King Ecgbert died in 839 and Athelwulf returned from Kent to take the crown of Wessex. It was not quite as easy as it sounds. Among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, there were always other claimants to the throne. But King Ecgbert did everything he could both before and after he returned from Hingston Downs to assure Athelwulf’s  ascension to the throne would be smooth and uncontested. If he succeeded, Athelwulf would be the first son to follow his father to the throne in nearly two hundred years.

Ecgbert took his son to Kingston upon Thames in Surrey, well within Athelwulf’s subkingdom of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey and they met the bishops of Winchester and Canterbury there. They granted land to the churches and certain rights concerning the disposition of the monasteries in their jurisdictions along with pledges to protect and defend the church under their watch.

Once the church was firmly on their side, he turned to the cultivation of his Ealdormen, his chief sub-rulers for the shires that made up Wessex. For the most part, he was content with the men he had overseeing the shires of the West Saxons, including the frontier shires with Eanric in Somerset and now Godric in Devon. His only questions were for Dorset where his friend Oslac could hardly get out of bed.

Oslac was pivotal to Ecgbert gaining the throne all those years ago. He carefully cultivated that friendship, even marrying his son to Oslac’s daughter, Osburh, who gave him grandsons. Now, Oslac’s brother Ethelhelm was running things in the shire. He was not doing a bad job of it, but he was not found anywhere near the battle. How unbecoming of a Saxon. At least Oslac’s son and Osburh’s younger brother, Osric, proved at Hingston Downs that he knew the value of a good sword. Still, Ethelhelm was old and had no sons, so Osric would probably take over once the old man died. He let it go. His most trusted men had no kingly ambitions, and that was what mattered.

His review of his Thegns took even less time. He spent his first twenty years on the throne getting rid of most of the men who might have challenged Athelwulf for the throne, that and fighting Mercia. He felt proud of his time as king and promptly died in 839, was buried at Winchester, and Athelwulf took the throne. Athelwulf appointed his own son, Athelstan to be sub-king of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and with nominal rule over Essex in his place, and life stumbled on.

Godric of Devon was the first to pass away after the king. Ceorle took his place. Elgar called it a no-brainer. In 840, Elgar turned twenty and Alfpryd turned sixteen, and they could not wait given father’s condition. They married and Alfpryd had a daughter they called Alfwynn. Then Elgar’s father died, Eanwulf became the Ealdorman, and he moved his family from Wedmore back to Somerton where Wulfrun could help watch over Mother.

Both of Elgar’s sisters, the elder Eadburg of Wiltshire, with her husband Godderic of Edington, and the younger Eadswip of Dorset with Osric, son of the ealdorman traveled to Somerton to visit Mother and share in their grief. Eanwulf’s childhood friends, Ceorle and Odda showed up shortly after, and it felt briefly like old home week. Then Athelwulf arrived with Osburh and their two younger sons Athelbald and Athelburt, and their daughter, Athelswith who was the eldest of the three children.

Athelswith and pregnant Alfpryd hit it off, and his sister Eadswip stayed with them, much to Elgar’s chagrin.  Osburh got to meet Elgar who was otherwise ignored by the older men. Elgar took that moment to pick on his sister Eadswip, Osric’s wife.

“I’ve been surrounded by women my whole life,” Elgar complained.

“Is that a bad thing?” Eadswip asked.

Elgar realized he was in danger of saying the wrong thing as Athelswith, Osburh, Eadswip and Alfpryd all looked at him expecting an answer. He said, “As long as I can be surrounded by the woman I love, no. That is a good thing.” He gave Alfpryd a quick kiss and hastily retreated.

Athelwulf came to confirm Ceorle in Devon and Eanwulf in Somerset. He talked to Osric about Dorset and his uncle Ethelhelm. Osburh came mostly to visit with her brother Osric who she so rarely got to see. Sadly, they were both commiserating when word came that Oslac the Bedridden, as he came to be called, was the last of the old men to die.

Osburh and the king, with Eadswip and Osric hurried to Dorchester, stopping only briefly in Sherborne to visit the Bishop there. Ceorle and Odda had to get back to Devon. Ceorle said he worked things out with Odda where Odda would oversee the coast from the fort at Countisbury to Pilton as a kind of land grant to defend the coast against the Danes. “I won’t let you down,” Odda said, several times.

Godderic and Eadburg stayed with Mother for a short while, but Godderic was not a sociable person. He was nice, but he did not say much, and became totally tongue tied around the king. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Eadburg did not mind talking for two, and then some. When they left to return to Eddington, Eanwulf came into the room where Alfpryd and Elgar were cuddling and Wulfrun and Mother worked on sewing something. Eanwulf let out a great sigh.

