The two horsemen arrived atop the hillside and looked down at the open country sprawling before them. From high on the hill they were afforded a commanding view of the valley of fields and farmland below, but still they did not see what they were looking for.

“This can’t be it,” said the first rider.

“The bloke back at the inn said this was it,” said the other. “Five miles along the only road west, you’ll see it when you get to the hilltop.”

“I know what a knight’s estate looks like. If there were one here, we’d be seeing it, believe me.”

They saw a lone man down below, pushing a plow through one of the small farm plots the land was divided into.

“Let’s ask him.”

They rode down the craggy hillside, careful to avoid the rocks and divots that scarred its surface. There were many parts of England’s rolling countryside that were picturesque and pleasant to ride. This was not one of them. One wrong footing on this craggy terrain could mean a broken ankle for the horse and perhaps a broken neck for its rider.

They arrived at the valley floor and cantered over to where the man was working the field, a powerful sweat on him as he drove a deep furrow through the earth with the plow. Cast in heavy iron, it looked intended to be drawn by a horse, but the man was pushing it along unaided, as though he knew no better. The two men on horseback exchanged a look of amusement. Farmhands were not renowned for their intellect, but one that did not even know how to work a basic tool of his trade? Wonders never ceased.

The peasant was turned away from the hillside, consumed by his laborious task, seemingly oblivious to the riders who had just arrived behind him, even as one of their horses gave a loud snort.

“Oi! You!”

 The plow stopped. The peasant turned and raised his hand, both to shield his eyes from the sun and to wipe away the sweat that soaked his temple. His face was smeared with dirt, his long hair a stringy, tousled mess. Even as low-born men went, he looked particularly uncivilized.

“What?” he said.

The two riders shared another look, this time not of amusement but annoyance. Did this peasant not recognize their uniforms? The royal insignia on their tunics?

“What?” the first rider said. “Is that any way for a commoner to address two of the King’s men?”

The peasant took a step forward so that the sun rising over the hill behind them disappeared back behind it. He could see them better now.

“Oh. Right you are.”

The riders waited for some gesture of respect or humility to accompany the peasant’s realization of who they were, but none came. He simply stood there, squinting up at them, as though his original question still stood. Well, what?

Now the second rider spoke. “You do know that plow is meant to be pulled by a horse?”

“Of course. I’m not an idiot,” said the peasant. “The horse is sick. He has a bellyache.”

The first rider was fast growing impatient with this man. “We are in search of—”

 “I should have known those carrots were suspect.”

“Stop talking. Where is Sir Wulfric’s estate?”

The peasant chortled to himself. “I’d hardly call it an estate.”

“So you do know of it?”

The man turned and pointed to the far side of the field he was working, where smoke drifted from the chimney of a modest farm- house. Both horsemen looked puzzled and the first one’s patience was by now wearing thin.

“We are in no mood for games, friend.”

“What games? That’s his house there.”

Now the second rider spoke again. “That house is far too meager to be the seat of a knight.”

“Well to be fair, Wulfric also owns this field, and that one there, and that one over there,” said the peasant, pointing. “All rich soil, good crops. Not bad if you ask me.”

“Sir Wulfric, peasant!” the first rider scolded him. “Be mindful of how you refer to a Knight of the Realm.”

“And not just any knight,” added the second. “The greatest of all knights.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the stories,” said the peasant, who seemed to be growing tired of this conversation himself. “Many of them are greatly exaggerated.”

The first rider had finally had enough. He dismounted and marched over to the man, giving him a black look.

“Now look, peasant. I’ve had about enough—”

The sun had risen higher over the hill and now its light caught the silver pendant wrought in the shape of a scarab beetle that hung on a loop of leather around the peasant’s neck. It was a simple design, but one that was familiar to every man and boy sworn to the King’s service. That same medallion was seen by all who passed through the army barracks at Winchester, in a painting that hung in its main hall. It was depicted hanging around the neck of Sir Wulfric, the Wild. Knight of All Knights. The man who saved King Alfred’s life and turned the tide at the Battle of Ethandun, and with it the entire war against the Norse.

