Whenever life seems settled and even prosperous, comes the moment to worry. Eadswith bore my first grandson to Aella’s delight; they called him Cuthbert and begged me not to be offended since they had chosen not to name him Cynn; also, that year’s harvest was the best of the decade. Amid this familial bliss, a messenger arrived from Jorvik. King Sigefrid had decided on invasion and required fifty armed horsemen from me. Ever an ambitious ruler, with Viking blood stirring in his veins, he had set his heart on expanding his possessions from Deira into Ireland where, as a descendant of Halfdan, he considered he had a legitimate claim to the throne of Dublin.
This contention, in an unstable political situation, was to spark a series of disastrous events destined to upset the prosperity we had
