The Landwaster: A Story of Harald Hardraada

Meet The Scraeling....... 'The most dangerous little bugger alive' is how the terrible Landwaster, Harald Hardraada, describes his chief of staff, The Scraeling, and this novel chronicles part of his story. Torn at fifteen from a convent devastated by a viking raid, the cripple derisively nicknamed 'The Scraeling' uses his intellect, his learning and his organisational skills not just to survive in a world that prizes strength and savagery above all else, but to become indispensable to the band and its ruthless leader. Ironically, the Landwaster is unaware of just how right he is, for The Scraeling's secret, unswerving and lifelong purpose is not only to betray his fearsome master but to end the day of the viking itself. In his own words, "I smile at him, flatter him, counsel him and plan for him so that he may lean on me as upon a staff. And one day his staff will turn in his hand and kill him and his as they killed mine . . ." This is the story of his long journey to adulthood and a terrible revenge, a journey that sees him become a byword for cunning, for planning and for outwitting his fellow man. The adult Scraeling pits these skills against the most rapacious band of pagans who ever walked the earth to the embarrassment of its Creator . . . It's no secret that Harald Hardraada died outside York at the hand of one of the three warriors who contended for the English throne in 1066, but the Scraeling's part in that has certainly been overlooked by history. Until now . . . What reviewers have said of this story: '.... fiction and fact are blended so skillfully that there is no dividing line.... ' 'There's a powerful music in the writing, not just in the songs of the skalds.' 'As well-plotted as the crippled boy's plan, as absorbing as the history it tells, as vivid as that dark and distant world and as immediate as the present, Michael Burr's novel brings the magic of the Vikings to fearsome life and leaves the reader breathlessly turning pages for more.' 'The Landwaster' is a graphic, brutal and explicit novel about violent, determined and ruthless people exercising unfettered power. It's not for the faint-hearted nor the squeamish, but then neither were vikings nor the Byzantine court . . .