In the morning, Ælbert is gone. Down the hill, either west towards Dyfed or east towards Mercia. The Kingdom of Norwessex: population one, its King. King Ælvan. Me. Ælbert is my son and my heir. In any other Kingdom, he would be a leader of men. Perhaps even be worthy of an epithet like the Brave, the Bold or even the Great. If he bore any epithet it was Prince Ælbert of Where? I don’t blame people who have never heard of Norwessex. Most people couldn’t tell Kent from Sussex. Why should I expect them to know about a Kingdom that was basically one hill with a view of the bad side of Gleawecestre? Norwessex—blink and you’ll miss it.
Alone in my castle, which is basically a stone hut with a ditch surrounding it, I survey my kingdom. From here, I can see Æthendun, the capital city. Actually more like the capital hamlet, three huts, two barns and a manure pit. Even if the Danes could find it, the plunder would be depressing. Five cows who all have seen better days and a dyspeptic sheep who follows me around on my Spring progress, baaing critically.
Every so often, the wars that were tearing the other kingdoms apart play out on my doorstep. I eat my gruel to the sound of hand-to-hand combat and listen to the squeal and the squelch of the loser. They leave the body at the base of the hill. Sighing, I grab the shovel and set about burying the body. I used to have serfs to do this work. Then it was down to Ælberta, my Queen, and me to deposit the body in a pit. Now Ælberta is gone, on the arm of some brutish Danish thegn. Whatever horrors the Aefred, former Archbishop of Æthendun, would preach about the heathen was better than living as queen of a postage-stamp sized kingdom.
I don’t blame Ælbert for leaving. I remember the day I figured out that while I was a prince, there was precious little room for me to be prince of. My father, King Ævery, spoke of great ambitions and of raising an army to seize the other hill just on the other side of the valley, effectively doubling the size of Norwessex.
“I know Norwessex is small now. But do you think Northumbria, Wessex or Mercia started out differently? I am sure they started in the back of some hut when some man turns to his wife and said “why do I have to be a serf to that schlub? I have land. I have men. I have plans. Who, besides the Lord God, says he gets to be king? The fact that I am asking these questions can be interpreted as as sign for God that maybe I am to be king.”
I am not sure how, when and from whom, my father declared independence. Our hill was somewhere between Mercia, Wessex and the British Kingdom of Dyfed. All I know is that my father’s men (and there were never more than 13 of them) were positioned strategically around the hill, expecting an invading army that never came. While all were relieved about not having to fight for our independence, they could not help but feel overlooked. If one is going to make a grand gesture such as through off the chains of vassalage, it would have been nice to be noticed.
My father hoped one day we would be the type of kingdom that the Danes would want to pillage. “You’re nobody, unless you are being raided by the Danes.”
By this time, there was just 10 men, including me, who began the march down the hill for the glory of Norwessex. We had lost a pair of twin brothers Æelan and Ællen, who had apparently been on the other hill and were convinced that it wasn’t worth the bother. Another young man named Ælvy became Father Ælvy overnight and informed my father that he was precluded by his order in raising a hand against his fellow man.
These defections put my father in a tight bind as he was convinced his forces had to be in at least double digits to be called an army. Which is why I was drafted as a nine-year-old to make my father’s militia minyan. My mother wasn’t happy about it and almost did not finish his banner featuring a cheesed-off cardinal. A compromise was reached in which I would carry the banner, but do so from the rear where, presumably, the wind would be stronger unfurling the banner for greater aesthetic effect.
The march to glory took less than 10 minutes. The mood of the army going down the hill was high as the clouds parted to illuminate our banner. It didn’t take a priest to prove that this was a sign from above. Æarl, who fancied himself to be my father’s second-in-command, when he wasn’t milking cows and shoveling shit, suddenly broke into a hymn. The rest of us tried to join in but there was disagreement about the lyrics and the tune.
There aren’t many times you can say with confidence that you are at a crossroads. But we were with one road representing the boundary between the sad past of a small kingdom that no one had every heard of and our destiny. If only it hadn’t smelled of goat shit, the moment might have been as epic as the Rubicon crossing. This was the time of legend and were the stuff of songs, one that people would agree on the lyrics to.
My father held aloft his sword, Ædequate, urging us up the path towards the small circle of huts clinging to the south face of the neighboring hill. Resistance was light as we started our ascent, consisting of a gaggle of goats that bleated at us non-committedly. As they parted, a cheer went up from our side; the first skirmish had been won.
Looking up, we saw a line of men, maybe fifteen in number, stretched across the path. The were a motley bunch, dressed in burlap with rusting pots for helmets and holding whatever was sharp from the tool shed. They outnumbered us and they held the high ground, but we were doing God’s work.
“Onward men,” my father pointed with Ædequate as if we got lost in the last five minutes, “for the glory of Norwessex.” The word glory was a mistake. With each step upwards towards the farm implements of our enemy, we had a chance to look around. Norwessex was nothing to write home about with his bare fields, spidery shrubs and anemic male-pattern-bald trees. But it looked like a paradise compared to what we were marching through which was either boggy or dusty. There was nothing glorious to be found. As we came closer to the business ends of the weapons being thrust in our direction, doubt crept in. Were we really willing to risk our lives for an ant hill of a country? What glory could be attained by such a conquest?
“Form battle lines,” my father ordered, careful to position himself behind the line. If he would fall today, he would have a cushy pile of people to collapse onto. By now we were close enough to see the faces of our enemy. The way their eyes shifted back and forth, we could tell they were doing the same mental calculation as us. Was this dung heap truly worth defending? Probably not.
“Pikes forward,” my father ordered and we held out the points of our pikes, rakes, and sticks. The enemy did likewise and both armies were nearly on each other. The ambivalent facing off with the indifferent. The war was over before it started. The armies just wheeled about in apathy, with the Norwessexians shrugging their way home.
My father obviously thought about giving a rousing speech or threatening the deserters, but the king of realm in which he knows all the residents on a first name basis knows he has to live with these people. He shrugged, pointed Ædequate towards home as if it was his idea.
After the war, the kids got bored and walked away to try their luck in Lundene, Dornwaracaester or Wintancaester and Norwessex contracted like a Michigan factory town. When I was 19, my father stepped on a rake that had been left by one of the many émigrés from Norwessex. He developed a high fever and was soon buried next to his forefathers, not before making me swear that I would one day raise the now-tarnished Ædequate in the name of a great Norwessex.
Now, with Ælbert gone, I am a kingdom of one. Empires have come and gone. The Persians. The Greeks. The Romans. The Mercians. I suppose Norwessex is now officially on that list. It is not that I mind the sound of history forgetting me; I just wished the sheep did not sing in harmony.