The snow falls heavy that year. In proud timber halls, ale-soaked taverns, and reed-thatched huts, countless Britons huddle around countless hearths for warmth, and attend the tale of Blains the Bastard and the Crippled Count.
As the stories have it, it was all something to do with a lady. According to one version, Blains had tried to abduct a young maiden, and it was her guardian, the Leaping Knight, who first rode out against him on his own initiative. According to a more popular version, Blains had cuckolded the Crippled Count by seducing Lady Ellen, who had long been known to be the object of his affections, and Roderick dispatched his knights against Levcomagus in vengeance. Regardless of the cause, the Leaping Knight met Blains the Bastard in battle and struck him down for ransom, Roderick took him into his hospitality and vowed honorable conduct to Blains as his prisoner, and that vow was not kept, for he was murdered in his cell while the Crippled Count held a feast in his hall above. Some say it was mere neglect, others that it was on Roderick's biddinghas he toasted his foe's demise. In either case, Terwynn the Mad, a knight of Cornwall avenging a past dishonor, opened his throat before fleeing the castle and ultimately the kingdom.
All of the stories end the same; that to avenge his son, Ulfius, the Wolf of Silchester, aims to make war on the Crippled Count come Spring.
Roderick the 'Sinister' is another name he's come to be known by, originally the Bishop of Londinium's idea of a joke. The Earl has done almost nothing but fret all winter, pacing frequently in his drafty solar, or walking along the icy battlements of his castle talking to himself. His fortieth birthday came and went a week after Michaelmas, and with his greying temples, bags under his eyes, creased brow, and halting gait, he looks every day of it. When he isn't fretting, he's meeting with his advisers and discovering newer and better reasons to fret. Every few days another dozen sell-swords trickle into the city, dragging their sodden boots through miles of murky snow in the hopes of hot food, ready pay, and future plunder. The Earl takes them all, for he can scarcely afford not to. Since the sack of Roe-Deer the previous autumn, Roderick has managed to draw fewer than fifty mercenary knights to his cause, whereas Ulfius is said to have retained a hundred and half again. Moreover, the Duke has gained the support of the Saxons of Berroc, the Baron of Thornbush, the Equites of Londium, and a dozen or so knights of Lincoln, led by young Sir Gelyn of Louth.
King Uther is apparently frustrated at the current state of affairs, to have his two greatest vassals and staunchest supporters at each other's throats while the rebel Cornwall amasses his strength in the west, but by custom can do nothing until either Roderick or Ulfius bring a formal complaint to the royal bench. Since doing so would be tantamount to admitting weakness in the eyes of the other barons, neither lord will seek redress at court until they have done so in the field of battle, however uncertain of victory the Earl might be.
Yet, outnumbered and outmatched, the knights of Salisbury are not without friends.
The night after Christmas, a caravan of travelers, a hundred or more men, women, and children, arrive at the gates of Pillarford Castle. The men among them are garbed in hole-ridden and muddy lorica mail with naked spathae stuck through their belts, chests wrapped in threadbare scarlet cloaks, unkempt beards providing all the service they can in shielding their faces from the howling winds. Their leader announces himself as one Sir Petrieus, who led men under Persidius at Odon and Caen two years ago. He says that the host of King Sygarius was destroyed, and the King himself is presumed dead. There is nothing left now of Gaul, except what the Franks now hold in shackles. He begs refuge for his men and their families, offering the service of the thirty-odd able men among them in exchange.
On the feast of the epiphany, Larksnest Manor is paid visit by a host of fifty Pictish warriors wrapped in warm woolen tartans. They are led by a fierce young woman and a knight with no surcoat and an unpainted shield, who Diane recognizes as Princess Uradech and Sir Jordanus, respectively. "Your sister sends her love" says Jordanus. "She also sent word that you'd need some mercenaries" says Uradech.
Just after the first thaw of the year, a pair of wolf-headed Saxon longships beach themselves on the west bank of the River Avon, just south of Woodford. They blow horns and wave flags to demonstrate their peaceful intent. Sir Elaine, or Thegn Eleach as she is known to her followers, walks before them to greet her brother. "Word's come a long way you've got another war on. Sure it's nothing a few proper Essex lads can't handle!"
A week before Easter, on the cusp of the campaigning season, a party of well-appointed knights and footsoldiers flying the colors of Summerland arrive at Winterbourne, led by Princess Angharad. "It's Sir Angharad now, actually. I bring word from King Cadwy. An alliance is to exist between your house and ours. As you are to be bound to my sister, the knights of Hartcliffe are to be bound to fight and die alongside you. They have come to honor that allegiance" says Haldir Angharad. "I'm here at the behest of my sister to ensure that you don't get yourself killed before her wedding day. Speaking of which-" begins the Princess, before her dark-haired younger sibling bursts out from among the knights, clambers off her horse and rushes into Sir Leiryn's arms.