WAR LORD Bernard Cornwell Copyright HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020 Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2020 Map © John Gilkes 2020 Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020 Cover photography © CollaborationJS/Arcangel Images Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. 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. 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Source ISBN: 9780008183950 Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2020 ISBN: 9780008183974 Version: 2020-09-15 Dedication War Lord is for Alexander Dreymon Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Place Names Map Part One: The Broken Oath Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Part Two: The Devil’s Work Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Part Three: The Slaughter Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Thirteen Epilogue Historical Note Author Note Keep Reading … About the Author Also by Bernard Cornwell The SHARPE series About the Publisher PLACE NAMES 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 Dictionary of English Place-Names or the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names for the years nearest or contained within Alfred’s reign, AD 871–899, 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 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 of places mentioned in the book is, like the spellings themselves, capricious. Bebbanburg Bamburgh, Northumberland Brynstæþ Brimstage, Cheshire Burgham Eamont Bridge, Cumbria Cair Ligualid Carlisle, Cumbria Ceaster Chester, Cheshire Dacore Dacre, Cumbria Dingesmere Wallasey Pool, Cheshire Dun Eidyn Edinburgh, Scotland Dunholm Durham, County Durham Eamotum River Eamont Eoferwic York, Yorkshire Farnea Islands Farne Islands, Northumberland Foirthe River Forth Heahburh Whitley Castle, Cumbria Hedene River Eden Hlymrekr Limerick, Ireland Jorvik Norse name for York Lauther River Lowther Legeceasterscir Cheshire Lindcolne Lincoln, Lincolnshire Lindisfarena Lindisfarne Island, Northumbria Lundene London Mærse The Mersey Mameceaster Manchester Mön Isle of Man Orkneyjar Orkney Islands Rammesburi Ramsbury, Wiltshire Ribbel River Ribble Scipton Skipton, Yorkshire Snæland Iceland Snotengaham Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Sumorsæte Somerset Strath Clota Strathclyde Suðreyjar Hebrides Temes River Thames Tesa River Tees Tinan River Tyne Tuede River Tweed Wiltunscir Wiltshire Wir River Wyre Wirhealum The Wirral, Cheshire Map PART ONE The Broken Oath One Chain mail is hot in summer, even when covered with a pale linen shift. The metal is heavy and heats relentlessly. Beneath the mail is a leather liner, and that is hot too, and the sun that morning was furnace hot. My horse was irritable, tormented by flies. There was hardly any wind across the hills that crouched under the midday sun. Aldwyn, my servant, carried my spear and my iron-bound shield that was painted with the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg. Serpent-Breath, my sword, hung on my left side, her hilt almost too hot to touch. My helmet, with its silver wolf’s head crest, was on the saddle’s pommel. The helmet would encase my whole head, was lined with leather, and had cheek-pieces that laced over my mouth so all an enemy would see were my eyes framed in battle-steel. They would not see the sweat or the scars of a lifetime of war. They would see the wolf’s head, the gold about my neck, and the thick arm rings won in battle. They would know me, and the bravest of them, or the stupidest, would want to kill me for the renown my death would bring. Which is why I had brought eighty-three men to the hill, because to kill me they would have to deal with my warriors too. We were the warriors of Bebbanburg, the savage wolf pack of the north. And one priest. The priest, mounted on one of my stallions, wore no mail nor carried a weapon. He was half my age, yet already showed grey at his temples. He had a long face, clean-shaven, with shrewd eyes. He wore a long black robe and had a golden cross hanging from his neck. ‘Aren’t you hot in that dress?’ I growled at him. ‘Uncomfortably,’ he said. We spoke in Danish, his native language and the tongue of my childhood. ‘Why,’ I asked, ‘am I always fighting for the wrong side?’ He smiled at that. ‘Even you can’t escape fate, Lord Uhtred. You must do God’s work whether you wish it or not.’ I bit back an angry retort and just stared into the wide treeless valley where the sun glared off pale rocks and shivered silver from a small stream. Sheep grazed high on the eastern hillside. The shepherd had seen us and was trying to move his flock south away from us, but his two dogs were hot, tired and thirsty and they panicked the sheep rather than herded them. The shepherd had nothing to fear from us, but he saw riders on the hill and saw sunlight glinting from weapons and so he feared. Deep in the valley the Roman road, now little more than a track of beaten earth edged with half-buried and overgrown stones, ran straight as a spear-haft beside the stream before bending west just beneath the hill where we waited. A hawk circled above the road’s bend, the still wings tilting to the warm air. The far southern horizon shimmered. And from the shimmer one of my scouts appeared, galloping hard, and that meant only one thing. The enemy was coming. I took my men and the one
