The Last Kingdom

The narrator recalls his childhood. It is 866, and Uhtred (born Osbert) is only 10. He is the second son. His family has long occupied a commanding fortress in Bebbanburg along England’s northern coast in the kingdom of Northumbria, one of four kingdoms that makes up England. The fortress is perceived to be impregnable.

A roving, three-boat raiding party of Norsemen invades Northumbria. In the ensuing bloody battle, Osbert’s older brother Uhtred is captured and summarily beheaded by Ragnar the Fearless. Shaken but determined to continue the family line, Uhtred’s father rechristens Osbert with his own (and his brother’s) name. So, the boy becomes Uhtred.

The Danish marauders live up to their reputation as brutal and vicious. They are relentless in their invasion of Northumbria and quickly Eoferwic (modern-day York) falls. In the defense of the city, Uhtred’s father is killed. The boy, swept up in the chaos of the fighting, knows only one thing: he wants to kill Danes. During the confusion, Uhtred actually comes face to face with Ragnar, the Danish warlord responsible for the death of his brother. Armed only with a practice sword, the boy gamely challenges the warlord. Impressed by the child’s spirit and courage, Ragnar takes the child under his protection, determined to make the boy a thrall—a kind of glorified slave.

So begins Uhtred’s life among the Danes. He is aware that, because of his status as a Saxon, he’s seen as an outsider regarded with suspicion. He suffers the unwarranted antagonism of Sven Kjartan, the son of one of the most respected shipbuilders in Ragnar’s retinue. But Uhtred is reassured no harm will come to him. “Ragnar likes you,” he is told by one of the lord’s closest confidantes, “and Ragnar gets what he wants” (35).

Uhtred is put to work doing menial chores for the occupational army. The Norsemen’s language and customs, particularly their religion and their gods, are all strange to him as he was born and raised an English Christian. “We’ll make a Dane of you yet” (39), Ragnar assures him.

As winter approaches, more Danish ships arrive; Uhtred counts more than 30. He realizes the Danes have come to England to stay. During the long and bleak winter, Uhtred begins to learn the Danish ways of war, practicing how to wield the broadsword and the axe and learning the economics of precision strokes. One morning, when Ragnar’s daughter, the fetching Thyra, is reported missing, Uhtred goes out in search of her. He finds her in a clearing in the woods, having been kidnapped by Sven, who gives every indication he intends to ravage her. Indeed, when Uhtred finds her in the clearing, Sven has already bound the terrified girl and cut away the top of her tunic.

Without thinking of himself, Uhtred charges into the clearing and frees Thyra. When they return to Ragnar’s hall, the boy is embraced as a hero, although Uhtred is certain that Sven would never have dared to actually violate Ragnar’s daughter. Ragnar promises to teach Uhtred the ways of the Danish warrior. Ragnar summons Sven and Kjartan, the offending boy’s father. Out of loyalty, Ragnar does not have them executed. Instead, he dismisses Kjartan from his court and blinds Sven in one eye (fitting, he says, because the boy only partially exposed Thyra).

Despite now being part of Ragnar’s court, Uhtred is still uncertain of who he is. He decides he will be a sceadugengan, a fantastic creature he learned about as a child. They are known as the shadow-walkers, neither alive or dead, part man, part shadow, able to move in and out of places without being in danger, both there and not there.

With the coming of spring, Uhtred mans one of Ragnar’s warships, The Wind-Viper, as the Danes begin their move down the eastern coast to Mercia. The Mercians quickly fall to the savage expeditionary force, “young men with wild hair, wild beards, and hungry faces” (65), Uhtred himself among them now. Village by village, the Danes advance, Uhtred acting as translator of Ragnar’s demands for absolute surrender.

When rumors fly that two of the English kingdoms, Mercia and Wessex, might join in an alliance to make a stand against the Danes, Uhtred agrees to act as a spy and infiltrate the approaching English lines. As he moves about the English encampment, he overhears a man, kneeling in prayer, wailing over the sin of sleeping with a servant girl. Uhtred is unimpressed by the man because he sees a weakness in such Christian piety that the Danes would not tolerate. This is his first glimpse of Alfred, one of the leaders of the gathering Wessex army.

Uhtred returns to tell Ragnar of the relatively weak English position. When others among the Danes doubt Uhtred’s allegiance, he clutches a medallion of Thor and pledges himself to the Norse. “I am a Dane now” (75). Ragnar believes the boy and vows that, under his care, Uhtred will become a mighty Norse warrior, invaluable as a liaison with the English who Ragnar believes will fall to him one kingdom at a time.