“We should be kings again,” Ælfric, my uncle, said. “It doesn’t matter what they call us,” my father said curtly, “so long as they obey us,” and then he made Ælfric swear on the comb of Saint Cuthbert that he would respect the new will and acknowledge me as Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Ælfric did so swear. “But it won’t happen,” my father said. “We shall slaughter these Danes like sheep in a fold, and we shall ride back here with plunder and honor.”
