Denholm

Ethel came to me one merry morn in spring, as many flowers had started blossoming, and the golden sun gently warmed the frosted grass. Tall tales she had heard from Thilwend, the esteemed sergeant of the guard, and to me Ethel asked if I would gather more stories from those that still remembered, as she had always loved listening to my tales of yore. 

Swords. What strange things they can be. I mean not the way they can deal death, rather, that some seem to have a life of their own.

Bronna was pleased for the short respite from her mother's constant complaints about Captain Denholm. That alone was a good reason for her to carry the supplies Hildfrith had prepared for Ealdbriht, down to the man at the Garrison stables. 

Hild was thinking hard.

It was not as if she didn’t have enough to do with trying to make her supplies last out. Or with talking to folk in the village about dropping in for a drink and some of her ‘special’ onion and bean pottage. It was never as popular as her mutton stew for some reason, but she had to make the meat last.

There was an ominous aura of melancholy on the streets of Bancross in the days after the battle. The worried faces and itching sword-arms had been quietly replaced by tear-filled eyes, hunched backs and feet dragging on the ground behind them. While our dead could be counted in a handful, the pained and wounded were more plentiful; some with missing limbs, while others got away with only deep cuts and bruises. The east-borne enemy had not fared as well.

We said farewell to our kinsmen last night with the lighting of pyres in the center of the village near the mead-hall. I knew some of the fallen by name and face, but not intimately. I feel selfish for being thankful for this. Others are heartbroken. And while I have had my share of being broken with grief, I still can't muster a good reason why I should not suffer as they do.

Foolish thoughts, I know. 

It is time to move on from the battle, for all of Bancross. 

It is time for me to set in motion those actions that will see my village regain its grasp on a normal, everyday life.