The Last Kingdom

“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

“It’s the richest kingdom,” he said, “but that doesn’t make it strong. Men make a kingdom strong, not gold.”

A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

I would be Earl Uhtred and Rorik and his older brother would hold other strongholds, and Ragnar would be a great lord, supported by his sons and by Bebbanburg, and we would all be Danes, and Odin would smile on us, and so the world would go on until the final conflagration when the great gods fought the monsters and the army of the dead would march from Valhalla and the underworld give up its beasts and fire would consume the great tree of life, Yggdrasil. In other words everything would stay the same until it was all no more. That was what Rorik thought, and doubtless Ragnar thought so, too. Destiny, Ravn said, is everything.

“They’ll besiege us,” he said, “but we’ll win and then Ledecestre will be ours and so will Mercia.” He spoke very calmly, as though there could be no possibility of defeat.

Rorik stayed in the town while I rode with his father. That was because Rorik was sick again, struck by cramping pains in his belly so severe that he was sometimes reduced to helpless tears. He vomited in the night, was pale, and the only relief came from a brew of herbs made for him by an old woman who was a servant of the bishop.

and that once the ship was under way the

The grim work, the blood feast, the song

And the day after the wall collapsed we gave God his chance to fulfill Beocca’s prayers.