“You can’t leave when you want?”
“Oh, sure, you can leave. But you’ll be back. Take the road toward Gloucester and you’ll find yourself right back here. I’ve gone to Gloucester three times now, only to arrive back at the Silver Sodding Stallion each time.”
“What happens if you keep going west?”
“West?” The man practically barked at me. “Why’d you want to go that way?”
The old man’s raised voice drew eyes to me. I shrugged and said, “I suppose because I’m poorly informed. What’s wrong with the road to the west?”
“Bloody awful doings down at the Viking trading post. Sveinsey, they call it, down there on the Gwyr peninsula, but fuck if anyone knows what that means.”
I laughed along with him at that, even though I knew it meant Sveinn’s Island in Old Norse—which was simply called “Norse” then. Today the place is called Swansea.
“How bloody awful are we talking about?” I asked.
“It’s a long story, and me tongue is like a slug left out in the sun.”
“Ah. Allow me to buy you a drink, then?”
“Kind of you, sir. What’s your name?”
I introduced myself as Gawain, which many people heard, no doubt, especially since I spoke their language with a noticeable accent. Conversation in the dining area was subdued and people probably noted that my kit marked me as a knight of some means. The old man offered his hand and told me his name was Dafydd. We bellied up to the bar and I ordered two flagons of mead. I also made inquiries about staying the night and the innkeeper shook his head. “No rooms left. Not unless you want to stay in the stables.”
“The stables it is, then.”
Once the old man had slaked the worst of his thirst, he told me merrily of death and ruin in the west.
“Some daffy Pict with his face pierced a hundred times has come into Sveinsey and bollixed up the entire kingdom. Haven’t seen the sun in three months. The rain never lets up—never enough to flood, mind, but nothing ever gets a chance to dry out either. Crops are collapsing from root rot and you have poxy mushrooms bigger than an ox’s cock sprouting up all over the place. Cows and sheep are shitting themselves until they die, am I right?” He looked at the innkeeper and nearby patrons for corroboration. A couple of halfhearted grunts set him off again. “Pastures of them just spread out in the mud for the sport of crows. The smart people moved out a few months ago when they saw there wouldn’t be any fucking food, but it’s a hard thing to give up one’s land after fighting over it and sweating over it year after year.”
“So did the people who moved earlier get out? They weren’t trapped like you?”
“Aye, they made it out. This magic fence he’s put up has only been in effect for a month now. Good King Cadoc is off praying about it, God bless him, but I don’t see what good it’s doing when the Pict is sitting there building defenses. Bloody sorcerer says he’s got his own king there now at Sveinsey.”
“Begging your pardon, but I’ve been away for a good while. What kingdom am I in right now?”
Dafydd laughed at me, and a few of the patrons listening in joined him. “What kingdom, you say? How does a knight not know where he is?”
I shrugged. “I travel a lot. Just came across from the continent not long ago. Borders shift and kings die all the time. Hard to keep track after a while.”
“Well, that’s true enough. You’re in Glywysing. Who is your lord?”
“I don’t have a lord,” I said, but immediately saw that the assembled men wouldn’t accept such a state of existence. “I’m looking for one,” I added. “A righteous one. My last lord was slain by the Saxons.”
A round of cursing and spitting greeted this revelation, and as an enemy of the Saxons, I was instantly their friend. Someone offered to buy my next drink.
“How are you surviving if you can’t get new supplies in?” I asked, shooting a glance at the innkeeper. He scowled and picked up a flagon that needed polishing.
“Lads have been helping out,” he said. “They go hunting. Plenty of game hereabouts. But it’s all meat all the time now. That and drink, because I had quite a few kegs in storage. Ran out of flour so there’s no bread. Haven’t seen a vegetable in three weeks.”
“That’s a sailor’s diet, that is,” Dafydd said. “We’re going to turn pasty and die weeping if we can’t get out of here.”