The Amber Treasure Read online

The Amber Treasure

  by

  Richard Denning

  Written by Richard Denning

  © Copyright 2009 Richard Denning

  Publisher website:

  https://www.merciabooks.co.uk

  Copy–editing and proof reading by Jo Field.

  [email protected]

  Author website:

  https://www.richarddenning.co.uk

  For John, Margaret, Jean and Jane

  Table of Contents

  Start of Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Historical Note

  Excerpt from Book Two

  The Author

  Richard Denning was born in Ilkeston in Derbyshire and lives in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands, where he works as a General Practitioner.

  He is married and has two children. He has always been fascinated by historical settings as well as horror and fantasy. Other than writing, his main interests are games of all types. He is the designer of a board game based on the Great Fire of London.

  Author website:

  https://www.richarddenning.co.uk

  Also by the author

  Northern Crown Series

  (Historical fiction)

  1.The Amber Treasure

  2.Child of Loki (Coming 2011)

  Hourglass Institute Series

  (Young Adult Science Fiction)

  1.Tomorrow’s Guardian

  2. Yesterday's Treasures

  3. Today's Sacrifice (Coming 2012)

  The Praesidium Series

  (Historical Fantasy)

  The Last Seal

  Northern Britain AD 597

  Names of nations, cities and towns

  The Amber Treasure is historical fiction. As such, I have taken one or two liberties with names in order to make the book more accessible to the modern reader who is here, after all, to enjoy a story.

  However, in this book I have tried − wherever possible − to use real place names as well as the names of the real historical characters who existed at the time. All this is difficult, given the scarcity of records for this period − the ‘darkest’ years of the dark ages. If you are interested, the historical note at the end of the book goes into the evidence about this period in a bit more detail.

  Meanwhile, to satisfy those who like to see the use of historical names in fiction and so that you can identify what these places are called today, here is a glossary of the main names:

  Bernicia − Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Northumbria

  Calcaria − Tadcaster

  'The Villa'/'The Village' − Holme-on-Spalding-Moor

  Catraeth − Catterick

  Deira − Anglo-Saxon Kingdom north of the Humber

  Elmet − Welsh/British Kingdom around the modern day city of Leeds

  Eboracum and Eoforwic − York

  Godnundingham − Site of Deiran Royal Palace. Possibly modern day Pocklington

  Loidis − Leeds

  Manau Goddodin − Welsh/British Kingdom around what is now Edinburgh

  Rheged − Welsh/British Kingdom in what is now Cumbria

  Salebeia − Selsby

  Wicstun − Market Weighton

  A note about the Welsh and English

  If settlement and country names are confusing, the names of the racial groups are even more so.

  Historians might call the people left in Britain after the Romans departed, ‘Romano-British’ or ‘Britons’. The invading Anglo-Saxons became the English. I felt that calling the Romano-British ‘British’ and ‘Britons’ in this book was going to be confusing to some readers, especially as a lot of the book involves the English fighting the British.

  So, I decided to refer to the Romano-British as Welsh, which is what the English invaders called the Britons (originally this was Waelisc − meaning foreigners). The Welsh would probably talk of themselves as Cymry (meaning compatriots).

  Likewise the 'English' of this book would probably not have called themselvs that. The Anglo Saxon invaders of the mid 5th century were made up of Jutes, Saxons and Angles. Whilst the Jutes and Saxons settled in the South of England, the Angles colonised East Anglia and Northumbria. In time the word Angles mutated via such words as Anglii, Englisc to English and the country became England. Although this process took some time I felt it was easier to just use the term English.

  So for the sake of readability, I decided to simplify these terms and I beg the tolerance of readers.

  List of names characters