The Last Kingdom

With the coming of the spring, the Norse forces head to the coast. To honor Ragnar, they will return to Denmark to bury his son. They stop at occupied York, where Ragnar’s party is greeted by a surly and disrespectful Kjartan, the former shipbuilder in Ragnar’s army whose son had disrespected Ragnar’s daughter. The meeting is by any measure awkward.

Once in Denmark, Uhtred enjoys the beautiful landscape and the hospitality of the Danes, but news from England reaches them that Alfred is gathering his armies to rid England of the Danish occupation. It is time to put down the Saxon resistance once for all and claim the entire English island for the Danes. Understanding that returning to England will mean he will be expected to fight as a man, Uhtred learns the intricacies of manning the shield wall, a Viking military tactic in which the men, wearing only leather armor and helmets, gather close and crouch behind their overlapping leather shields as a way to repel an attack and advance as one. It was a crude strategy but effective unless the wall was breeched at any point; then, the results could be catastrophic. 

Rumors abound of growing tensions in the English kingdoms that the Danes occupy. Before the winter, Ragnar prepares to return his armies to England and takes up residence in York. During the celebration of the Yule Feast, after a night of drinking and games, Uhtred slips off to the woods to meet a girl for a night of sexual abandon. While he is gone, to his horror, troops loyal to Kjartan sneak in, trap Ragnar’s court and his family inside the palace, and set the building on fire. Half-awake and stumbling into his tunic by the light of raging flames, Uhtred cannot believe the dimension of the conflagration, certain that Ragnar is now dead. Uhtred vows revenge on Kjartan: “I did not know how, I did not know where, I could not know when, but I would revenge Ragnar” (199). It is, along with his vow to destroy his treacherous uncle, another blood feud. His patron dead, Uhtred lives in a “well of misery, tempted to despair” (201). He is riven by guilt over his failure to be with his adoptive father and has no choice but to head south and join the Saxons.

He is welcomed when he joins a Saxon camp near Cirrenceastre (modern-day Cirencester), some 70 miles southwest of London. Almost immediately, he fights in his first shield wall against a rouge band of Welsh cattle thieves. The experience of such close hand-to-hand brutality and the sense of camaraderie enlivens Uhtred. He can barely contain his enthusiasm: “The joy of it. The sword joy. I was dancing with joy, joy seething in me” (211). Uhtred has found his calling.

In short order, Alfred sends a messenger commanding Uhtred’s presence in Winchester, the capital of the West Saxon kingdom. It is late summer and two years since the victory at Ashdown, and the time has come to rid England of the Danes. When Uhtred arrives at Winchester, Alfred tells him that the Saxons are building an armada to attack the Danes, but he frets that the Saxons were better sailors than fighters. He needs a warrior like Uhtred at the helm. Uhtred agrees to fight for Alfred, pledging his service for one year. Looking back, the narrating Uhtred sees this vow as the tipping point for his adolescence. He no longer wavers between his Norse and Saxon identities. His destiny now is to fight for a united England against the Danes who were directly responsible for his losing his patrimony in the first place.

It is 875, and the Saxons sail to Wessex to engage the swelling Norse occupation forces; waves of Danish ships have been arriving weekly. Before heading into the campaign, Uhtred agrees to marry Mildrith, a deeply religious Saxon girl he has never met who is the daughter of a local district chief.

In the first naval engagement with the Danes, the Saxons surprise the Norse and massacre several crews, leaving a “bloody pile on the tide” (241). The fight for a free Britain has begun.

As his year of pledged service ends, Uhtred re-pledges fealty to Alfred, although he still finds the king disturbingly weak and pious. A Saxon victory is the only way Uhtred can conceivably reclaim his rightful place as lord of Bebbanburg. He understands that any position of authority in Alfred’s army will require that he be able to read. So, reluctantly, he dedicates himself in the off season between military campaigns to learning the alphabet. It is as laborious and demanding as his sword and axe drills long ago. Once he can read, however, he knows that he is a Saxon now.