The rider’s legs quaked and for a moment he thought they might give way entirely. Instead he sank quickly to one knee, bowing his head in reverence before the dirt-faced peasant. “Sir Wulfric, please accept my most humble apology.”

“Oh, shit,” the second rider exclaimed under his breath as he hurriedly dismounted and rushed to join his comrade, kneeling at his side.

“This field is far too muddy for kneeling,” said Wulfric, who despite his station had never grown comfortable at the sight of any man subjugating himself before another. All men were equal in God’s eyes, so why not also in the eyes of men themselves? “Rise.” And they rose, looking now at this grubby farmworker with the kind of reverent awe normally reserved for gods and kings.

“I apologize,” said Wulfric as he pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped the dirt from his hands. “But the long days in the field can some- times grow dull and I must find my amusements where I can. Now, what does Alfred want?”

Wulfric left the plow in the field and made his way back to the house as the King’s riders departed the way they had come. It was still early in the day and there was much land left to sow, but now that would have to wait. As a rule, he had little time for the commands of kings, but Alfred was more than just a king; he was a friend. Wulfric detested the thought of having to pick up a weapon again, and that was certainly the only purpose for which Alfred would call upon him. He had hoped to be done with all that. But he loved Alfred, and after all the King had done for him, how could he refuse?

As a young man Wulfric had worked as a farmer and as a smith’s apprentice. He knew how to forge a sword and make it strong, but not how to wield one. That was for others. The very thought of violence made his stomach roil like there was a live fish writhing in his belly. Like all Englishmen, he had been raised Christian and took his bible readings every night at his father’s knee. His father, a scribe, had encouraged Wulfric to always think for himself, and so to take from the holy writings what he would. A single verse had always spoken to him more than any other: Mark 12:31. Love thy neighbor as thyself. He wished no man to raise a hand against him, and so he would not against another.

That was until the Norse came.

He was raised in the town of his birth, a small place called Caengiford. London lay just a few miles to the southwest, and it was there that the Danish marauders had come when Wulfric was still a boy of seventeen. They smashed the great walls the Romans had built to protect the city centuries ago and claimed it for their own, killing anyone who did not have the good sense to flee before them. Wulfric could still remember the displaced and the wounded coming through his town, some horribly burned, others missing entire limbs, mothers still carrying the bodies of their babies that had been trampled and flung against the walls by the barbarians from across the sea. Wulfric’s mother had tried to shield him from such sights and bring him inside as the wretched caravans passed by their home, but he refused. He wanted to see. Though he did not understand it, he knew that what was happening was important and that pretending it was not real served no useful purpose. And he knew that this was not simply something that happened to other people, that these horrors could just as easily be visited upon him and his own. He just did not realize how soon.

The Norse arrived the very next week, a raiding party that had been sent out to hunt down any who had fled from the city. They found Wulfric’s village instead, and since their nature was to destroy all before them, they quickly set about burning it to the ground. Wulfric had barely made it out alive, slipping through an open window at his mother’s insistence as the Danish brutes outside hammered at the door. He disappeared out of sight a moment before they burst through and ran into the forest as fast as he could, never looking back. He did not see or hear his mother and father’s fate, nor that of his four younger brothers who were too little to run. But his imagination served well enough for that, and even years later, he could not bring himself to think about it, except when those memories came unbidden, in nightmares.

He stole a ride on a merchant’s cart until he was discovered and thrown off, and after that he walked. He had no destination in mind, since he had nowhere to go. Wherever the Norse were not, that was good enough for him. He lost count of the weeks he traveled alone, sleeping by the side of the road, eating whatever he could find in the woods or, on a good day, whatever might fall—or be encouraged to fall—from a passing cart. One day he asked a passer-by where he was and discovered that he had wandered as far as Wiltshire. He found his way into a small town and, after demonstrating his ability with hammer and tong, was taken on by the local smith. There, he earned his keep making simple tools and shoes for horses, and later, ever increasing numbers of weapons. Alfred’s war against the Norse was not faring well, it was said, and more weapons were being sought to arm the men who were being pressed into service from every county.

