On the road to Viterbo, A.D. 928
When Hywel saw a company of horsemen galloping towards him and his bishop, not along the Via Flaminia but across the fields out of the woodland, he knew it did not augur well. In a few moments, they were surrounded and he didn’t recognise the prominent language as Italian or anything he had ever heard. It was Magyar because these men were nearly all Hungarian mercenaries.
Astonished, Hywel identified one horseman who edged his steed towards him out of the melee. Bishop Rhydderch! But he should be on a mule, not a warhorse.
“Sire, at last, we have found you! Here’s someone you should meet—the Almighty knows it’s all complicated!”
The bishop turned and gestured towards a noble-looking individual, different in lineaments from the coarse-featured Hungarians
