Two young lovers wander through the Poppies and the Rosebay Willowherb that blanketed the Derbershire Meadows.  They stopped just at the edge of the Meadow.  He grabbed and pulled her to him.  He released her after giving her a passionate kiss.

All of this was caught by a soldier positioned at a window in the Northberg Fotress. He envied the man because he has not been with a woman since before the battle of Kent almost a year ago. 

The woman lead the man into the nearby forest  to the soldier’s left.

The gentle summer morning did not help because it  tempted him to pull off his chain mail and helmet. The sight of horses with riders stampeding through the meadows from his right brought him back to reality.He wanted out of the fortress’  prison where his captain had placed him that morning, but he did want to experiance a slow painful death for desertion. 

They called to the soldier who peered out of the window, Robert of Meads.  Though he came from wealth, he showed no accumen or culture that wealth would posess.  Because of his slow wittedness, he could only serve as a soldier and not a knight.

He had been locked in this room under the Captain of the Guards, William.  He had Robert confined to this room because has found him drunk while on duty. He wanted him confined there until Sir Richard would return from London, and  then, Richard could decide Robert’s fate.

The hooves of the horse crushed some of the poppies and ended the pleasantry of the morning.

Before the fortress, eight riders positioned their horses in front of its gate, while the sentries cried out for the Captain of the Guard.

Now Northberg Fortress had no moat for protection just the walls built by the descendants of the villagers of now deserted Roxbury. The villagers had been pressed into the service of the Romans  who would later abandon it when the Gothes took Rome.

Northberg Forterss would later be occupied by the Danes who would abandon it because of the lack of protection against King Arthur. It would finally occupied by a group Anglo Saxon soldiers. They had persuaded to move into it by the Bishop of Kent to protect the nearby Monastery of Axleberry.