The Pagan Lord. Bernard Cornwell

is capricious.

Æsc’s Hill	Ashdown, Berkshire
Afen	River Avon, Wiltshire
Beamfleot	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