Chapter 2

The moment she entered the burh, she forgot all about the sad things that had happened in her life recently. It looked fantastic! If she didn't know better, she would have thought she actually walked into a regular market day in an English settlement. It even smelled like how she imagined medieval times smelled. No smell of modernity at all, and the burh protected them from the worst of the desert heat. And there were no sounds of machinery. In one corner there were pigs snorting, she had seen some sheep and goats outside. A chicken had escaped the coop, a person dressed as a theow was running after it. Some people carried water, there was a smithy in another part and a Dining hall at the right. The left side held the "crew" area they had been warned about. A group of women seemed to be mending or creating cloth from wool as well. And some of the men carried spears. In fact, almost everyone that was not dressed as a theow carried a spear of various lengths. And most of them had a traditional seax knife in their belt, even some of the theows. Audrey wondered if they would be willing to sell some of those, she would love to bring that home with her. She had no interest in swords or other weapons made at most historical conventions or ren-fests, but a seax was a tool. The people dressed as churls seemed to have the long type of seax, the more regular workers had a smaller one, the ones doing something related to clothing seemed to have something that looked more like a half of a scissor. They were even held in their belts with razor-strops, made with birch-polypore, the mushroom that grew on trees. That must have taken them some effort to find. Their attention to detail was astonishing.

The theows had a sort of veil in front of their face. Audrey had never read anything about that, but it did look like it belonged with the rest of the clothes. She hadn't read a lot about slavery in England, so she didn't know all the details that went into it, only that it existed and wasn't the same as the type of slavery in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in later centuries. The theows, and some of the other workers as well, had a collar of sorts around their neck. For the theows, it was clearly a metal collar, but when she looked closer, it was fabric closer to the skin, to avoid it chafing too much against the neck.

Then the Lady of Bamburgh arrived to greet them. It was immediately obvious who that was, she was dressed much more refined than the others. Her gown, calling it a dress seemed too pale a word, had a silk top and various colours at the skirt. Her hair was also immaculately braided, even with some uncut gemstones. She looked amazing. Everyone seemed to stop as she came out, some of them bowed or curtsied. Even the animals seemed quieter somehow. This Lady certainly commanded attention, and it was more than just the fine clothes.

"Welcome, travellers from afar!" she said, with a wide smile that somehow made her seem regal and majestic. "We are honoured that you have decided to come to us. We hope that you will find all that you desire here. We have provided a meal, to quench your hunger from your long travel. Come with me to the Dining Hall and I will see to your providence. I hope that in return, you can bring ideas and news from afar."

Wow. This was fantastic. Audrey couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at everything as they all walked after the Lady to the Dining Hall.

The entire interior of the Dining Hall was made of wood. The table, the benches, the cutlery, everything was of wood. Quite rough wood too, especially the benches and the table. Luckily, they had some soft wool blankets to sit on. Audrey wondered what they would serve.

"There will be a proper feast this evening to celebrate our noble visitors," the Lady said. "But for now, I hope you will be satisfied with our specialty, pork soup with the season's vegetables. Please enjoy."

Several theows, clearly assigned to be serving girls, came out with wooden bowls full of stew. It smelled delicious. It was rather bland, but not too bad. It had a fair amount of salt, which was to be expected. They got ale to drink, clearly brewed by the crew, and made from wheat, not hops. Audrey suspected that it didn't have that much alcohol in it. Up until modern times, ale, or beer wasn't meant to be a drink to become intoxicated. It was drunk more like people drank soda today.

It seemed some of the others found the food too salty, they hardly ate anything. Audrey hadn't talked much to any of them, there hadn't been a chance during the bus ride, the guide had talked almost the entire time. It seemed most of them had come with someone else, so they mostly talked to that person. From what she heard, most of them were impressed as well, though a few muttered about the food being subpar. Audrey didn't bother correcting them about how it was accurate for the time period, they would probably grumble anyway.

"Before we go outside, let me tell you about the plan for the day," the Lady said. "We will start with a tour of the burh, where you will see the different ways the people of the time passed the time and how they survived the harsh times they were in. Please follow any instructions given to you, or you risk injury or worse. If anyone is out of compliance with the rules, we have ways to deal with that. But come! Let us begin."

They all followed eagerly. This was what they had been waiting for. Audrey wondered who the others were. She hoped she would get a chance to talk to some of them during the day, but if not, that was fine as well. She wasn't here to make friends. She was here to get away from her disaster of a life for just one weekend.