Chronicles of the Scraeling

The Scraeling is back . . . . . . . The story opens on the morning after the Battle of Hastings and moves between the Conqueror's struggles to consolidate his hold over England and a Norway where The Scraeling runs into trouble guiding Hardraada's son and successor, Magnus."Magnus of Norway, your father was a greedy and selfish pagan - but I never needed to tell him that a king keeps faith with those who serve him well. In revoking his gift to me, you've broken faith and done what isn't fair. And no loyal servant should be treated so!" His dreams snatched from him by political expediency, a heartbroken Scraeling journeys to England to pick up the pieces of a previous life. Here, he finds a relative widowed at Hastings also suffering through political expediency in being married off to one of William's divisional commanders; which is the Conqueror's settlement policy in action. "But mother . . . the price of doing our duty is . . . well, it's you. You. A Norman will be your husband and your lord. A Norman will . . . will share the bed you shared with my father!" Gytha flinched, and her small white teeth fastened on her bottom lip. She closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them Osmund saw the brimming tears. "Yes, Osmund, a Norman will be my husband and my lord. But he'll never be my man, for my man died at Senlac. Yes, a Norman will share my bed - but it won't be the place I shared with your father. Without my man, your father, in it, a bed is no more than a bed."This brings him into contact with the Norman army of occupation in general, and the Fenland Rebellion of Hereward the Wake in particular. As only The Scraeling can, he deals with his opposition through an outrageous mixture of forethought, bluff, cunning and judicious violence that eventually orchestrates an end to the rebellion in 1071 and a 'win-win' situation for everyone except himself, unfortunately.The story focuses on people on both sides of the Conqueror's policy of holding England down by intermarriage rather than military might, and of what that meant in practical and everyday terms for both conquerors and conquered. To that end the people in it, and two very strong women in particular, assume pride of place over great events. As with 'The Landwaster', most of the characters of the story actually lived and behaved much as suggested, while the catalogue of Norman assaults on the Isle of Refuge is also true to the historical record.