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Death of Kings
Bernard Cornwell
The master of historical fiction presents the iconic story of King Alfred and the making of a nation.Alfred, the great king, is said to be dying. Rivals for his succession are poised to tear the kingdom apart. The country Alfred has worked thirty years to build is about to disintegrate.Uhtred, the King’s warrior, Viking born but Saxon bred, wants more than anything else to go and fight to reclaim his stolen Northumbrian inheritance. But he knows that if he deserts the King’s cause, Alfred’s dream – and indeed the very future of the English nation – will very likely vanish.Death of Kings is an outstanding novel by a master storyteller of how England was made – and very nearly lost.
DEATH OF KINGS
BERNARD CORNWELL
Copyright (#ulink_1ed9ddfc-fb9e-5282-bf4d-87b9379a0591)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2011
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2011
Map © John Gilkes 2011
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007331802
Ebook Edition © September 2011 ISBN: 9780007331826
Version: 2017-05-05
DEATH OF KINGS
is for Anne LeClaire,
Novelist and Friend,
who supplied the first line.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u234dd35f-466d-5efa-ad75-adb9bbe556a3)
Title Page (#ub15979a5-4d10-575d-91a5-8ee47852cc2d)
Copyright (#u667e7f65-7a3b-5c1d-9e14-8f331f9f6460)
Dedication (#u1def5e2c-3d03-5c96-89a6-02deadf63090)
Map (#ucc2abaf4-d9f6-573e-a23b-2bd60f44159f)
The Royal Family of Wessex (#ub398ea0a-b1f2-5f57-bcd3-b94494a17bf4)
Place Names (#u9d5b7ffb-9676-51d6-a853-b18e170fd5bc)
Part One: THE SORCERESS (#u33b88edf-ba73-5d04-9cc3-6177b320345e)
Chapter One (#ufc01cf4a-185f-5b89-bcde-634dd3384f28)
Chapter Two (#ub3a83ca9-148b-56d0-bedc-e524a6223d43)
Chapter Three (#uf335da12-a376-5846-8b63-7cc9d23e0867)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two: DEATH OF A KING (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three: ANGELS (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Four: DEATH IN WINTER (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Bernard Cornwell (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
The Royal Family of Wessex (#ulink_a035d754-4f03-556f-aeed-33ae5b7d8a16)
PLACE NAMES (#ulink_274d939f-b8e5-5faf-9548-4f7dff99e91c)
The spelling of place names in Anglo-Saxon England was an uncertain business, with no consistency and no agreement even about the name itself. Thus London was variously rendered as Lundonia, Lundenberg, Lundenne, Lundene, Lundenwic, Lundenceaster and Lundres. Doubtless some readers will prefer other versions of the names listed below, but I have usually employed whichever spelling is cited in either the Oxford or the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names for the years nearest to AD 900, but even that solution is not foolproof. Hayling Island, in 956, was written as both Heilincigae and Hæglingaiggæ. Nor have I been consistent myself; I should spell England as Englaland, and have preferred the modern form Northumbria to Norðhymbralond to avoid the suggestion that the boundaries of the ancient kingdom coincide with those of the modern county. So this list, like the spellings themselves, is capricious.
PART ONE (#ulink_6ce8e552-5e56-5a72-84bd-23e04f82b08c)
The Sorceress (#ulink_6ce8e552-5e56-5a72-84bd-23e04f82b08c)
One (#ulink_048f89cf-8cc1-56fe-a9bf-ef0d7f24d2ba)
‘Every day is ordinary,’ Father Willibald said, ‘until it isn’t.’ He smiled happily, as though he had just said something he thought I would find significant, then looked disappointed when I said nothing. ‘Every day,’ he started again.
‘I heard your drivelling,’ I snarled.
‘Until it isn’t,’ he finished weakly. I liked Willibald, even if he was a priest. He had been one of my childhood tutors and now I counted him as a friend. He was gentle, earnest, and if the meek ever do inherit the earth then Willibald will be rich beyond measure.
And every day is ordinary until something changes, and that cold Sunday morning had seemed as ordinary as any until the fools tried to kill me. It was so cold. There had been rain during the week, but on that morning the puddles froze and a hard frost whitened the grass. Father Willibald had arrived soon after sunrise and discovered me in the meadow. ‘We couldn’t find your estate last night,’ he explained his early appearance, shivering, ‘so we stayed at Saint Rumwold’s monastery,’ he gestured vaguely southwards. ‘It was cold there,’ he added.
‘They’re mean bastards, those monks,’ I said. I was supposed to deliver a weekly cartload of firewood to Saint Rumwold’s, but that was a duty I ignored. The monks could cut their own timber. ‘Who was Rumwold?’ I asked Willibald. I knew the answer, but wanted to drag Willibald through the thorns.
