498 Session 5 - Group 1

A Chronicle of the Year of the Pax Saxoni,

Four-hundred and Ninety-Eight

In which three Saxon crowns demand their dues, a pagan woman outsmarts a prince, five knights ride south to collect an overdue debt, and two old men by a fire ruin everyone's evening plans.

Session Summary

• Salisbury faces simultaneous tribute demands from Essex, Wessex and Sussex — the treasury is essentially hollow.
• The five knights cultivate border lords between Sussex and Wessex with grain and a horse, purchasing quiet intelligence for future seasons.
• Arianrhod parleys with Prince Cynric of Wessex and negotiates a full military alliance, dissolving Salisbury's tribute obligation entirely — fifty glory well earned.
• Sir Aur declines to attend the Saxon parley on grounds of firmly held personal principle, goes hunting and finds nothing.
• The five raid into Sussex to recoup the treasury, strike at dawn, and despite Aur's decision to hold against reinforcements, win the field and take thirty-four libra.
• Sir Euric is unhorsed, nearly ransomed and saved only by Aur's mace arriving with thirty points of intent; Lady Emma patches him up and earns ten glory for the trouble.
• On the road home across Salisbury Plain, the knights encounter Merlin and Archbishop Dubricus cooking supper beside a covered wagon, entirely without ceremony.
• Merlin departs Britain on undisclosed business; the knights are tasked with entering the Forest Sauvage to break the power of King Sauvage and the devil's fiend sitting at his court.

Dramatis Personae

• Sir Euric of Aquitaine, Lord of Ebble
• Sir Aur of Lambor, Bearer of the Spiked Mace
• Arianrhod, Daughter of the Summerlands
• Lady Drusilla of Figsbury, of Roman Blood
• Lady Emma of Caerwent, the Merciful

Also named in counsel and rumour: Countess Ellen of Sarum; young Count Robert; Cynric, Prince of Wessex; Aescwine, Atheling of Essex; Celyn of Sussex; King Idres of Cornwall; Earl Erbin of Devon.

Newly encountered upon the road: Merlin, enchanter and counsellor of kings; Dubricus, Archbishop of the British Church; and King Sauvage, fairy lord of the Forest Sauvage, whose court has grown perilously bold.