The King's Hounds

2.5 stars

A very slight mystery (two stars) set in an interesting time period (bumped up half a star). England in the last era of the Viking wars is the setting. Cnut has just finished his conquest of England, and undertakes to unite the various ethnic groups in his fractious kingdom. A murder occurs on the eve of the Witenagemot, where the assembled nobles are due to give their assent to Cnut's overlordship. The murder threatens to undo Cnut's efforts to cement the various factions in his new realm.

Enter the protagonists, Winston the Illuminator and Halfdan, his companion. Winston is a former monk, who mastered the art of manuscript illumination while a novice. He left his monastery after a falling out with the abbot, but his skills are very much in demand. He encountered Halfdan (who, as his name implies, is half Danish and half Saxon) on the road to Oxford, to which Winston has been summoned to illuminate a manuscript for Cnut's wife. Halfdan's father died fighting against Cnut in the recent war, and the small family estate that would have been Halfdan's has been taken by the king. Halfdan recognizes Cnut's right to the estate as victor in the war, but the loss of his nobility still stings.

Just after Winston and Halfdan arrive in Oxford and present themselves to the royal court, a murder is committed. After Winston makes an astute observation about the victim, Cnut orders Winston and Halfdan to solve the murder in three days.

The heart of the novel shows Winston and Halfdan negotiating not only the competing ethnic groups that have assembled to pledge fealty to the new king, but also the king himself, who may be playing a different game. Winston is portrayed as the brains of the operation (while he doesn't always communicate to Halfdan what exactly he is thinking), while Halfdan is the brawn. Halfdan himself makes a few crucial insights into the case, however.

The murder plot itself is not exactly a page-turner, and the identity of the perpetrator is not hard to figure out. There is not really a lot of tension in the book at all, despite what the king might do to Winston and Halfdan if they don't solve the murder. To be honest, for such a slight book, the pace is rather plodding. What keeps the book going and ultimately saves it, however, is the excellent description of the various groups that comprised the English “nation” at this point: Saxons, Angles, Danes, Jutes and Vikings. The tension between the groups is also felt, and their competing interests well-integrated into the story.