I just finished the first last kingdom book, so have some of my favourite descriptions, etc:
"Alfred gave me an intense look which, to be honest, made me uncomfortable. I was to discover in time that he was a clever man, very clever, and thought twice as fast as most others, and he was also a serious man, so serious that he understood everything except jokes. Alfred took everything heavily, even a small boy, and his inspection of me was long and searching as if he tried to plumb the depths of my unfledged soul."
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"'A soldier who reads,' Alfred said patiently, 'is a soldier who can read orders, a soldier who will know what his king wants. Suppose you are in Northumbria, Uhtred, and I am in Wessex, how else will you know my will?'
That was breathtaking, though I was too young to realise it at the time. If I was in Northumbria and he was in Wessex then I was none of his damned business, but of course Alfred was already thinking ahead, far ahead, to a time when there would be one English kingdom and one English king. I just gaped at him and he smiled at me."
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"I settled in southern Mercia. I found another uncle, this one called Ealdorman Æthelred, son of Æthelred, brother of Æthelwulf, father of Æthelred, and brother to another Æthelred who had been the father of Ælswith who was married to Alfred."
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"I met Æthelflaed before I left Wintanceaster. She was three or four years old, I suppose, and full of words. She had bright gold hair. She was playing in the garden outside Alfred's study and I remember she had a rag doll and Alfred played with her and Ælswith worried he was making her too excited. I remember her laugh. She never lost that laugh. Alfred was good with her for he loved his children. Most of the time he was solemn, pious and very self-disciplined, but with small children he became playful and I almost liked him as he teased Æthelflaed by hiding her rag doll behind his back."
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"Æthelwold was Alfred's oldest nephew, the boy who should have succeeded his father, King Æthelred, though he was no longer a boy for he was only a month or so younger than me, and in many ways he was like me, except that he had been sheltered by his father and by Alfred and so had never killed a man or even fought in a battle. He was tall, well-built, strong and as wild as an unbroken colt. He had long dark hair, his family's narrow face, and strong eyes that caught the attention of serving girls. All girls, really."
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"He (Alfred) was always a sick man. He had collapsed in pain at his wedding, though that might have been the horror of realising what he was marrying, but in truth he was prone to bouts of sudden gripping agony."
so yeah, there ye have it :)
stormborns
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annaxmalina
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