Conquest by Griff Hosker

Author:Griff Hosker [Hosker, Griff & Hosker, Griff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sword Books Ltd.
Published: 2024-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The months leading up to Christmas would always be busy ones, but the repairs to the damaged homes meant that there were not enough hours in the day. There was urgency amongst all the people for they had seen how close we had come to disaster. Father Gregory and I decided that we would delay the building of the church until the next summer. There was not enough time to build it in the shortened days of winter. While my farm labourers harvested and planted and Ethelred watched out for game, the five of us worked to repair the gates. We were lucky that the Northumbrians had not tried to destroy the hinges. They still functioned and we soon repaired the actual gates. Where we had to begin anew was with the two barring poles and the bridge. It was Edward who conceived the idea of two metal eyelets on the bridge and two more on the gatehouse. It would allow us to pull up and lower the bridge from above. We also used some of the damaged metal we had recovered from the dead to stud the underside of the bridge. Bergil pointed out that the metal would blunt axes. The work helped the five of us to become as one. Bergil still brooded about the way he had been treated in York but saw, thanks I think to Father Gregory’s council, that he now had a better life and a chance of position. He still pined for Seara but knew that she was beyond him. He threw himself into making the three young warriors into men. Edward was almost a man but Bergil gave him things I could not for I was the lord of the manor. They grew close and Aethelstan and Alfred began to look upon the new warrior as some sort of favourite uncle. It also helped that Ethelred and Bergil bonded from the start. It was as though they were brothers separated at birth. When Ethelred visited to drop off birds or the game he had hunted, the two of them would chatter like magpies. It was good for them both.

I also found time to ride to Malton. The attacks had delayed my acquisition of sheep. I rode with Edward, my pueros and Lars to the farmer I was told had spare sheep. Malton was the smaller manor but neither it nor its neighbour, Norton, had a lord of the manor. Ethelbert was a good farmer and had a large flock. He and the villages had not been touched by the attacks and he happily sold me a tup and twenty young sheep. They were a hardier variety than the ones I had already and would improve my flock. He was happy not to have to have such a large flock over winter and my gold was more than welcome. It took time for us to drive them home and we did not reach there until dark and they were penned.

This would be

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