It takes us almost two days to reach the land that we are to call home.

As our guide pulls his horse to a halt, pointing, I see the valley spread out before us. The river in the midst of it sparkles in the noonday sun, and the unmistakable shape of the hall sits perched on the opposite side, comfortably out of reach of the winter floods. There is good cleared land for farming and higher slopes for sheep, and a couple of fat oxen graze in a field; Ragnar's hand is hard but fair on this part of the world, and a man can look to build a life and raise a family with no more than his fair share of life's troubles.

There will be much to learn, and much work to do. It will be very different from the life of a Viking warlord, and indeed that of a Saxon princess, but I have wealth enough to ensure that my wife and children will not be without comfort and security, and the valley speaks to me of peace and happiness. In Eoforwic we sought out a Christian priest and the passing over of a coin eased any qualms he might possibly have had on marrying an anonymous Dane to a modestly-veiled Saxon woman. He bound our wrists with a piece of linen and mumbled the proper spells, and that was the business done; that night I lay with my wife, and it is my wife's hand that I hold as we gaze out on our future home.

Here we can make our life together. Here, with the Gods' blessing, we can make our home and raise our children; we can live remote from the clashes of kings and warlords.

Here we can make our own kingdom.

Here, we can be happy.

The End.