Sword Song (The Saxon Stories #4) - Bernard Cornwell

This series continues to be a delight for me and I'm surprised it's been so long since I finished book 3, Lords of the North. You see, I listened to the first three books on audio and although I've never seen the man, I have a complete voice crush on the narrator of the first three books. So when Sword Song was not available in audio I thought I'd wait and see if my library got it in. It didn't. So then I finally got around to requesting the kindle version of the book, and it popped into my queue so here we are.

I had forgotten a lot of the plot from Lords of the North, but thankfully my review of that book (read it here) was uncharacteristically detailed regarding the plot. 

Sword Song picks up with Uhtred manning his burh at Coccham. It's part of a series of defensive cities designed by Alfred to protect Wessex. And Uhtred is doing a good job because when it's military related, everyone knows that Uhtred knows his stuff. He's living happily with his wife Gisela, the daughter of the Viking king of Northumberland. They have two children and all is well. Which means that things for Uhtred are about to get a little bit worse. 

A report arrives that the Thurgilson brothers have taken the city of Lundene (London) and along with Haesten (a thoroughly unthankful a-hole who Uhtred would have been better off to let die) they intend to make a play for all of Mercia and Wessex. 

Alfred is smart but he's also kind of an a-hole so he marries his sweet daughter, Aethelflaed, off to Uhtred's butt kissing insecure cousin Aethelred, who somehow accepts that being less than the King of Mercia is an okay trade for being Alfred's man in Mercia. Alfred is trying to strengthen his position, but in order to do so, he extracts a promise from Uhtred that Uhtred will deliver Lundene as a wedding present to his cousin and Alfred's daughter. Oh Uhtred, he's always making these crazy promises.

In the meantime, the brothers, Sigefrid and Erik, along with Haesten, conspire to convince Uhtred that HE could be King in Mercia, if he only joins forces with them and convinces Ragnar to come down from Northumbria to join them. Uhtred considers because honestly he gets not respect, but ultimately Uhtred is more loyal than Alfred or anyone else give him credit.

So Uhtred comes up with a plan to take Lundene and in the meantime Aethelred takes out his insecurities on his incredibly young wife by beating her for perceived indiscretions with other men. Uhtred is NOT having that. He may be very violent and understand pillage and rape in the context of war, but hitting your wife is not acceptable behavior to Uhtred. 

So it's no surprise that Aethelred's insecurities lead to Aetheflaed being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being kidnapped by Sigefrid. Uhtred has to come up with a plan to rescue her or all of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, etc it's all royally F'd. And I'll just stop there.

The thing about these stories is that it's basically non-stop action and I really like the writing. And Uhtred is just a great character, but so is Father Pyrlig. So there's so much to like about these books. I even read it to myself in the narrators voice. So all was not lost. And now I can get the 5th book (also not in audio format from my library :()

4/5 Stars