the nuts on the table.
"They go from hamlet to hamlet and take our women." He smashes the first nut.
"They break into our homes in our sleep and set things on fire." He smashes the second nut.
"They kill our horses, so we have no chance to flee." A third nut, crunched.
The teenage boy grins as Aethelred squirms.
A woman waddles in holding a large basket full of apples. "Stop that Berthold, you're scaring the poor lad."
"He saw 50 Mercians, mum. 50!" Berthold mimics Aethelred's panic.
"And he took them all out with a twig dagger!" Berthold laughs, ruffling Aethelred's short blonde hair.
"Aethel, my little prince, don't you worry about bloody Mercians down here." She flicks the nut dust off the table and pinches Berthold's ear.
"Now come on, bedtime for you two." Their mother escorts the two youngsters up the stairs, shutting the door behind them as the leap onto their beds. She turns and enters another room, with a burly balding man sitting at the end of their similar bed.
"Did you hear that?" Her tone is now serious. "Aethelred saw 50 Mercians."
"I know. And I've informed the King." The burly man pulls his left boot on and stands up. He has a shortsword dangling from his wide waist, and a small leather cap on his small, round skull. A pigskin leather garment is strapped to his chest and a dark green cloak drapes over his thick back.
"Be careful darling." She kisses him on the cheek.
"C'mon Elswith my love, I'll be fine. A measly band of yellow belly Mercians couldn't harm old me.", he chuckles as he makes his way to the door.
"The lantern awaits you downstairs, Lord Pendraic." Elswith says, with a sarcastic smile.
Pendraic smiles once more as he shuts the door, wandering down the stairs.