‘He was a very pious child, lord,’ he said.
‘A child?’
‘A baby,’ he said, sighing as he saw where the conversation was leading, ‘a mere three days old when he died.’
‘A three-day-old baby is a saint?’
Willibald flapped his hands. ‘Miracles happen, lord,’ he said, ‘they really do. They say little Rumwold sang God’s praises whenever he suckled.’
‘I feel much the same when I get hold of a tit,’ I said, ‘so does that make me a saint?’
Willibald shuddered, then sensibly changed the subject. ‘I’ve brought you a message from the ætheling,’ he said, meaning King Alfred’s eldest son, Edward.
‘So tell me.’
‘He’s the King of Cent now,’ Willibald said happily.
‘He sent you all this way to tell me that?’
‘No, no. I thought perhaps you hadn’t heard.’
‘Of course I heard,’ I said. Alfred, King of Wessex, had made his eldest son King of Cent, which meant Edward could practise being a king without doing too much damage because Cent, after all, was a part of Wessex. ‘Has he ruined Cent yet?’
‘Of course not,’ Willibald said, ‘though…’ he stopped abruptly.
‘Though what?’
‘Oh it’s nothing,’ he said airily and pretended to take an interest in the sheep. ‘How many black sheep do you have?’ he asked.
‘I could hold you by the ankles and shake you till the news drops out,’ I suggested.
‘It’s just that Edward, well,’ he hesitated, then decided he had better tell me in case I did shake him by the ankles, ‘it’s just that he wanted to marry a girl in Cent and his father wouldn’t agree. But really that isn’t important!’
I laughed. So young Edward was not quite the perfect heir after all. ‘Edward’s on the rampage, is he?’
‘No, no! Merely a youthful fancy and it’s all history now. His father’s forgiven him.’
I asked nothing more, though I should have paid much more attention to that sliver of gossip. ‘So what is young Edward’s message?’ I asked. We were standing in the lower meadow of my estate in Buccingahamm, which lay in eastern Mercia. It was really Æthelflaed’s land, but she had granted me the food-rents, and the estate was large enough to support thirty household warriors, most of whom were in church that morning. ‘And why aren’t you at church?’ I asked Willibald before he could answer my first question, ‘it’s a feast day, isn’t it?’
‘Saint Alnoth’s Day,’ he said as though that was a special treat, ‘but I wanted to find you!’ He sounded excited. ‘I have King Edward’s news for you. Every day is ordinary…’
‘Until it isn’t,’ I said brusquely.
‘Yes, lord,’ he said lamely, then frowned in puzzlement, ‘but what are you doing?’
‘I’m looking at sheep,’ I said, and that was true. I was looking at two hundred or more sheep that looked back at me and bleated pathetically.
Willibald turned to stare at the flock again. ‘Fine animals,’ he said as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘Just mutton and wool,’ I said, ‘and I’m choosing which ones live and which ones die.’ It was the killing time of the year, the grey days when our animals are slaughtered. We keep a few alive to breed in the spring, but most have to die because there is not enough fodder to keep whole flocks and herds alive through the winter. ‘Watch their backs,’ I told Willibald, ‘because the frost melts fastest off the fleece of the healthiest beasts. So those are the ones you keep alive.’ I lifted his woollen hat and ruffled his hair, which was going grey. ‘No frost on you,’ I said cheerfully, ‘otherwise I’d have to slit your throat.’ I pointed to a ewe with a broken horn, ‘Keep that one!’
‘Got her, lord,’ the shepherd answered. He was a gnarled little man with a beard that hid half his face. He growled at his two hounds to stay where they were, then ploughed into the flock and used his crook to haul out the ewe, then dragged her to the edge of the field and drove her to join the smaller flock at the meadow’s farther end. One of his hounds, a ragged and pelt-scarred beast, snapped at the ewe’s heels until the shepherd called the dog off. The shepherd did not need my help in selecting which animals should live and which must die. He had culled his flocks since he was a child, but a lord who orders his animals slaughtered owes them the small respect of taking some time with them.
‘The day of judgement,’ Willibald said, pulling his hat over his ears.
‘How many’s that?’ I asked the shepherd.
‘Jiggit and mumph, lord,’ he said.
‘Is that enough?’
‘It’s enough, lord.’
‘Kill the rest then,’ I said.
‘Jiggit and mumph?’ Willibald asked, still shivering.
‘Twenty and five,’ I said. ‘Yain, tain, tether, mether, mumph. It’s how shepherds count. I don’t know why. The world is full of mystery. I’m told some folk even believe that a three-day-old baby is a saint.’
‘God is not mocked, lord,’ Father Willibald said, attempting to be stern.
