The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Stories, #2)

by Bernard Cornwell

Such is ambition. If I could not rise with Ragnar then I would make my reputation with Alfred.

He left me angry. He had meant to leave me angry.

of course the Danes would want Æthelwold. Whenever they captured a Saxon kingdom they appointed a Saxon as king, and that gave their conquest a cloak of legality, though the Saxon never lasted long.

The world began in chaos and it will end in chaos. The gods brought the world into existence, and they will end it when they fight among themselves, but in between the chaos of the world’s birth and the chaos of the world’s death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckles of a harness.

“Mama says Iseult is an aglæcwif.” She stumbled over the word, then grinned in triumph because she had managed to say it. I said nothing. An aglæcwif was a fiend, a monster.

“If you had an army of angels, lord,” Pyrlig went on, “then a rousing speech about God and Saint Augustine would doubtless fire their ardor, but you have to fight with mere men, and there’s nothing quite like greed, revenge, and selfishness to inspire mortals.”