England, 888 A.D.

Alfred was tired. It had been a long, hard war, and though he had won it, he had barely rested since, knowing that the peace would not last long. For an English king, he had learned, it never did. There was always another war. 

He had spent his entire reign defending his homeland and his faith against the hordes of Norse barbarians from across the sea. For nearly a century, they had been arriving in fleets of longships, raiding England’s coastline and laying s. . .