As Nanteleod (along with Lord Jacques) worked through 507 AD to liberate Somerset from the Cornish aggressors, Sir Roland, Sir Pubert, and Sir Edward patrolled Salisbury to deny passage to Saxon and Cornishman alike.

Chief Port had declared that, with the extinction of King Cerdic’s line, he intended to take the Kingdom of Wessex for himself – in effect, stating his intention to invade and conquer Hampshire. Aelle of Sussex had backed this call, and had sent a caravan of supplies to Portsmouth accompanied by the fearsome Knight of the Tusks (so called because of his magnificent helm, made from the skull of a walrus), and the Salisbury knights set upon this caravan, Sir Edward defeating the Knight of the Tusks in single combat.

The winter of 507 was a bitterly cold one, claiming the life of the Countess of Oxford. Sir Pubert built a magnificent cathedral in her honour in Oxford, in return for the Archbishop of Canterbury performing an exorcism on Berwick St. James to try and purge the lingering spirit of Sir Urquhart, who was being blamed for the crop failure.

In 508 Nanteleod again turned his attention to the Saxons, mustering an army of over 8000 Britons against Port, whose forces were supported by former followers of Cerdic, the armies of Sussex, and knights from Cornwall besides. Though the Salisbury knights won glory during the battle, the day proved ill-fated, for Nanteleod was slain by a cowardly ambush. Sir Pubert made a valiant attempt to take command, but the bulk of the Britons were routed, and he and the others had to make haste to regroup at Camelot, where it became clear that Nanteleod’s grand alliance was falling apart in the absence of a clear candidate for leadership.

Occam was knighted into the Order of the Pomegranate, taking on the initiate name of Iphis. Robert of Oxford came into his inheritance, leaving Pubert to repair once again to the manor of Berwick St. James.

In 509, Mark Anthony followed Iphis into the Order, whilst Earl Robert of Salisbury was knighted by Sir Roland (the greatest of his vassals) and declared his intention to journey to meet each of the various lordly allies of Salisbury in person. As the procession left Salisbury, it was taunted by a small boy sat high in a tree, who made sly comments about how Pubert had never known true love, Edward had given his heart to an elf, and Roland was keeping Queen Ygraine in fine style. Roland threw an apple at the youth, who jumped down from the tree and rolled head over heels, in the process of doing so turning into the familiar figure of Merlin, who declared he had need of strong knights for a quest…

Holding that as they were oathbreakers, any oath made to them counted for nothing, King Aelle summoned King Cerdic back from the continent and put him at the head of the forces mustered to crush Salisbury. With Sir Edward fighting off foraging Cornish troops trespassing into Salisbury to steal supplies for their ongoing war against Somerset, Lord Jacques, Sir Roland and Sir Pubert prepared their forces to meet the Saxons at the walled town of Camelot. As well as forces from Salisbury, Oxford, and Silchester, the armies of King Nanteleod came to lend their aid. Between them, this represented the greatest British force assembled since the death of Uther, with most of Logres represented.

Driving back Cerdic and forcing him to flee, Nanteleod advocated taking the fight to the Saxons by pushing them back from their positions around London and decimating any force sent against them. Pubert, meanwhile, was determined to track down Cerdic, and with the aid of one of the Order of the Pomegranate’s trackers (to whose charms he proved quite immune) he traced Cerdic to the court of King Aelle of Sussex. Meanwhile,  Nanteleod and his forces were challenged by the Angles, and Nanteleod slew the King of Anglia and won the day.

Impressed by Nanteleod, Lord Jacques gave homage to him, and Sir Roland offered his sons Orpheus and Sisyphus as squires for Nanteleod and Leodegrance. (Arthur, as a bastard, would have to settle for being the squire of Sir Kay, the newly knighted son of Sir Ector of County Tribuit.)

In the new year, as Prince Mark of Cornwall and Prince Alain of Escavalon – Nanteleod’s recently acknowledged bastard and heir – held peace talks at Sarum, hedge knights arrived in Sussex. They were Jacques, Pubert, and Roland, on a mission against the oathbreaker Cerdic. Filling the inn they stayed at with undercover amazons, they intended to watch for Cerdic as he rode forth on a winter hunt, but were surprised when he and his retinue arrived at the inn. Not recognising the hedge knights, Cerdic offered them ale and tried to convince them to join his mercenary forces for the scouring of Salisbury.

