The Burning Land characters

Appears from the start

Lord of Bebbanburg in name only, now in his thirties: Alfred's greatest warrior and the military governor who holds Lundene for Wessex, though he remains a pagan the pious court distrusts. Married to the Danish Gisela and still dreaming of the northern fortress his uncle stole, he fights Wessex's wars while resenting the oath that keeps him from his own. The great Danish invasion that opens the book will test that oath as never before.

Appears from the start

King of Wessex, now visibly failing in health but stronger than ever in design: one Christian England, secured for his son Edward. He values Uhtred's sword and mistrusts everything else about him, and as his own death approaches he is chiefly concerned with binding the men who will guard the succession.

Appears from the start

Uhtred's Danish wife, sister of Guthred of Northumbria: dark-haired, steady, and the anchor of his household in Lundene. She shares his gods, has borne his children, and is carrying another as the book opens.

Also known as Harald Bloodhair

Appears from the start

A savage Danish earl who leads one of the two great fleets that descend on Wessex, a huge, flamboyant fighter whose banner and temper are equally red. He fights for plunder and glory rather than strategy, goaded on by his woman, the sorceress Skade, and his fury makes him as dangerous to bargain with as to fight.

Appears from the start

A strikingly beautiful Danish sorceress, Harald Bloodhair's woman, taken captive by Uhtred early in the campaign. Cruel, ambitious, and utterly convinced of her own powers, she is feared for her curses even by hard men. Captivity places her in Uhtred's hands, and she is as dangerous there as anywhere - a woman who ruins the men who hold her.

Appears from the start

The smiling, endlessly treacherous Danish jarl who escaped the ruin at Beamfleot in the last war. He lands in Kent at the head of his own army, mouthing peace and plotting conquest, using other men's wars - Harald's included - as cover for his own ambitions. No oath, hostage, or baptism binds him for long.

Appears from the start

Alfred's daughter and the unhappy wife of Aethelred of Mercia, the woman who was once nearly carried off to a different life by a Norse lover. Braver and cleverer than her husband, she has become a power in Mercia in her own right, loved by its people, and she holds a claim on Uhtred that will outlast every other oath in his life.

Also known as Ragnar Ragnarson, Ragnar the Younger

Appears from the start

Uhtred's Danish foster brother, lord of Dunholm since the fall of Kjartan, married to Brida. Open-handed and warlike as his father was, he keeps a seat at his fire for Uhtred always, and stands for the Danish life Uhtred half-longs to return to: a lord in the north, free of Wessex, its priests, and its oaths.

Appears from the start

The Irish warrior who has been Uhtred's closest friend and second since they were chained together at a slaver's oar: quick, cheerful, deadly, and one of the few constants in Uhtred's shifting fortunes. Where Uhtred fights, Finan is beside him.

Appears from the start

Alfred's bastard son, once meant for the Church and now one of Uhtred's sworn household warriors. Sober, careful, and quietly capable, he has grown from an unpromising recruit into a man Uhtred relies on, his monkish patience concealing his father's shrewdness.