It was a smith’s job to check the weight and balance of every sword as it cooled from the forge, but Wulfric always found some excuse to leave that to one of the other apprentices. Even holding a sword felt wrong to him, and just the thought of running a man through with one made him queasy. He tried to tell that to the King’s recruiters when they rode into town to muster every able-bodied man they could find, but all he got was a firm clip round the ear and orders to report to the barracks at Chippenham by week’s end or be marked as a deserter.

Wulfric weighed his options and thought briefly of running. But he knew that the army was relentless in its pursuit of cowards who defied the King’s commission and he did not relish living another long period of his life on the run, much less the punishment if he were to be caught. And so he arrived at Chippenham on the very last day before he would have been declared an absconder. There he was given livery and a wooden sword to practice with and thrown immediately into mock combat. In a time of peace, his training might have gone at a more unhurried pace, but the Norse were advancing quickly and there was no option but to throw new recruits into the thick of it and hope that they could fight, or at least learn to in short order.

Even a wooden sword felt ugly in Wulfric’s hand, but he quickly found that although he had no wish to fight, he undoubtedly had a knack for it. More than a knack; an instinct. On his first day in the training yard, sparring with the Master-at-Arms, he went right at the man, a bearded, barrel-chested soldier with more years of com- bat experience than Wulfric had on this earth. Armed with only a blunted blade of wood, he fought with such speed and ferocity that the instructor wound up on his backside, stunned. As the other trainees applauded and hollered, Wulfric was more surprised than anyone; it was as though some other entity had taken possession of his sword arm, of his entire body, driving him forward, relentless. In those few seconds, he had become someone else entirely; someone ugly and brutal and merciless. In other words, exactly the kind of person his superiors were looking for. It was noted that while there was little artistry in the way Wulfric fought, there was a savage purity to it. He fought more like a Norse than an Englishman—a fact that would, in time, chill the blood of both alike. The Norse had a name for men like Wulfric, men who fought and killed without fear or mercy or grace. Berserker.

The nickname stuck fast after that. Throughout the Chippenham ranks he became known as Wulfric the Wild. Wulfric hated the name, but he did not hate the newfound respect that accompanied it. Nobody cuffed him around the ear any more. From then on, Wulfric was watched closely by his trainers, marked as one of a few who had some- thing special, something they could use to great advantage out on the field. When it inevitably came to battle, he and others like him would be placed close to the King to afford him the greatest protection.

Battle came sooner than expected, in the deep cold of Midwinter and on Twelfth Night no less. While Wulfric and the other trainees were still enjoying the last of their Christmas rations, the Norse stormed the walls of Chippenham. The alarm bells sounded, rousing sleepers from their beds as barbarians poured over the walls and battered down the gates of the English fortress. Officers rushed to the bar- rack rooms to mobilize as many men as they could. When Wulfric tried to run one way with his young comrades, a sergeant who knew him grabbed him by the collar and sent him in the other direction. He went where he was bid and found himself outside the royal chamber itself, where Alfred’s personal guard and a troop of other heavily armed men were moving the King to safety.

It was the first time Wulfric had ever really seen Alfred. He thought he had spied him once before, looking down on the training yard from the parapets, but could not be sure. But there was no mistaking the King this time. He was just a few feet away from the man as he was being bundled from his room, hurrying to dress himself as he had just moments before been roused from his royal bed.

“Wulfric, come here, lad!”

Wulfric looked to see his Master-at-Arms standing with the throng, the same man he had charged and put on his back that first day in the yard. He was beckoning him urgently. When Wulfric approached, he felt the leather bindings of a sword hilt being pressed into his hand. It felt heavier than the wooden dummies he had practiced with before now. He looked down and saw the metal of its blade glimmer in the torchlight. The first true sword he had held in his life.

“Stay with the King! Stay with the King!” the Master-at-Arms bellowed and pushed Wulfric along with the rest of Alfred’s company as they rushed the King along the hallway. It was all happening so fast. Outside could be heard the sounds of battle, the clash of metal on metal, the roaring of fires, the screams of wounded and dying men—sounds Wulfric had not heard since he fled his village two years before.