“Ah, silence,” he joked before he looked at Elgar and got serious. “Hard to believe you are old enough to be married,” he said and added, “Have you considered what I asked you?”

“What?” Alfpryd immediately needed to know, and Elgar told her.

“He says with him and Wulfrun and their children living here, soon there will not be room enough for us and our children as well. He has suggested a trade. Maybe we take the house in Wedmore. What do you think?” Alfpryd wrinkled her nose at the idea of Wedmore.

“Speaking of children,” Wulfrun said, and got up to go check on hers.

“Not before the baby,” Mother raised her voice. She did not want to miss seeing her grandchild.

Eanwulf threw his hands up and Elgar kissed his wife.

841 sped by with only one event of note. A small number of Danish ships, around a half-dozen, were reported to have landed on the Isle of Portland around the first of the year. Osric immediately raised the army of Dorset, about six hundred men, mostly from Dorchester, Wimborne, Wareham, and Swanage. Ethelhelm stopped him from getting men from the north, from Shaftesbury or Woodyates or the west from around Sherborne. He figured six ships could not be more than two hundred and fifty, or at most three hundred men and they had double without going so far afield.

“Besides,” Ethelhelm said, trying to sound fatherly. “This is what the king expects of us, to defend the border. He would hardly be pleased with us if we bother him with every petty bunch of heathens that park on our shore.” He honestly did not understand the danger, and he never imagined the report he got might be mistaken. In fact, there were thirteen ships and over five hundred Danes who looted, pillaged, and burned churches in Portland and all the way up to Weymouth.

The battle was fierce, not at all what Uncle Ethelhelm expected. When the Danish commander threw in his fifty kept in reserve, the thirty men on horseback of Osric had to dismount and join the fray to keep the line from falling apart. Even then, they might have lost if fifty locals had not come up behind the Danes, hungry for revenge. The Danes squeezed out from the trap and hurried back to their ships. They left some of their men to die, and the men from Dorset did not have the strength to chase the rest. The Danes sailed free with plenty of treasure. Their crews might have been slim, but they were not going to leave any good ships behind..

When all was over, Uncle Ethelhelm was dead and Osric became ealdorman of Dorset. It was not the way Osric expected that to happen.

In 842, Elgar and Eanwulf rode Somersetshire, and got to know many of the Thegns and elders who talked for the people in the towns, villages, and on the farms in Somerset. They were mostly pleased to hear Eanwulf planned to continue the policies of his father, even to retaining the same Reeve, which is to say, tax collector. They all knew Eanwulf, of course, or said they did. They did not know twenty-two-year old Elgar, but he managed to impress the ones that mattered.

Elgar took Gwyn and Osfirth with him and visited on the less populated west side of the Parrett River. Eanwulf, with a troop of men, took the more populated east and north where Muchelney, Glastonbury. Wells, Wedmore, and Bath were located.

Elgar started at Athelney, the Misty Island before he went upriver to the main road between Somerton and Exeter. He went down the road to the border with what was now Saxon Devon and traveled up the border all the way to the coast, even cutting through Exmoor. He took Reed the elf with him, well disguised as a human hunter. Reed knew the way through the swamps and brought them safely to the small bay between Countisbury and Carhampton. Then they went up the coast to the Parrett River and back up to Athelney to complete the circle. Granted, they did some zigzagging enroute, but honestly, there were not great numbers of people living on the west side of the Parrett. Most lived on the river, the road, the border below Exmoor, or the coast so their circle route got to most of them. Besides that, only about half of the people on his side of the river were Saxon people. Plenty were British, so Gwyn and Osfirth both got a workout.

When they got back to Somerton, Eanwulf asked again about where Elgar planned to live.

“What about Athelney?” Elgar said.

“You mean Moringa, the Noble Island as father called it,” Eanwulf sought clarification.

“That’s the place. Father built a great house there next to the monastery as a redoubt in case the Mercians ever pushed into Somerset. There are still caretakers there and the monks farm the property.”

“I’m not sure Father ever finished building there,” Eanwulf said, thinking of the cost.

“He finished,” Elgar responded. “I visited there just now to look. It is big, a virtual fort. Alfpryd and I can have a big family there.”

Eanwulf did not think for long before he shook his head. “The mists come up strong in that place. The island is too hard to get to. People can pass by the place without ever knowing it is there. And even if they know, the area is a real swamp, a quagmire of mud and muck, very dangerous unless you know the way. No. There is a reason Father bult a stronghold there against possible Mercian incursion into the territory.”

“Just a thought,” Elgar said. The idea was moot in any case. Alfpryd, at eighteen, was pregnant again, and Wulfrun, who was twenty-nine, was also pregnant.