The village of Welsferth started out as a Saxon fort that was King Athelrod’s northwestern most outpost before Theobold’s successful conquest of Derthwald. Since then, its military importance had faded, and all that remained of the once heavily fortified garrison were a handful of guards who doubled as toll collectors.
Although predominantly Saxon, Welsferthers (as they called themselves) included a substantial number of native Britons who’d stayed on after their armies retreated northward. Over time, shared religion and intermarriage had blurred the distinctions between them, and although Saxons, for the most part, had the better holdings, the two groups got along surprisingly well, all things considered.
Taking advantage of their strategic location between the bridge and the crossroads where wagon traffic from the four corners of Atheldom converged, the villagers had turned to commerce so that Welsferth was now a thriving and growing community with a weekly market, two churches, and a tavern that was open from midmorning until whatever time in the evening Merna, the innkeeper’s wife, got tired of cooking.
The Spotted Hound, named for the first innkeeper’s boyhood pet, owed its success to being the first place travelers coming into Atheldom from Derthwald could stop before the road split in three— the main branch turning northeast toward the capital city, and other two splitting further into the maze of side roads that connected the area’s outlying farms and villages.
Wilbreth, the innkeeper, ran a thriving business on three basic principles—don’t water the ale so much you wouldn’t drink it yourself, don’t ask your customers where they got the money they’re spending, and count the cost of what you serve monks and pilgrims as part of the tithe you owe to God and the church.
All in all, the Spotted Hound was as a good place as Annwr could have hoped for when she came up with her plan of tracking Benyon and the boys by word of mouth.