The Sixth Lost Tale of Mercia: Hastings the Hearth Companion

By Jayden Woods

“The Lost Tales of Mercia” are ten short stories set in England near the end of the Viking Age. These swashbuckling tales, based heavily on true events, educate and entertain simultaneously. In the Sixth Tale, a royal retainer named Hastings fights for his country and the Golden Cross, but entertains unrealistic notions of how his mistress, Aetheling Aydith, might reward him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jayden Woods
• Release date: Jul 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452380865

Jayden Woods

Jayden Woods is the author's pen name. Jayden is a graduate of the University of Southern California's Writing for Screen and Television program. She lived and worked in Los Angeles for five years before leaving Hollywood to pursue her passion of writing prose and novels. Her published works include the various Tales of Mercia and the related "Sons of Mercia" trilogy, beginning with "Eadric the Grasper."

Book preview

The Sixth Lost Tale of Mercia:

Hastings the Hearth Companion

Jayden Woods

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Jayden Woods

Edited by Malcolm Pierce

*

Read the Lost Tales in any order you’d like, before or after reading the novel Eadric the Grasper, or completely alone as quick glimpses into an ancient world. For more news and updates on the Sons of Mercia series, visit www.jaydenwoods.com.

*

"A.D. 1004. This year came Sweyne with his fleet to Norwich, plundering and burning the whole town."

—Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Entry for Year 1004

NORWICH

1004 A.D.

Hastings and his horse raced through a hundred miles of wetlands and heath to find their destination obscured in a haze of smoke.

Overnight, the Vikings had reduced Norwich—the seat of the East Anglian government and one of Engla-lond’s greatest cities—to ash and rubble. Families stood next to the remainders of their homes, watching as the unquenchable flames consumed the last beams. People burned their fingers digging through embers for scraps and precious belongings. The injured sat in the ash-ridden streets, moaning helplessly as their wounds festered. Hastings was not sure whether the water gathering in his eyes was a result of his own sympathy or the burning smoke that the breeze threw against him.

Even the high reeve’s hall, on a small hill in the middle of the city, had not escaped the Viking attack. The east wall had been severely damaged, so that the whole building seemed to be leaning, ready to collapse. Hastings wondered if he had arrived too late. Perhaps the witan had already met, or it would never meet, for the wise men would not even have a safe place in which to gather and discuss their future. It was difficult to imagine a future at all when faced with such immediate devastation.

But then a breeze blew, as if from the ocean, fresh, salty, and clarifying. Clouds of smoke rolled away, and rays of sunshine illuminated a small gathering of men near the high reeve’s hall, meeting and conversing despite their miserable circumstances: the wise men. Hastings heaved a deep breath,