The Pagan Lord recap

Landless and excommunicated after a violent clash with the Church, Uhtred of Bebbanburg is stripped of his Mercian estate and breaks with his son who has become a priest. With little left to lose, he leads his few warriors north to seize Bebbanburg from his cousin, but the fortress proves too strong and his assault fails. Meanwhile the Danish warlord Cnut Ranulfson, tricked into believing Uhtred stole his wife and children, raises a great army and invades Mercia. Uhtred returns to the Saxon cause and helps the Mercians and West Saxons trap the Danes at the battle of Teotanheale, where the Danish host is annihilated. Uhtred kills Cnut, but the dying warlord wounds him gravely with his sword Ice-Spite. The Saxons win a decisive victory, yet Bebbanburg is still not his, and Uhtred is left badly injured.

Earlier in the series: Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a Northumbrian noble raised by Danes and loyal to no god but Thor, was cheated of his ancestral sea fortress of Bebbanburg by his uncle and spent his life as the sword-arm of Alfred's Wessex against the Danes. Though a pagan who despises priests, he won victory after victory for the Christian Saxons, and after Alfred's death served his son, King Edward, and his daughter, Aethelflaed, the true power in Mercia and Uhtred's lover. As this book opens the Saxons hold an uneasy peace with the Danish lords of the north, and Uhtred still dreams of retaking Bebbanburg from his own kin.

Uhtred's fortunes collapse. After a violent quarrel with the Church he is excommunicated and stripped of his Mercian estate at Fagranforda, left landless with only his household warriors. He also breaks bitterly with his eldest son, who has become a Christian priest, disowning him and giving the name Uhtred instead to his younger son, a fighting man. With nothing to hold him in the south and Aethelred and the bishops set against him, Uhtred gathers his small band and turns north with a reckless purpose: to seize Bebbanburg, the fortress held now by his cousin, and reclaim the birthright taken from him as a boy.

Uhtred marches north and reaches Bebbanburg, but the great fortress is too strong; his surprise attack fails and he is forced to withdraw, his dream unfulfilled and his men few. While he is away from the Saxon lands, a graver crisis stirs. The Danish warlord Cnut Ranulfson finds his wife and children stolen and is led to believe that Uhtred is the abductor. Enraged, Cnut and his allies begin to muster for war, meaning to fall on Mercia while they think its lords divided and its greatest warrior discredited and gone.

Caught up in the plot around Cnut's stolen family, Uhtred works to untangle who truly took them and to turn the coming war to the Saxons' advantage. The Danish lords gather a great army and invade Mercia, expecting little resistance. Uhtred, though outlawed by the Church and short of men, throws himself back into the defence of the Saxon cause, racing to warn and rally the Mercian and West Saxon forces before Cnut's host can ravage the heart of the kingdom. His son fights at his side as the two armies move toward a reckoning.

The armies meet at Teotanheale, where the combined Mercian and West Saxon forces trap and destroy the great Danish army. In the slaughter Uhtred kills Cnut Ranulfson, but Cnut, dying, drives his sword Ice-Spite into Uhtred and leaves him with a terrible wound. The Danish threat to the midlands is broken and the Saxon victory is total, but Bebbanburg remains in his cousin's hands, still unreclaimed. Uhtred survives the battle gravely injured, the festering wound from Ice-Spite carrying forward as the shadow over what comes next.

The battle of Teotanheale ends in a crushing Saxon victory: the great Danish army that invaded Mercia is destroyed, and with it the immediate threat to the midlands. Uhtred personally kills the warlord Cnut Ranulfson, but in his death throes Cnut wounds Uhtred deeply with his sword Ice-Spite, an injury that will not easily heal. Aethelflaed's and Edward's cause is strengthened, and Uhtred's outlawry counts for less after so great a service. His son has proven himself a warrior in the shield wall. Yet Uhtred's lifelong ambition remains unmet: Bebbanburg still stands in his cousin's hands, his assault on it having failed. He carries away from the field a decisive victory, a proven heir, and a festering wound that will shadow his fortunes in the days to come.