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Welcome to my Blog post for
the Historical Book Fair kindly hosted by Francine Howarth. This is a great
opportunity for us authors to allow readers a snippet of our work. I thought I
would let some of my characters tell their story themselves. First though,
please read a blurb from the back of the jacket.
1054, pious King Edward sits on the throne, spending his days hunting,
sleeping and praying, leaving the security and administration of his kingdom to
his much more capable brother-in-law Harold Godwinson, the powerful Earl of
Wessex. Against this backdrop we meet Wulfhere, a Sussex thegn who, as the sun
sets over the wild forest of Andredesweald, is returning home victoriously from
a great battle in the north. Holding his lands directly from the King, his
position demands loyalty to Edward himself, but Wulfhere is duty-bound to also
serve Harold, a bond forged within Wulfhere’s family heritage and borne of the
ancient Teutonic ideology of honour and loyalty.
Wulfhere is a man with the strength and courage of a bear, a warrior whose
loyalty to his lord and king is unquestionable. He is also a man who holds his
family dear and would do anything to protect them. So when Harold demands that
he wed his daughter to the son of Helghi, his sworn enemy, Wulfhere has to find
a way to save his daughter from a life of certain misery as the daughter-in-law
of the cruel and resentful Helghi, without comprising his honour and loyalty to
his lord, Harold.
On Battle fields he fights for his life, but the enemy is to be found closer to
home, a far sinister and shadowy enemy than he can ever know.....
Sons of the Wolf is a snap shot of medieval
life and politics as the events that lead to the downfall of Anglo-Saxon
England play out, immersing the reader in the tapestry of life as it was before
the Domesday Book. With depictions of everyday life experienced through the
minds of the people of the times; of feasts in the Great Halls to battles
fought in the countryside, it cannot help but enlighten, educate and entertain.
Now Please welcome the children of Horstede, here to tell you their stories.
Freyda
"I
am the daughter of Wulfhere and I was fourteen when his story started. My
father was the thegn of our village znd I loved him dearly and he loved me as
his favourite. I had always known I was his favourite child. He could deny me
nothing. But it all went wrong for me and him when he came back from warring in
the Northern lands where he had fought a terrible battle against the Scots. You
see, I had fallen in love with the son of our neighbour, Helghi of Gorde. All
that summer whilst Father was away, I sneaked away to meet him in the forest. I
knew it was forbidden for any of us to talk to any of the people from Gorde, but
I had no idea why. I had no idea of the depth of animosity that ran between our
fathers. Edgar was a handsome lad, but he had a crippled leg. His father blamed
my father for it, something to do with a horse that my father had sold his
father, although he had warned Helghi that the horse was not suitable for a
boy; Edgar had only been a child at the time and the horse had thrown him and
broken his leg. Neither Edgar nor I could see that this was a problem. But soon
we were to find out that we were two young lovers stuck in the middle of a
blood feud that we knew nothing about. We were soon to learn that the rivers of
hatred ran deeper than any of us could ever have known. A hatred that would tear
us apart and never die until one of our fathers was dead.”
Winflaed
“I
was only 8 years old when our saga began; and two years younger than my brother
Tovi, my closest companion in my short childhood. Life was wonderful for us
until the day my father was sent a package from the Lady of Waldron. That day
was the day that would change our lives forever. Tovi and I used to spend our summer
days running through the forest, playing amongst the woods and the stream and
the pond where we used to swim. Once we caught our sister Freyda, swimming with
her paramour, Edgar Helghison. We knew it was forbidden for any of us to speak
to the Helghisons, but we didn’t really know why. Of course seeing our big
sister with Edgar was a great source of amusement and we used it to our advantage.
Freyda was not very happy that she had to pay for our silence by handing over
the brooch and copper plated mirror I was very fond of. But soon all was blown
and Freyda and Edgar were found out and I had to return the items very
reluctantly and much to my displeasure.
The day that father received the package, Tovi
and I had been hunting with some of the village children. We were running like foxes through the
woodland path when we met the man from Waldron, scaring his horse into throwing
him off. Unfortunately he was hurt and his horse had run away, so he was unable to
continue on to Horstede to finish his mission which was to give my father this
little mysterious package from the Lady Alfgyva who lived in Waldron. With the
innocence of children, we offered to take it to my father. If only we had not,
for some reason, Tovi and I would always blame ourselves for that mysterious
package contained something that would drive a wedge between our mother and father
forever. If I could turn back the time, from that day, I would, for life was to
change dramatically for us all.”
Tovi
“My
father, Wulfhere, thegn of Horstede was bred for war. He learned from a young
age to fight with a spear first and then sword and axe. And it was also from a
young age that he taught me and my twin brothers Wulfhere to fight too. I loved
my father, but one day I was to catch him out and that was the day that my life
changed. I began to see my father for the flawed human he truly was. But he
always tried to be good to me and to my brothers and sisters and for that I
would always respect him. Life was not always good for me in our household. My
older brothers hated me, I never knew why. I think it was just their way. They
loved to torment me and once they hung me from a tree to stop me from going
hunting with the Earl. I was so excited that Father had said I could go and
they stopped it from happening. Then another time they hung me down a well and
almost drowned me because I stopped them from using my younger sister Winflaed
as target practice. Luckily Father caught them and pulled me out. They were
punished, but I never found out how. But you could be sure that they were not
beaten. Father was not one for punishing us in that way.
One happy thing in my life was my little
sister Winflaed. She and I were allies against the tormenting twins. I wasn’t
always very nice to her, but she always took my side, no matter what. But the
worst thing in our lives was yet to come in the shape of a blood feud. No one
could ever know what it was like to have your life blighted by one until you
have experienced it yourself. My Father was to fight on many a bloody field,
but sometimes the enemy was closer to home, far more sinister and deadly than
any battle.”
