Ismere: a story of the Lady of the Mercians

When his community is destroyed by a Viking raid, Aneirin, a young bond-slave sets out to warn his lord of imminent danger. He becomes the man-servant of the most remarkable woman of the Anglo-Saxon age, Lady Aethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, the eponymous "Lady of the Mercians". In the brutal war to liberate his homeland he gains freedom, wealth and status undreamed of, but his battles are not over with the peace. As his new life disintegrates he is drawn by a strange destiny to return to the trackless swamp of Ismere, where at last he discovers his true purpose.