It was outside that Wulfric killed his first man. He was bringing up the rear of Alfred’s protective huddle as they exited the hallway into the chill air of the courtyard. Wulfric’s first thought was how bitterly cold it was and how he wished he’d had time to grab his warmer tunic before he’d been herded out of his room. Then he heard a war cry that curdled his blood and turned to see a giant Norseman charging at him, his face hidden behind a long braided beard and a battered metal helm. The Norseman was easily twice Wulfric’s size and Wulfric remembered thinking that he looked more like an ox that had learned to walk on its hind legs than a man. But that was all the observation he had time for before the Dane was upon him, swinging at him with an oversized hammer that was unlike any weapon of war Wulfric had ever seen, and he had forged many.

Wulfric jumped back to avoid the first blow, but the Norseman was faster than his size suggested and the second blow came quicker than Wulfric anticipated. This time he only managed a half-dodge before the maul struck him in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. He looked up, dazed, to see the great ox of a man bearing down on him, raising the hammer overhead in preparation for the killing blow. But Wulfric had never lost hold of his sword. He swung low with it, slash- ing the Norseman deep across the ankle. The Dane cried out and went down on one knee, dropping the hammer. He drew a knife from his belt to defend himself at close quarters, but it was Wulfric who now surprised with his speed. He leapt back to his feet and swung his sword upward like a farmer chopping wheat with a scythe. It caught the Dane on the underside of the neck and buried itself deep in his throat. As his blood sprayed out onto the cobblestones, time seemed to slow, and Wulfric noted that it was curious how blood appeared black, not red, in the pale light of the moon. And then, as quickly as it had slowed, time resumed its normal rate again, and Wulfric drew back his sword, the motion of pulling it free from the Dane’s neck enough to sever the great ox’s head completely. Wulfric watched as the body of the giant Norseman collapsed to the floor. He stepped back to avoid the man’s blood on his boots as it pooled quickly, spilling across the ground, then turned and ran to catch up with King Alfred and his men.

The ox was the first man Wulfric killed in battle, but far from the last. Many more were to come in the months ahead. Alfred and his company, along with the rest who had managed to escape the disaster at Chippenham, retreated south to the Isle of Athelney in neighboring Somerset. The small island provided a bottleneck that protected it from the same type of frontal assault suffered at Chippenham and afforded Alfred time to regroup. Not that he had much left to regroup; most of his men had been killed or captured and the small force that now remained was barely enough to defend itself, let alone stage a counterattack. But Alfred refused to be cowed, even after such a crush- ing defeat and with so few resources at hand. He sent word to every nearby village and town, commanding men to rally to his banner. And rally they did. After several long months of rebuilding and preparing his army, Alfred took it back out onto the field, where he met the full might of the Danish host at Ethandun.

It was to be a bloody morning, not least for young Wulfric, who, after being first bloodied in the battle against the ox, soon discovered that he not only had a talent for killing, but a taste for it. After the fall of Chippenham, the Norse had hounded Alfred’s retreating army halfway across Wiltshire before finally breaking off pursuit. Along the way, there had been several bloody skirmishes in which Wulfric had claimed many more Danish heads. In each battle, it was as though some inner savage that usually lay dormant within him was awoken, asserting control until the fight was over. After the killing was done, Wulfric never felt anything other than remorse and shame for the lives he had taken. But when he was in the thick of it, bloody sword in hand, it was as though he had been born to do this and nothing else. None who fought alongside him, who witnessed the transformation, differed on the matter. Over time, Wulfric’s nickname, given in jest after that first day in the training yard, began to strike his comrades-in-arms as wholly inadequate.

But that day at Ethandun was something else entirely. Wulfric had already killed at least twenty Norsemen in the battle—so many that the royal crest on his tabard had entirely disappeared behind a thick coating of Danish blood—when he wheeled around to realize King Alfred was nowhere to be seen. Lost in the reverie of slaughter, he had broken the one rule his Master-at-Arms had given him: stay with the King! He rushed through the melee, cutting down any Dane unfortunate enough to stray within striking distance, until he caught sight of the King on his horse. Even from fifty feet away, Wulfric could see that Alfred was in trouble. The Norse were swarming around his position, cutting down his personal guard as they made their way closer to the man Wulfric had taken an oath to protect.