As Pubert listened to Cerdic insult Britain and its people, Pubert’s wrath grew, until he clenched his fist and crushed the pewter tankard he held. Cerdic mocked the British workmanship; Pubert replied that the tankard should perhaps have been made of steel, and in a flash drew his sword and knocked out Cerdic with the flat of the blade. With a desperate round of fighting and a chase that took them all the way to the Silchester border, the knights were away with their prize. (Since then folk songs in Sussex have been sung about how Pubert killed Bad King Cerdic for insulting British beer.)

The execution of Cerdic Oathbreaker was not a clean affair. Eventually, limbs were dispatched to the other Saxon rulers. Sussex sent back a wagon full of the limbs of British peasants. Escalation seemed unstoppable.

Kent advanced along the south bank of the Thames, Essex along the north. A successful siege of London must take both banks – the north to besiege the walls, the south to hold London Bridge. Knowing this, Ulfius was minded to concentrate his forces on the north bank to take advantage of the split Saxon forces.

However, scouts sent ahead by Pubert and Jacques discovered that the Angles were moving to support the Saxons, just as the Kent forces were crossing the river by ship to join their allies. Realising that to continue on the north bank to a direct confrontation would be to walk straight into a trap, the Britons crossed to the south bank to garrison Southwerk and keep London Bridge secure, thus allowing the forces inside London to resupply.

The knights of Salisbury, minus Roland who had been sent to visit King Nanteleod, fought in a number of actions, including destroying a unit of siege engineers hired from the continent before they could reach the area of the siege and fighting a group of berserkers who had broken through Moorgate. They also sent word to Aelle of which Kentish forces had gone to the siege, prompting Aelle to raid Kent, and taunted the Kentish with hints and rumours about the sacking of their homes. Finally, the Kent army broke away to deal with the raids, and the forces of Essex and Anglia broke off the siege, contenting themselves with the territorial gains their advance had won them.

The next year, as part of the continued diplomatic dance between Salisbury and Nanteleod, King Leodegrance of Cameliard was supposed to be visiting Oxford. As Jacques and Edward arrived to make ready for the visit, they found Oxford Castle in uproar – for Celwyn, son of Aelle, had escaped. A note left behind taunting his captors suggested that his escape had been aided by the changeling Conkers – which made the knights realise that the “escape” could turn into a faerie kidnapping.

Bravely riding into Sauvage, they encountered a helpful elephant who, having little time for faerie trickery, was glad to help them. The elephant warned them that Conkers had taken Celwyn in the direction of the bower of Black Annis, a child-killing cannibal who if slain would rise again unless a curious precaution were taken: her bower must be filled in, and a dead cat soaked in aniseed must be dragged to the house of the Mayor of Leicester, who must then give a feast to the whole town – and this tradition of cat-dragging and feasting must continue each Easter Monday, lest Black Annis rise again.

When the party found Black Annis and Conkers, they were making sport tossing a live cat back and forth, Conkers trying to fling the poor creature into the cave, Annis lurking in the crook of the dead oak that grew above the entrance of the cave and catching the cat with her horrible long arms. As the knights rode out to confront them Conkers scampered to the edge of the clearing to watch what happened next as Annis chuckled with glee to meet three such “children”. Wasting no time parleying, Pubert struck like lightning and hacked her head off in a single blow. The head laughed and said “I was only going to offer you some stew, Pubert” before expiring.

In the cave the party found the grisly proof of the death of Celwyn at Annis’ hands in the stew in her cauldron. Pubert came after Conkers in his outrage; Conkers threw the cat at him, he threw his sword at her and it skewered her through the head. “Got your sword!” she cried and scampered off. As Pubert plunged back into Sauvage, Jacques and Edward put the tortured cat out of its misery and set about completing the ritual to keep Annis dead.

Encountering a unicorn briefly, Pubert mused on how he could never befriend such a beast because of how Urquhart had defiled him. As it happened, the Devil had given Urquhart some of his Dandy Dogs and sent him into Sauvage in the heart of a storm, so as to hunt for evil souls. Pubert was outraged to see Urquhart and attacked blindly; though his soul was in no wise evil enough for Urquhart to take it, it was also just impure enough for Urquhart to torment him. Pubert knew that with faith and prayer he could dismiss the demon, but his hate was too strong to let him and he traded blows with Urquhart until he fell unconscious, waking up back in the natural world in time to catch up and join Edward and Jacques’ motley procession into Leicester.

Back in Oxford Sussex envoys had come to check on Celwyn. A deceit was planned in which a local boy would masquerade as Celwyn, but this was thwarted by the envoy’s quick wit and the truth came out. Aelle, in his grief, was now free to act.