Death of Kings recap

As the book opens in 899, Alfred is dying and every ambitious man in Britain is waiting. A peace overture from East Anglia proves a trap laid by the jarl Sigurd, which Uhtred fights his way out of; the famed sorceress Aelfadell, whose prophecies foretell Danish victory and the death of kings, turns out to be paid by Sigurd to say so, and Uhtred counters her by staging three women as Christian angels spreading rival prophecy. Alfred dies, rewarding Uhtred and binding him toward his heir; Edward is crowned, and Alfred's embittered nephew Aethelwold - convinced the throne is rightfully his - flees to the Danes, giving Sigurd and Cnut the royal figurehead their invasion needs. Three years later the Danish coalition strikes. In a brutal winter battle the invasion is broken: King Eohric of East Anglia is killed, Sigurd is wounded, and Uhtred personally kills Aethelwold, extinguishing the rival claim. The Danes withdraw, and Edward is secure on his father's throne, with Uhtred still Aethelflaed's sworn man and still dreaming of Bebbanburg.

Previously: Uhtred of Bebbanburg - Saxon-born, raised by Danes, dispossessed of his northern fortress by his uncle - has spent thirty years as the sword of Christian Wessex without ever loving it: he killed Ubba, helped Alfred save the kingdom at Ethandun, avenged his Danish foster father by taking Dunholm alongside his foster brother Ragnar, and won and lost two loves, the shadow queen Iseult and his Danish wife Gisela, who died in childbirth. In The Burning Land he crushed Harald Bloodhair at Fearnhamme, then broke with Alfred's court after killing a cleric who insulted Gisela's memory, fled north to Ragnar, and plotted to invade Wessex at the head of a Danish army - until Aethelflaed, Alfred's daughter and the holder of his oath, called him back. He became her sworn man and her lover, led Mercia's forces, and stormed the Danish stronghold at Beamfleot, breaking the power of the treacherous jarl Haesten, who escaped as he always does. Now Alfred is dying at last; his earnest son Edward waits to inherit, his resentful nephew Aethelwold covets the throne, and the Danish lords of the north - Sigurd Thorrson and Cnut Ranulfson chief among them - gather for the war they believe will finally destroy Wessex.

Through the end of Part One (The Sorceress): the book opens in 899 with Alfred visibly dying and all Britain waiting on his death. Uhtred, lord of a modest Mercian estate and still Aethelflaed's sworn man, is drawn into the manoeuvring at once: a supposed peace overture involving King Eohric of East Anglia proves to be a trap laid by the Danish jarl Sigurd, and Uhtred fights his way clear of an ambush meant to remove Wessex's best warrior before the real war begins. Rumour of prophecy runs ahead of the armies - the aged sorceress Aelfadell, famed across the island, foretells the death of kings and the triumph of the Danes, and her visions unsettle Saxon and Dane alike. Uhtred travels into the Danish north to hear her for himself and pays for his curiosity: drugged and held at her shrine, in the country of the jarl Cnut Ranulfson, he learns the truth that the prophetess's visions are bought and paid for by Sigurd - propaganda dressed as fate, aimed at breaking Saxon confidence before a spear is thrown. He escapes with the knowledge, and with the prophecy that he himself will be the doom of kings hanging over him.

Through the end of Part Two (Death of a King): Alfred's long dying reaches its end. The old king spends his final strength settling his legacy - rewarding Uhtred and working to bind the pagan warlord he never trusted to the cause of his son and heir - and then Alfred, king of Wessex for a generation and architect of the dream of one Christian England, dies. Edward is crowned king of Wessex: earnest, untested, and surrounded by men measuring him against his father, he inherits a kingdom that every Danish lord in Britain believes is now ripe to fall. The succession is immediately contested from within - Aethelwold, Alfred's nephew, who has spent thirty years nursing the conviction that the throne was stolen from him when his own father died, refuses to accept Edward's crown, and his long-tolerated scheming finally turns to open treachery. War is now a certainty; only its timing and its shape remain in question, and Uhtred - bound to Aethelflaed, and through her to her brother's cause - stands as the shield of a new, unproven king.

Through the end of Part Three (Angels): Aethelwold flees to the Danes, offering Sigurd and Cnut the thing their invasion has always lacked - a royal Saxon claimant to legitimize conquest - and the Danish lords proclaim him the rightful king of Wessex. Uhtred fights prophecy with prophecy: to counter Aelfadell's bought visions of Danish triumph, he stages three women posing as Christian angels whose rival foretellings steady Saxon nerves and sow doubt among the credulous on both sides. Around these moves the two camps gather their strength - Edward consolidating his father's kingdom and feeling his way into his crown, the Danish lords assembling the great coalition of the north, with East Anglia's King Eohric drawn toward their cause - while Uhtred holds the Mercian frontier with Finan, Osferth, and his household troops, and Aethelflaed anchors Mercia against the storm everyone knows is coming.

Through the end of Part Four (Death in Winter) - the book's close: three years after Alfred's death, the Danish coalition finally strikes, invading in strength with Aethelwold riding among them as their claimant to the West Saxon throne and King Eohric of East Anglia joined to their cause. The campaign ends in a grinding winter shield-wall battle in which the coalition is broken apart rather than cleanly beaten: Eohric is killed, several Danish leaders fall with him, Sigurd is wounded, and Uhtred himself cuts down Aethelwold, ending forever the rival claim that had shadowed Edward's succession. The surviving Danes, unable to keep the field through the winter, withdraw. The title is paid in full - Alfred dead in his bed, Eohric and the pretender Aethelwold dead in battle - and Edward sits securely as king of Wessex, his father's dream of one England battered but alive. Aelfadell's prophecy that Uhtred would be the doom of kings has come true, though not as the Danes who paid for it hoped. Uhtred ends the book as he began it: Aethelflaed's sworn man and lover, the pagan shield of the Christian kingdoms, with Bebbanburg still unclaimed in the north.

The book ends with the great Danish bid for England defeated in a bleak winter battle. Three years after Alfred's death, the Danes invade in strength, with Aethelwold riding among them as their claimant to the West Saxon throne and King Eohric of East Anglia joined to their cause. The armies meet in a grinding shield-wall battle in which the Danish coalition is broken apart rather than cleanly beaten: Eohric is killed, several Danish leaders fall, Sigurd is wounded, and Uhtred himself kills Aethelwold, ending forever the rival claim that had shadowed Edward's succession. The surviving Danes, unable to keep the field through the winter, withdraw. The title's promise is kept several times over - Alfred dead in his bed, Eohric and the pretender Aethelwold dead in battle - and Edward sits securely as king of Wessex, his father's dream of one England battered but alive. Uhtred, prophesied by the sorceress Aelfadell to be the doom of kings, has been exactly that, though not in the way the Danes who paid for the prophecy hoped. He remains what he was: Aethelflaed's sworn man and lover, the pagan shield of the Christian kingdoms, with Bebbanburg still waiting unclaimed in the north.