I Rode Alone; Hastings' Battle Drowned Its Campaign

Before anyone says it cannot be done, fetch me three horses, a lantern, and the nearest idiot. Earlier today I took my banner out of [SITH] and rode alone again; it is a small movement on a map, but the road between decisions is where a campaign lives.

Hastings gets its name because the shield wall broke there in 1066, and the battle gives memory one hard point to pin down. Harold’s march south after Stamford Bridge is harder to picture than that final field, though it spent men and time before the famous clash.

Reader, count the miles and the tired boots as well as the arrows; a battle is easy to mark in a chronicle, while a campaign is a chain of choices. I keep tracing the road on maps, and the line before the field is often the part that tells me what the victory cost.