Summary: Ok, when we left off, Edwin... the exile from Deira, had been on the run for quite some time. The King of Bernicia, AEthelfrith, now occupied the throne held by his father, and his father's father, and so on and so forth. His sister, Acha, had given birth to a child with the man who was hunting him (and we aren't sure what the circumstances to that were). His nephew, Hereric, had been poisoned at the court of Ceretic of the Elmet. He had married a Mercian princess, possibly as a condition for ensuring his safety and an attempt to build alliances with common enemies of King AEthelfrith. War had broken out between his former home and the British kingdoms that had offered him safety... and things had been turning against the British and towards Northumbria (with the British kingdoms of Wales being effectively cut off from their compatriots to the north, following the Battle of Chester). King Iago of Gwynedd was now dead, as well as a number of other British leaders who had stood against this menace that had risen in the North that was relentlessly pursuing him. Edwin was trying to put together an insurgency, but his list of options were growing thin. The British could not break AEthelfrith, and now an Anglian kingdom had made it as far west as the Irish Sea... it probably seemed unlikely that salvation would come from the West. But there was another option. In the South, AEthelfrith had a counterpart. A man who desired the title of Bretwalda... and with the recent death of AEthelberht of Kent, a way had opened up. And so Edwin's improbable journey had lead him from the Court of Deira, to exile, to North Wales, through the midlands, and now to East Anglia. All while being pursued by one of the most powerful kings in all of Britain. As luck would have it, King Raedwald accepted him in and offered him guest rights. It's possible that Raedwald just liked the vagabond prince. But there were also solid political advantages to taking Edwin in.
