The Lords of the North - Bernard Cornwell

The year is 878 and Wessex is free from the Vikings. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord, helped Alfred win that victory, but now, as The Lords of the North begins, he is disgusted by Alfred’s lack of generosity and repelled by the king’s insistent piety. He flees Wessex, going back north to seek revenge for the killing of his foster father and to rescue his stepsister, captured in the same raid. He needs to find his old enemy, Kjartan, a renegade Danish lord who lurks in the formidable stronghold of Dunholm.

Uhtred arrives in the north to discover rebellion, chaos and fear. His only ally is Hild, a West Saxon nun fleeing her calling, and his best hope is his sword, with which he has made a formidable reputation as a warrior. He will need the assistance of other warriors if he is to attack Dunholm and he finds Guthred, a slave who believes he is a king.

If Guthred is to rule Northumbria he needs Uhtred and Ragnar, the Dane who is Uhtred’s sworn brother. Guthred, though, is weak and yields to treachery. Uhtred ends up on a slave voyage to Iceland. His rescue comes through an unlikely alliance of his friends and enemies. In the end it is Alfred the Great of Wessex who sees profit in Northumbria’s despair and looses Uhtred and Ragnar onto Dunholm, the invincible fortress on its great spur of rock in the lawless north.

The Lords of the North, like Bernard Cornwell’s two previous novels in this tale of England’s making, is based on real events. It is a powerful story of betrayal, romance and struggle, set in an England of turmoil, upheaval and glory. Uhtred, a Northumbrian raised as a Viking, a man without lands, a warrior without a country, has become a splendid, heroic figure.