Their families remained at Stockton while the men cleared all signs of the vicious attack which had made Norton a village filled with ghosts. A rider came south from Sir Hugh Manningham. The New Castle had refused to surrender. His men besieged it but the good news was that the Bishop of Durham had stirred himself and sent some of his own knights north to join Sir Hugh and subjugate the Scots. The men in the New Castle were no long a threat to us.
As January had progressed we had received a steady influx of volunteers. Men at arms whose lords had died or been killed by the Scots came to my castle. I used Wulfric and Dick to assess them. Not all remained. Some were sent on their way for we doubted their integrity. We were not so desperate that we would take any. We needed men on whom we could rely. Even so our numbers had swollen and we had erected another warrior hall in the town. The inner and outer baileys were too crowded. We had also had to build another stable.