Wulfric surged forward, reaching the King just as a powerful Dane dressed in furs and mail reached up and pulled Alfred down off his mount. With the King defenseless on the ground, the Norseman drew back his axe for the killing blow just as Wulfric charged into the fray, piercing the Dane’s mail armor with his sword. The barbarian slid back off Wulfric’s blade, dead, as three more moved in to finish the job he had started. Wulfric bore down, taking up a defensive position between the Norsemen and his King.

The first man to attack went down quickly as Wulfric whirled around to dodge the Norseman’s swinging sword and slashed him across the back with his own. The second and third came at Wulfric together, thinking it would better their odds. It did, but not nearly enough. Wulfric ran his sword through the open mouth of one, but was forced to give it up as the blade had become stuck in the back of the man’s skull and he could not pull it free. He let it go as the body crashed to the ground, and took on the other man unarmed.

This one carried a crudely formed cudgel, little more than a heavy hunk of wood with iron spikes hammered through it, but deadly enough, especially at an arm’s length. Wulfric, driven by the war spirit that always enthralled him in battle, knew that his best chance was to get in close. He waited for the Danish brute to take a big, lumbering swing and deftly ducked under it, then charged at the man, tackling him to the ground. The Norseman was still by far the stronger and would doubtless prevail in a hand-to-hand grapple, but Wulfric would not let it come to that. He drew a stiletto from his boot and drove it into the barbarian’s right eye, deep enough to skewer his head to the ground beneath.

Wulfric fell back onto the ground, exhausted, as more English soldiers rallied to the King’s side, surrounding him. Two men helped Alfred to his feet. None of them did the same for Wulfric. They had not witnessed the encounter; to them he was just another common infantryman, not worthy of their concern. But one man did notice: Alfred. As he was escorted to safety, his eyes never left Wulfric, the young man who had saved his life.

Alfred went on to a great victory at Ethandun, and the war turned quickly after that. After routing the Danish host, he pursued the surviving rabble all the way back to Chippenham, where the rest of the Norse were by now garrisoned. The Danish king, Guthrum, was sequestered inside, and Alfred saw his chance to break them once and for all. But he would not spend more English lives in another bloody assault, and so instead he ordered his men to scour the countryside and purge it of any food that Danish scouts might be able to capture. With his entire force arrayed around Chippenham’s walls, Alfred began his slow siege. After two weeks, the Norse within were starving, their will to resist broken. In desperation, Guthrum sued for peace, and Alfred offered the terms that would at last bring the war to an end.

After his triumphant return home, Alfred’s first order of business was to have the young infantryman who had saved his life at Ethandun brought before him. Wulfric had no idea why he had been summoned to the royal court, and so was surprised when he was told to kneel and felt the flat of Alfred’s sword touch first one shoulder, then the other. Arise, Sir Wulfric, the King said. And the young man who once swore he would never so much as hold a sword rose, a knight.

Wulfric was a common man with no noble heritage to speak of, but it was explained to him that all knights must have a coat of arms by which their house could be signified. With little heraldic precedent to draw on in his own family history, Wulfric decided to take as the sym- bol of his house a cherished memory from his childhood. His father, a keen amateur naturalist and outdoorsman, had taught him as a boy to identify all manner of curious beetles and bugs, and Wulfric’s favorite among all of them was Scarabaeus sacer, the scarab beetle. His father had explained that its armored shell made it hardy and resistant to all man- ner of hostile conditions. Wulfric, who knew the hard life of a peasant, had liked that. He also liked that the scarab’s favorite pastime was to collect dung. And so it was that years later, wrestling with the fact that he was no longer a commoner but a Knight of the Realm, he thought it the perfect way to always stay reminded of his lowly beginnings. For what could be more lowly than an insect that spends all its days half-buried in shit?

Once Wulfric had a coat of arms by which his house could be known, all he needed was a house. Alfred granted him his choice of castles and lands up and down the kingdom, but Wulfric would take none of them. Instead he had settled on a simple plot of land not far from where he was born, where he could raise turnips and carrots and perhaps find a wife for himself. If God were willing, perhaps He would even see fit to bless him with a son or daughter, but Wulfric knew better than to ask for anything that he felt he had not yet earned. To his mind, all he had done of note was kill men in battle, and he did not see why that should ever be rewarded.

