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, like the spellings, is capricious.
| Ætgefrin | Yeavering Bell, Northumberland |
| Alba | A kingdom comprising much of modern Scotland |
| Beamfleot | Benfleet, Essex |
| Bebbanburg | Bamburgh, Northumberland |
| Beina | River Bain |
| Cair Ligualid | Carlisle, Cumbria |
| Ceaster | Chester, Cheshire |
| Cirrenceastre | Cirencester, Gloucestershire |
| Cocuedes | Coquet Island, Northumberland |
| Contwaraburg | Canterbury, Kent |
| Dumnoc | Dunwich, Suffolk (now mostly vanished beneath |
| the sea) | |
| Dunholm | Durham, County Durham |
| Eoferwic | York, Yorkshire |
| (Danish name: Jorvik) | |
| Ethandun | Edington, Wiltshire |
| The Gewasc | The Wash |
| Godmundcestre | Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire |
| Grimesbi | Grimsby, Humberside |
| Gyruum | Jarrow, Tyne & Wear |
| Hornecastre | Horncastle, Lincolnshire |
| Humbre | River Humber |
| Huntandun | Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire |
| Ledecestre | Leicester, Leicestershire |
| Lindcolne | Lincoln, Lincolnshire |
| Lindisfarena | Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland |
| Lundene | London |
| Mældunesburh | Malmesbury, Wiltshire |
| Steanford | Stamford, Lincolnshire |
| Strath Clota | Strathclyde |
| Sumorsæte | Somerset |
| Tinan | River Tyne |
| Use | River Ouse (Northumbria), also Great Ouse (East |
| Anglia) | |
| Wavenhe | River Waveney |
| Weallbyrig | Fictional name for a fort on Hadrian’s Wall |
| Wiire | River Wear |
| Wiltunscir | Wiltshire |
| Wintanceaster | Winchester, Hampshire |
It began with three ships.
Now there were four.
The three ships had come to the Northumbrian coast when I was a child, and within days my elder brother was dead and within weeks my father had followed him to the grave, my uncle had stolen my land and I had become an exile. Now, so many years later, I was on the same beach watching four ships come to the coast.
They came from the north, and anything that comes from the north is bad news. The north brings frost and ice, Norsemen and Scots. It brings enemies, and I had enemies enough already because I had come to Northumbria to recapture Bebbanburg. I had come to kill my cousin who had usurped my place. I had come to take my home back.
Bebbanburg lay to the south. I could not see the ramparts from where our horses stood because the dunes were too high, but I could see smoke from the fortress’s hearths being snatched westward by the wild wind. The smoke was being blown inland, melding with the low grey clouds that scudded towards Northumbria’s dark hills.
It was a sharp wind. The sand flats that stretched towards Lindisfarena were riotous with breaking waves that seethed white and fast towards the shore. Further out the waves were foam-capped, their spume flying, turbulent. It was also bitterly cold. Summer might have just come to Britain, but winter still wielded a keen-edged knife on the Northumbrian coast and I was glad of my bearskin cloak.
‘A bad day for sailors,’ Berg called to me. He was one of my younger men, a Norse who revelled in his skill as a swordsman. He had grown his long hair even longer in the last year until it flared out like a great horsetail beneath the rim of his helmet. I had once seen a Saxon seize a man’s long hair and drag him backwards from his saddle, then spear him while he was still flailing on the turf.
‘You should cut your hair,’ I told him.
‘In battle I tie it up!’ he called back, then nodded seawards. ‘They will be wrecked! They’re too close to shore!’
The four ships were following the shore but struggling to stay at sea. The wind wanted to drive them ashore, to strand them on the flats, to tip them there and break them apart, but the oarsmen were hauling on their looms as the steersmen tried
