It is Constantinople in 1035, and Thorgils has become a member of the Varangian lifeguard, where he witnesses the glories of the richest city on earth. He embarks on a campaign launched to recover Sicily from the Saracens. After years of traveling, Thorgils retreats to Sweden, but is eventually summoned again to assist in coordinating William the Conqueror's invasion of England. In September 1066, a Norse fleet of three hundred ships sails towards England and the battle begins. It is a prophetic dream that makes Thorgils warn the troops of the impending disaster at Stamford Bridge, but even he cannot turn aside what fate has decreedthe end of the Viking world.
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The third and final instalment in the Viking series, following the life of Thorgils Leiffson. it picks in Constantinople in 1035, and continues in the same vein as the previous books in excellently detailed and historically accurate information.
This book brings the series together and as such has rated higher individually that the others, and really is isn't a case of three books, but a single story. Woven through Thorgils' story are pretty much all the curretn events of the time, from the Varangian Guards of the Basileus (Emperor) in Constantinople, a trip to the Holy Land to visit the Anastasis (the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) in Jerusalem, Harold Sigurdsson, William ‘the Conqueror' and even a brush with a famous Shakespearean character (maybe a little early in this context?), and a whole lot of swirling old Norse Gods, Greek Gods and or course the new White Christ.
As another, more in depth reviewer pointed out, the whole story deals with the coming of Christianity, and the end to the Pagan Gods, and I will quote him here:
“It is clear from this, the third and final book in the ‘Viking' series, that the whole story hinges on the ‘threat' of the coming of Christianity (the ‘White Christ') to the previously Pagan Scandinavian lands. A coming which pretty much was the reason for the end of the Viking era. We have followed Thorgils throughout the series, but it is really first here, in number three, that it becomes clear that he too can see the writing on the wall, that Christianity is probably unstoppable. At the same time, a lot of his motivation in making the decisions he makes, is in the hope of finding a way of halting that flow of Christianity and turning the good, honest, hard-working ordinary Viking people, back to ‘the old ways'. Source: Speesh's review
Great series, very easy read.
