The Lords of the North recap

Done with Alfred's meagre gratitude after Ethandun, Uhtred rides north to Northumbria seeking revenge on Kjartan, his foster father's killer, and on his usurping uncle. He frees an enslaved young Dane, Guthred, who is raised to Northumbria's throne by scheming churchmen, and falls in love with Guthred's sister Gisela. Guthred repays him with betrayal: to buy his uncle Aelfric's support, he sells Uhtred to a slaver. Uhtred spends over two years chained at an oar beside the Irish fighter Finan, who becomes his closest friend, until Ragnar, his Danish foster brother, is sent to find and free him. Restored, Uhtred takes his revenge in order: Dunholm falls by stealth and daring, Thyra's dogs savage her captors, Ragnar kills Kjartan in single combat, and Sven the One-Eyed dies too. Uhtred kills the warlord Ivarr in a duel, securing Guthred's throne, and marries Gisela, whose forced proxy marriage to Aelfric was never consummated. Vengeance done, he remains oath-bound to Alfred - and Bebbanburg still waits.

Previously: Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Saxon-born and Danish-raised, was captured as a boy by Earl Ragnar the Fearless after his father died fighting the Danes; his uncle Aelfric usurped Bebbanburg. The shipmaster Kjartan - banished after his son Sven assaulted Ragnar's daughter Thyra - burned Ragnar alive in his hall and carried Thyra off; Kjartan and the one-eyed Sven have never answered for it. Uhtred went south, entered King Alfred's service, and killed the warlord Ubba at Cynuit, though Odda the Younger stole the credit. In The Pale Horseman, Uhtred raided the coasts with his friend Leofric and took the Cornish shadow queen Iseult as his lover; when Guthrum's midwinter attack overran Wessex, Uhtred stood by the fugitive Alfred in the Athelney marshes and fought in the front rank at Ethandun, the battle that saved the last English kingdom - a victory that cost Leofric and Iseult their lives. Rewarded thinly once again, and with his foster brother Ragnar the Younger held hostage in the south, Uhtred now looks north, where Kjartan squats in the fortress of Dunholm and two blood debts wait to be paid.

Uhtred turns his back on Alfred's Wessex and rides north into Northumbria with the former nun Hild for company, intent on revenge against Kjartan the Cruel and his son Sven, who rule from the rock-fortress of Dunholm, and on his uncle Aelfric, who holds stolen Bebbanburg. On the road he frees a young Danish slave named Guthred - who, to Uhtred's astonishment, is soon proclaimed king of Northumbria, pushed onto the throne by churchmen who want a biddable Christian ruler. Uhtred becomes the new king's warrior and adviser, and falls for Guthred's sharp-eyed sister Gisela. But the north is not Guthred's to rule: the real powers are the warlords, above all Ivarr of the Lothbrok line, and Dunholm sits untouchable on its rock, with Ragnar's captive sister Thyra somewhere inside.

Guthred's fragile kingship is squeezed between the Danish warlords and the ambitions of the Church, and the men around the throne conclude that Uhtred is a price worth paying. To buy the support of Uhtred's uncle Aelfric of Bebbanburg, Guthred betrays the man who made him king: Uhtred is seized and sold to a slave trader, and Gisela is promised to Aelfric, married to him by proxy. Chained at the oar of Sverri's trading ship, stripped of name, sword, and rank, Uhtred endures over two years of brutal servitude. His one gain in that misery is the man chained beside him - Finan, a quick, indomitable Irish warrior, with whom he shares every humiliation and plots impossible vengeance. The friendship forged at that oar will last the rest of his life.

Deliverance comes from the south: Ragnar the Younger, released from his hostageship, is sent to hunt down the slaver's ship, and Uhtred and Finan are freed and restored. Hild has kept Uhtred's sword Serpent-Breath in trust for him. Recovered and re-armed, Uhtred returns to Northumbria a harder man, and finds the board changed: Gisela's proxy marriage to Aelfric remains unconsummated, and Uhtred removes the churchman obstructing its annulment, killing him, and takes Gisela as his wife. With Ragnar beside him and the blood debt to Kjartan still unpaid, the brothers turn at last toward Dunholm, the fortress on its river-looped rock that no army has ever taken, where Kjartan, Sven, and the captive Thyra wait.

The book closes with vengeance and a settled north. Dunholm falls not to siege but to stealth and daring: Uhtred leads a small party inside the defences, and in the chaos Thyra - broken by years of captivity - unleashes Kjartan's own savage dogs against his men. Ragnar meets Kjartan in single combat and kills him, refusing to let him die with a sword in his hand, denying him Valhalla; Sven the One-Eyed dies as well. The burning of Ragnar the Fearless is finally avenged. Then Uhtred deals with the last great power of the north: he provokes the warlord Ivarr into single combat, kills him, and - to keep Ivarr's followers from turning on the victors - grants the dying man his sword. Guthred's throne is secure. Uhtred ends the book married to Gisela, with Finan sworn to his service and his childhood's debts paid in blood - but Bebbanburg still belongs to his uncle, and his oath to Alfred still binds him to Wessex.

The book ends with the blood debts of Uhtred's childhood finally paid. Dunholm, Kjartan's supposedly impregnable fortress, falls to a daring assault in which Uhtred and Ragnar's men get inside the defences; Thyra, Kjartan's long-held captive, turns her ferocious guard dogs against her captors during the fight. Ragnar kills Kjartan in single combat and denies him a sword in his hand as he dies, shutting him out of Valhalla, and Sven the One-Eyed also meets his end - the burning of Ragnar the Fearless is avenged at last. Uhtred then faces the greatest remaining power in the north, Ivarr of the Lothbrok line: he goads Ivarr into single combat, kills him, and grants the dying man his sword. Guthred's throne in Northumbria is secure, now resting openly on the swords that saved it. Uhtred has married Gisela, having killed the obstruction to annulling her sham proxy marriage to his uncle Aelfric, and holds her at last. He ends the book avenged and wed, with Finan the Irishman bound to his service, Bebbanburg still in his uncle's hands, and his oath to Alfred of Wessex waiting to pull him south again.