Death of Kings characters

Appears from the start

Now in his forties: the pagan warlord on whom Christian Wessex has depended for thirty years, holder of an estate in Mercia and of a tangle of oaths - to the dying Alfred, and above all to Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, his lover and lady. Bebbanburg, his stolen birthright in the north, remains unclaimed. As Alfred's death approaches and every ambitious man in Britain sharpens a knife, Uhtred is the sword both sides want and neither trusts.

Appears from the start

King of Wessex for a generation and the architect of the dream of a single Christian England, now plainly dying. Reduced in body but not in will, he spends his final strength arranging the succession of his son Edward and binding the kingdom's dangerous men - Uhtred first among them - to survive him. Whatever lies between him and Uhtred, three decades of war have made them each other's habit.

Also known as Edward of Wessex

Appears from the start

Alfred's son and designated heir: earnest, unproven, and raised in his father's piety, about to inherit a kingdom that many powerful men believe should not be his. The Danes expect to carve up England on Alfred's death, and Edward's ability to hold Wessex - and to use hard instruments like Uhtred - is the great open question of the succession.

Appears from the start

Alfred's nephew, son of the king who reigned before him, who has spent a lifetime nursing the conviction that the throne of Wessex was stolen from him. Weak, drunken, and endlessly plausible, he has plotted with Danes before and been forgiven too often. With Alfred dying, his claim finally becomes useful to powerful men - which makes him, at last, truly dangerous.

Appears from the start

Alfred's daughter, lady of Mercia in everything but title: braver and more loved than her husband Aethelred, and Uhtred's lover, bound to him by an oath freely given. As her father dies and her brother inherits, she is the hinge holding Wessex and Mercia together against the Danish storm.

Also known as Sigurd Thorrson

Appears from the start

A great Danish jarl of the north midlands, rich in ships and men, who sees Alfred's coming death as the moment to destroy Wessex forever. Harder-headed than the raiders of earlier wars, he works by scheme as well as sword - buying prophecies, laying traps, and gathering the Danish lords toward one great war for England.

Also known as Cnut Ranulfson, Cnut Longsword

Appears from the start

Sigurd's closest ally, a pale, quick Danish jarl reputed the deadliest swordsman in Britain. Soft-spoken and amused where Sigurd is blunt, he is the more frightening of the pair for it. Together they command the strength of the Danish north and wait for the death of a king to loose it.

Appears from the start

An aged sorceress living at a pagan shrine, famed across Britain: men travel far to hear her prophecies, and Danes and Saxons alike fear her. Her visions of dead kings and Danish victory run ahead of the coming war - but a prophecy can be bought, and whoever pays the prophet shapes what the credulous will believe.

Appears from the start

The Irish warrior who has stood at Uhtred's shoulder since their shared slavery at the oar: his second in command, his sharpest blade, and his most trusted friend through every campaign of the last twenty years.

Appears from the start

Alfred's bastard son, long since traded the monastery for the shield wall as one of Uhtred's household warriors. Careful, devout, and quietly formidable, he serves the man his father never fully trusted while his half-brother prepares to inherit the crown - a position he bears with his usual patience.