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Benfleet, Essex Bearddan Igge Bardney, Lincolnshire Bebbanburg Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland Bedehal Beadnell, Northumberland Beorgford Burford, Oxfordshire Botulfstan Boston, Lincolnshire Buchestanes Buxton, Derbyshire Ceaster Chester, Cheshire Ceodre Cheddar, Somerset Cesterfelda Chesterfield, Derbyshire Cirrenceastre Cirencester, Gloucestershire Coddeswold Hills The Cotswolds, Gloucestershire Cornwalum Cornwall Cumbraland Cumbria Dunholm Durham, County Durham Dyflin Dublin, Eire Eoferwic York, Yorkshire Ethandun Edington, Wiltshire Exanceaster Exeter, Devon Fagranforda Fairford, Gloucestershire Farnea Islands Farne Islands, Northumberland Flaneburg Flamborough, Yorkshire Foirthe River Forth, Scotland The Gewæsc The Wash Gleawecestre Gloucester, Gloucestershire Grimesbi Grimsby, Lincolnshire Haithabu Hedeby, Denmark Humbre River Humber Liccelfeld Lichfield, Staffordshire Lindcolne Lincoln, Lincolnshire Lindisfarena Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland Lundene London Mærse River Mersey Pencric Penkridge, Staffordshire Sæfern River Severn Sceapig Isle of Sheppey, Kent Snotengaham Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Tameworþig Tamworth, Staffordshire Temes River Thames Teotanheale Tettenhall, West Midlands Tofeceaster Towcester, Northamptonshire Uisc River Exe Wiltunscir Wiltshire Wintanceaster Winchester, Hampshire Wodnesfeld Wednesbury, West Midlands

       The Royal Family of Wessex

       PART ONE

       The Abbot

       One

      A dark sky.

      The gods make the sky; it reflects their moods and they were dark that day. It was high summer and a bitter rain was spitting from the east. It felt like winter.

      I was mounted on Lightning, my best horse. He was a stallion, black as night, but with a slash of grey pelt running down his hindquarters. He was named for a great hound I had once sacrificed to Thor. I hated killing that dog, but the gods are hard on us; they demand sacrifice and then ignore us. This Lightning was a huge beast, powerful and sullen, a warhorse, and I was in my war-glory on that dark day. I was dressed in mail and clad in steel and leather. Serpent-Breath, best of swords, hung at my left side, though for the enemy I faced that day I needed no sword, no shield, no axe. But I wore her anyway because Serpent-Breath was my companion. I still own her. When I die, and that must be soon, someone will close my fingers around the leather-bindings of her worn hilt and she will carry me to Valhalla, to the corpse-hall of the high gods, and we shall feast there.

      But not that day.

      That dark summer day I sat in the saddle in the middle of a muddy street, facing the enemy. I could hear them, but could not see them. They knew I was there.

      The street was just wide enough for two wagons to pass each other. The houses either side were mud and wattle, thatched with reeds that had blackened with rain and grown thick with lichen. The mud in the street was fetlock deep, rutted by carts and fouled by dogs and by the swine that roamed free. The spiteful wind rippled the puddles in the ruts and whipped smoke from a roof-hole, bringing the scent of burning wood.

      I had two companions. I had ridden from Lundene with twenty-two men, but my mission in this shit-smelling, rain-spitted village was private and so I had left most of my men a mile away. Yet Osbert, my youngest son, was behind me, mounted on a grey stallion. He was nineteen years old, he wore a suit of mail and had a sword at his side. He was a man now, though I thought of him as a boy. I frightened him, just as my father had frightened me. Some mothers soften their sons, but Osbert was motherless and I had raised him hard because a man must be hard. The world is filled with enemies. The Christians tell us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek. The Christians are fools.

      Next to Osbert was Æthelstan, bastard

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