SWORD OF KINGS
Bernard Cornwell
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2019
Map © John Gilkes 2019
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © CollaborationJS/Arcangel Images (helmet/foreground and horse detail in background) and Shutterstock.com (all other 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.
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Source ISBN: 9780008183899
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 9780008183912
Version: 2019-08-29
Dedication
Sword of Kings is for
Suzanne Pollak
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Place Names
Map
Part One: A Fool’s Errand
One
Two
Three
Four
Part Two: City of Darkness
Five
Six
Seven
Part Three: The Field of Barley
Eight
Nine
Ten
Part Four: Serpent-Breath
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Historical Note
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.
Andefera
Andover, Wiltshire
Basengas
Basing, Hampshire
Bebbanburg
Bamburgh, Northumberland
Beamfleot
Benfleet, Essex
Caninga
Canvey Island, Essex
Ceaster
Chester, Cheshire
Celmeresburh
Chelmsford, Essex
Cent
Kent
Cestrehunt
Cheshunt, Hertfordshire
Cippanhamm
Chippenham, Wiltshire
Colneceaster
Colchester, Essex
Contwaraburg
Canterbury, Kent
Cyningestun
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
Crepelgate
Cripplegate, London
Dumnoc
Dunwich, Suffolk
East Seax
Essex
Elentone
Maidenhead, Berkshire
Eoferwic
Saxon name for York, Yorkshire
Fæfresham
Faversham, Kent
Farnea Islands
Farne Islands, Northumberland
Fearnhamme
Farnham, Surrey
Ferentone
Farndon, Cheshire
Fleot, River
River Fleet, London
Fughelness
Foulness, Essex
Gleawecestre
Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Grimesbi
Grimsby, Lincolnshire
Hamptonscir
Hampshire
Heahburh
Fictional name for Whitley Castle, Cumbria
Heorotforda
Hertford, Hertfordshire
Humbre, River
River Humber
Jorvik
Danish name for York, Yorkshire
Ligan, River
River Lea
Lindcolne
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lindisfarena
Lindisfarne, Northumbria
Ludd’s Gate
Ludgate, London
Lupiae
Lecce, Italy
Lundene
London
Mameceaster
Manchester
Ora
Oare, Kent
Sceapig
Isle of Sheppey, Kent
St Cuthbert’s Cave
Cuddy’s Cave, Holburn, Northumberland
Strath Clota
Kingdom in south-west Scotland
Suðgeweork
Southwark, London
Swalwan Creek
The Swale, Thames Estuary
Temes, River
River Thames
Toteham
Tottenham, Greater London
Tuede, River
River Tweed
Weala, brook
The Walbrook, London
Werlameceaster
St Albans, Hertfordshire
Westmynster
Westminster, London
Wicumun
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Wiltunscir
Wiltshire
Wintanceaster
Winchester, Hampshire
Map
PART ONE
A Fool’s Errand
One
Gydene was missing.
She was not the first of my ships to vanish. The savage sea is vast and ships are small and Gydene, which simply meant ‘goddess’, was smaller than most. She had been built at Grimesbi on the Humbre and had been named Haligwæter. She had fished for a year before I bought her and, because I wanted no ship named Holy Water in my fleet, I paid a virgin one shilling to piss in her bilge, renamed her Gydene, and gave her to the fisherfolk of Bebbanburg. They cast their nets far offshore and, when Gydene did not return on a day when the wind was brisk, the sky grey, and the waves were crashing white and high on the rocks of the Farnea Islands, we assumed she had been overwhelmed and had given Bebbanburg’s small village six widows and almost three times as many orphans. Maybe I should have left her name alone, all seamen know that you risk fate by changing a ship’s name, though they know equally well that a virgin’s piss averts that fate. Yet the gods can be as cruel as the sea.
Then Egil Skallagrimmrson came from his land that I had granted to him, land that formed the border of my territory and Constantin of Scotland’s realm, and Egil came by sea as he always did and there was a corpse in the belly of Banamaðr, his serpent-ship. ‘Washed ashore in the Tuede,’ he told me, ‘he’s yours, isn’t he?’
‘The Tuede?’ I asked.
‘Southern shore. Found him on a mudbank. The gulls found him first.’
‘I can see.’
‘He was one of yours, wasn’t he?’
‘He was,’ I said. The dead man’s name was Haggar Bentson, a fisherman, helmsman of the Gydene, a big man, too fond of ale, scarred from too many brawls, a bully, a wife-beater, and a good sailor.
‘Wasn’t drowned, was he?’ Egil remarked.
‘No.’
‘And the gulls didn’t kill him,’ Egil sounded amused.
‘No,’ I said, ‘the gulls didn’t kill him.’ Instead Haggar had been hacked to death. His corpse was naked and fish-white, except for the hands and what was left of his face. Great wounds had been slashed across his belly, chest and thighs, the savage cuts washed clean by the sea.
Egil touched a boot against a gaping wound that had riven Haggar’s chest from the shoulder to the breastbone. ‘I’d say that was the axe blow that killed him,’ he said, ‘but someone cut off his balls first.’
‘I noticed that.’
Egil stooped to the corpse and forced the lower jaw down. Egil Skallagrimmrson was a strong man, but it still took an effort to open Haggar’s mouth. The bone made a cracking sound and Egil straightened. ‘Took his teeth too,’ he said.
‘And his eyes.’
‘That might have been the gulls. Partial to an eyeball, they are.’
‘But they left his tongue,’ I said. ‘Poor bastard.’
‘Miserable way to die,’ Egil agreed, then turned to look at the harbour entrance. ‘Only
