«All the valley is used for pasture. Every peasant from Middleham to here send their sheep up the valley in Summer. You want to settle, just like that? Maybe up that way, beyond the cauldron falls?» he suggests pointing. «I don't know, but I have not seen much people there since the old ealdorman died eight years ago.»
It is not that the peasants know an awful lot about the politics and nobility, but they know who the Ealdorman is, and when Ælfheim who was Ealdorman of (Southern) Nortumbria dierd in 1006, Northumbria was united under the Ealdorman at Bamburg which is further away.
The reeve of the next hundred downriver holds an old motte-and-bailey castle at Middleham, but he also has not made himself seen much since he was raided by warlocks two or three years ago.