Winston, a Saxon scribe and manuscript illuminator who left
a monastery and Halfdan, a young man of mixed Danish and
Saxon blood, meet in the woods during the reign of Danish
King Cnut Sweynsson over all England. Lawless men and
troops of Vikings tramp the land, and the two men decide
they are safer to travel together, even if that puts
Halfdan in reach of Winston's mule's teeth. While Winston
has a trade Halfdan has none, except surviving, since his
family's land was annexed.
THE KING'S HOUNDS is translated from the Danish but
brilliantly captures the time in an easily flowing
adventure story. We hear of thanes and athelings,
housecarls and ealdormen, but all titles are explained
sufficiently. The pair have to ford the Thames at Oxford,
a town of thatched roofs and a church dedicated to St.
Frideswide. Here Winston has a commission waiting and he
engages Halfdan as his guard and servant. London and
Oxford hate the conquering Danes, and the Danish King hates
the towns right back. He has decided to summon a meeting to
broker peace, in order to impose taxes called heregeld.
Cnut's new wife, the Lady of Northampton, is the one who
has summoned Winston, which puts the pair right inside the
wary Danish camp.
A local man named Osfrid who has a more personal grudge
against Cnut is found dead and bundled into a shed. In
order not to breach the tenuous peace the king instructs
Winston and Halfdan, as outsiders, to investigate the death
and find the guilty party.
There's a lot to amuse us in this earthy tale. The West
Saxons don't talk to the South Saxons, the East Anglians,
Mercians or Northumbrians, while the Danes and Vikings say
all the English tribes look alike to them. Charms worn
include silver crosses and hammers, for each religion, and
even older gods are invoked by some for safe river
crossings. Halfdan is experienced with swords while
Winston can read so they complement each other well. The
Witenagemot, English parliament, and the Thing, the Danish
version, are being convened and asked to agree that Cnut is
accepted as ruler - early democracy in action. Martin
Jensen has written twenty-one novels but this is the first
to be translated to English. Tara Chace has also
translated for writers including Jo Nesbo and has made a
splendid job of THE KING'S HOUNDS.
The first in the bestselling Danish series of historical
mysteries
The newly crowned King Cnut of Denmark
has conquered England and rules his new empire from Oxford.
The year is 1018 and the war is finally over, but the
unified kingdom is far from peaceful.
Halfdan’s
mixed lineage—half Danish, half Saxon—has made him a pauper
in the new kingdom. His father, his brother, and the land he
should have inherited were all taken by the new king’s men.
He lost everything to the war but his sense of humor. Once a
proud nobleman, Halfdan now wanders the country aimlessly,
powered only by his considerable charm and some petty theft.
When he finds an unlikely ally in Winston, a former monk, he
sees no reason not to accept his strange invitation to
travel together to Oxford. Winston has been commissioned to
paint a portrait of the king at the invitation of his new
wife, and the protection of a clever man like Halfdan is
well worth its price in wine and bread.
But when
the pair’s arrival in court coincides with news of a murder,
the king has a brilliant idea: Why not enlist the newly
arrived womanizing half-Dane and the Saxon intellectual to
defuse a politically explosive situation? The pair
represents both sides of the conflict and seem to have
crime-solving skills to boot. In their search for the
killer, Halfdan and Winston find seduction, adventure, and
scandal in the wild early days of Cnut’s rule.
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