Sword Song characters

Appears from the start

Now in his late twenties, lord of a household of warriors and holder of an estate in Wessex, married to the Danish Gisela and still bound by oath to King Alfred. His childhood's blood debts are paid, but Bebbanburg remains stolen, and he serves a Christian king he respects without love while dreaming Danish dreams. When Norse brothers seize Lundene, it is Uhtred whom Alfred sends to take the city back.

Appears from the start

King of Wessex, older, sicker, and more powerful than ever since Ethandun. His design has grown beyond survival: he dreams of one England under a Christian king, and he moves men like Uhtred across the board to build it. He binds Mercia to Wessex by marrying his daughter Aethelflaed to its leading ealdorman, and he wants Lundene, the great city on the Temes, under his hand.

Appears from the start

Uhtred's Danish wife, sister of King Guthred of Northumbria, dark-haired and clear-eyed. She rules Uhtred's household, bears his children, and shares his gods and his impatience with West Saxon piety. Their marriage is the calm centre of his turbulent service to Alfred.

Appears from the start

The elder of two Norse brothers who have seized the old city of Lundene with a fleet of hungry crews. Huge, violent, and rage-driven, Sigefrid dreams of carving a kingdom out of the rich lands along the Temes. He is the harder and crueller of the pair, a man whose answer to most questions is blood.

Appears from the start

Sigefrid's younger brother and partner in the seizure of Lundene: handsome, thoughtful, and far more measured than his savage elder. Erik has the gifts of a leader without the cruelty, and Uhtred, who deals with both brothers, finds in him something close to a friend on the wrong side. His better nature will be tested against loyalty to his brother.

Appears from the start

A landless Danish jarl of endless, smiling treachery, once saved from the sea by Uhtred and sworn briefly to him, an oath he shed as easily as water. Plausible, ambitious, and loyal to nothing but his own advantage, he attaches himself to the Thurgilson brothers' venture while scheming for his own profit. Every promise he makes is a weapon pointed somewhere.

First appears in chapter 3

Alfred's eldest child, barely more than a girl, married for policy to Aethelred of Mercia to bind that realm to Wessex. Bright, brave, and warm where her husband is vain and cold, she has known Uhtred since childhood and trusts him. Her marriage quickly turns bitter, and the war along the Temes will sweep her into its very centre.

First appears in chapter 2

Uhtred's cousin, a Mercian lord raised at Alfred's court and married to the king's daughter Aethelflaed. Vain, self-important, and jealous of Uhtred, he commands more by birth than by talent, and his arrogance in war and unkindness in marriage make him a burden to allies and a torment to his young wife.

Appears from the start

The Irish warrior freed from the slaver's oar beside Uhtred, now the trusted second of his household troops. Quick with a blade and quicker with a joke, he is Uhtred's shadow in every fight, from the storming of Lundene's walls to the desperate work at Beamfleot.

First appears in chapter 3

A bastard son of King Alfred, got on a servant girl in the king's wilder youth and an embarrassment the pious court would prefer to keep in a monastery. Young Osferth wants to be a warrior, not a monk, and attaches himself to Uhtred's household to learn the sword. Earnest and unpromising at first, he carries more of his father in him than anyone suspects.