The arrival of the new century brought no reassurances, not on a political nor a family level. I entered my fiftieth year and was beginning to feel my age. Around me, the glory that was Northumbria had faded. Half of the kingdom was in the hands of the Danes but the good king, Guthred, had died in the plant month of 886 and his successor, Sigefrid, is ambitious and untrustworthy. In Bernicia, Eadwulf was never declared king and he ruled in relative weakness, calling himself the Lord of Bamburgh. He was more concerned with keeping his neighbours peaceful and Bernicia stable—no bad thing in itself, from my point of view. As for family, my estates prospered but we lived with the constant anxiety of random Viking raids. My position of horse-thegn to two rulers meant I could keep a mobile unit
