Wolf of Wessex

by Matthew Harffy

May 1, 2020 · Aria

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I’ve just discovered my new catnip. Old soldiers protecting their adopted granddaughters as they move through the forests of southern England seeking justice. Dare I say it, they are on a QUEST! Yes, please!

Welcome to the Kingdom of Wessex in Britain in the year 838. Here, we meet Dunston, a former warrior, who now lives in the woods with his one-eyed dog, Odin. He is willfully self-sufficient and months will pass before he travels into the nearby town (it’s a full day’s walk away). He’s old, has a bum knee and he misses his wife who passed away after a short and powerful bout of illness. I realise that yet another white male protagonist is a major NO THANK YOU for many in the Bitchery (understandably so) but Dunston’s fragility, grumpiness and sore heart, for me, made him more “human” than “male”. His sense of self is not centered around his penis and his masculinity, but rather around his sense of fairness, love for those around him, and the memory of his dead wife.

As the book opens, Dunston’s primary concern is whether he has checked all his traps on his walk through the forest near his home. His quiet routine and simple life bring him contentment. Mid-trudge, he notices that something isn’t right in the forest. His woodcraft-spidey-senses kick into high gear and he finds the source of the disquiet: a dead man, with his back split wide open. This might be the dark ages, but even by those standards this is Real Dark. He can see signs that other men have passed through this field, but they seem to be long gone. Faced with this eviscerated corpse, Dunston’s woodcraft-spidey-senses continue to tingle and he finds a girl, Aedwen, hiding in the forest. Aedwen had gone to collect water while her father, a peddler, set up camp. She heard the screams as she was walking back to camp, and she hid in the forest.

Faced with this situation, Dunston feels honour-bound to Do Something, but honour and grumpiness co-exist in harmony in Dunston. In the clearing, he asks Aedwen to turn away as he cleans and wraps up her father’s body as best he can and puts it on the peddler’s cart. Dunston pushes the cart to his home in the forest, where he and Aedwen pass the night. The next morning, Dunston, Aedwen, Odin and the makeshift-hearse make the day-long walk to Briuuetone, the nearest town. When they arrive, Dunston finds things have altered dramatically since he was last there. The old reeve (a sort-of magistrate in the Dark Ages) is dead and a new one appointed. The new reeve has major Sheriff-of-Nottingham vibes and accuses Dunston of killing the man. In short order, Dunston is imprisoned and Aedwen goes to stay with the old reeve’s widow. This does not sit well with Widow Gytha and Aedwen, so a prison-break is undertaken. This marks the start of the (quite serious) hijinks! Justice is clearly not possible under the current, corrupt reeve, so justice must be sought elsewhere. Dunston is sure he can follow the tracks of the real murderers to clear his name. But what will he do when or if he finds them? Neither Aedwen nor Dunston seem to have an answer to that question. Each clue that they find seems to only further cloud the issue. In the end, they realise that there is only one person that they can talk to, and that is the King of Wessex.

As I read of Dunston and Aedwen’s quest through the forest, my jaw clenched and my toes flexed (my own personal physiological measures of SUSPENSE) and that suspense was beautifully held. Given the realities of the time, their progress through the forest is slow. They are on foot and have to cross vast forests. That delicious tension never slips, not least because the baddies could be ANYWHERE! But it is not only the baddies who could kill them: the forest could do the job just as easily. Dunston might be a loner, but he does have a few friends, and one of them is the forest. Dunston’s companionship with the forest yields food, shelter, fire, safety and a map-of-sorts. This part of their journey is so beautifully, simply gifted to the reader. Did you know about barrows!? I didn’t! Did you know there were charcoal burners who lived as pariahs in the forests?! I didn’t! Did you know that you can use bracken to make a bed? Mind blown! The details are so compelling that I didn’t resent a moment of the time spent explaining how they start a fire, wrap their cheese (not a euphemism) or carry their water. It is utterly fascinating.

As the book unfolds, we learn more about Dunston’s past. He used to be one of the “Wolves of Wessex,” a kind of elite guard for the King of Wessex. However, a great deal of time has passed since then. He married for love and made a solemn vow to his wife on her deathbed: he would not take another life. As he undertakes this quest, his vows put him in a moral quandary. Before each fight, he offers his wife a silent prayer of apology. He is cognisant of the pain he inflicts, but he does it anyway, because it is the only way to achieve a just outcome. There are some interesting moments in the battle where the adrenaline brings Dunston back to those old feelings of power and he revels in it. For that moment, and then it is gone.

While Dunston’s past has seen him serve as a weapon in the hands of others, in his personal life we see that Dunston takes a far broader view of people than many others in his position might. He is close to the charcoal burners, and to some of the fugitives who live cast out in the forest. And if there were any doubt that the grumpiness is a mask only, we only need look at how Dunston loves his precious dog, Odin.

The only slight disappointment I had was that Aedwen herself doesn’t become a warrior. I realise now that this is less about a ‘lack’ in the novel, and more about my own personal hunger for more women like Keeley in The Blacksmith Queen. Dunston does not leave her helpless, however. He teaches Aedwen his special woodcraft-spidey-senses and she is a quick learner. Does she ever pick up the sword herself and kill? No, but she is a traumatised teenager who has lost both her mother and father in quick succession. She is surviving in the bush eating berries and squirrel and sleeping under bracken. That’s probably enough to deal with. Aedwen is a supporting character, but one that is finely drawn. What I learnt about Aedwen has piqued my curiosity as to how her story might unfold beyond this novel. I would not be sad to pick up an Aedwen-focused sequel.

I find this book gloriously genre-defying. We have the story of an old man and a young girl learning to love and trust again, which is the stuff of my Hallmark movie dreams! But the setting is the British Isles in the dark ages with knives and swords and stuff… so we’ve definitely got adventure. But this is no ordinary adventure, it’s also a private investigator-mystery: clues are ferreted out and followed leading (hopefully) to the solution. But then there’s the woodcraft and history parts, which are written so richly that the closest comparison I can think of is a recipe book that serves as the basis for a novel.

The story held me aloft, separate from my worries, as it transported me to a new world. My to-do list, my duvet cover, the sun rising and setting, these all fell away and all I could see was Dunston, Aedwen, their bravery and their love. The bracken, vines and tree canopies of the forests kept me safe as I followed their journey through the Kingdom of Wessex. The book worked as a balm for my nerves. In the utter mess of modern life, watching good people do the right thing feels holy.

As ridiculous as this might seem, I chose this book because of the alliteration in the title. I stayed because I love seeing good people prevail, and this book delivers a belter of an HEA.