As Wulfric came through the door, Cwen, his wife, turned in surprise from the stove where soup was cooking. “You’re back early,” she said. “Did you forget something?”

By God, that soup smells good, Wulfric thought as the aroma hit him.

Of all the reasons he had chosen Cwen for his wife, her cooking ranked only second. Well, perhaps third, he thought to himself.

“Yes,” said Wulfric wearily. “I forgot, if only briefly, that I will never be out of Alfred’s debt.”

Cwen did not appear to like the sound of that at all. She placed her hands on her hips and frowned at him sternly. “Please, not that look,” Wulfric said as he sat. “How about some of that soup?”

“It’s not ready yet,” said Cwen, softening not even a little. “What do you mean? Those riders I saw on the hill, they were the King’s men?”

“He’s summoned me to Winchester.”

“And of course you said no.”

“I could hardly do that. Not after everything he has done for me. I must at least go and see what he wants.”

 Cwen stepped out from behind the kitchen table. She was getting bigger every day. The child was due in only a few months. That was why Wulfric was out on the plow, even though the horse was sick. When his son was born—somehow, Wulfric already knew it was to be a boy—he would not want for food to eat, nor any of the things that Wulfric had gone without as a child. He would be the son of a knight. Perhaps Wulfric would ask Alfred for that castle after all, so that his son might grow up in it.

“You’ve got it backwards,” Cwen said sternly. “You’ve always had it backwards. It’s Alfred that owes you, not the other way around. He’d be dead if not for you.”

“I only did what I was sworn to do,” said Wulfric, “what any soldier would have done in my position. But Alfred did not have to knight me, nor set me up for life the way he did. Look at all that I have—more than I ever dreamed. My own house, my own land.” He rose from the table and took his wife by the hand, looking lovingly into her eyes. “My own wife, the most beautiful in the world.”

 “Save your flattery,” said Cwen, though the faintest hint of a smile suggested that it had made his mark. “I am quite sure Alfred did not grant me to you.”

“True, but I would not have won you had he not made me a knight.” “I didn’t know you were a knight when I agreed to marry you.” “If I were not, I would never have had the courage to ask,” he said, close enough now to kiss her. And kiss her he did.

They kissed, and made love, and later Wulfric got his soup. As they ate together by the hearth, Cwen looked up from her bowl.

“Don’t think that with a few fine words and a quick roll on the bed you can just buy me off. You’re not disappearing off on some campaign. I want you here when the baby is born. I need you here.”

“Who said anything about a campaign?” Wulfric replied.

“Don’t take me for a fool. Why else would Alfred send for you, unless he has some new war in the offing? I’ve heard the rumors about the King in Danelaw. They say he’s nearly dead and that the Norse might rise up again under some new warlord.”

“Rumors, that’s all they are,” said Wulfric dismissively. But Cwen knew him well enough to know that while he wished that were true, he did not believe it. She reached over and took her husband’s hand in hers.

“Wulfric, look at me. I know Alfred is your friend, but I am your wife, and this is your child.” She placed her other hand over her bulg- ing belly. “I want you to promise me, here and now, that you will not let him send you on some new war against the Norse.”

Wulfric squeezed her hand tightly and looked her in the eye. “I promise.” Satisfied, Cwen smiled and returned to her soup. Wulfric did the same.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, really,” he said. “Maybe Alfred burned another batch of cakes and wants to borrow you as his new head cook.” Cwen laughed, and kissed him on the forehead as she rose to fetch them both another bowl.

Early the next morning, Wulfric walked to the stable behind his house with a saddle and provisions for a long day’s ride over his shoulder. He unbolted the door, and his horse, Dolly, peeked out from the gloom inside.

“How are you today, old girl?” he asked. Dolly did not reply until Wulfric brought the saddle down off his shoulder and slung it over her back. She stamped a hoof and snorted unhappily.

“Oh, stop complaining,” said Wulfric as he fed her a handful of oats. “You had all of yesterday off. Today, bellyache or not, we ride. We’re going to see the King. And I’ll bet you his carrots are a lot better than ours.”

Next Chapter: ONE