Askeladd

About Askeladd

Askeladd leads a hundred Viking mercenaries with brains as sharp as his sword. Half-Welsh and haunted by his slave mother's suffering, he despises the Danish world he serves and hides a grand design behind drinking, jokes and cruelty. He kills Thors by trickery, keeps the vengeful Thorfinn as a useful knife, and becomes the boy's twisted mentor, the most dangerous and fascinating man in Thorfinn's life.

Appearance

Askeladd is a lean, sharp-featured man in his forties with swept-back blond hair, a trimmed beard and amused, heavy-lidded eyes that miss nothing. He dresses better than his men, a fine cloak, good armour and a well-kept sword, and carries himself with the lazy confidence of someone who is never surprised. His real name, Lucius Artorius Castus, is reflected in his bearing: he looks less like a pirate than a king in exile, which is exactly how his mother raised him to see himself.

Personality

Askeladd is brilliant, theatrical and utterly ruthless. He lies as easily as he breathes, drinks heavily, and treats war as a game of people-reading he always wins. Beneath the performance sits real bitterness: raised by a mother driven mad by slavery, he despises the Danish Viking world he serves and dreams of the Welsh homeland and the returning King Arthur she promised him. He is capable of genuine attachment, to his men, to Canute, even to Thorfinn, but he buries it under mockery until the very end.

Background & Story

Askeladd was born to a Welsh noblewoman captured and enslaved by the Viking Olaf, who named their son for the legendary king his mother worshipped. As a boy working for a blacksmith he earned the nickname Askeladd, 'covered in ash', and at eleven he proved himself to his father by violence, earning a place among the Vikings he quietly hated. He built a mercenary band of about a hundred men and survived for decades on intelligence rather than strength. Ten years before the main story, the Jomsviking Floki hired him to kill the deserter Thors; Askeladd won by trickery, taking Thors' head-price and, eventually, Thors' son as a weapon. When his band joins the invasion of England and captures the young Prince Canute, Askeladd sees the instrument his mother's legend has been waiting for, and begins moving kings like pieces.

Powers & Abilities

• Master Swordsman: Askeladd is one of the finest swordsmen in the series, quick and precise, and able to duel Thorfinn and Thors on skill even without their raw power.
• Reading People: His true weapon is insight: he predicts enemies' moves in and out of battle by understanding exactly what they want and fear.
• Tactician and Leader: His small band repeatedly defeats larger forces through ambushes, feigned retreats, hostages and perfectly timed betrayals.

Key Relationships

• Thorfinn: His victim's son and his tool; Askeladd uses the boy's revenge as a leash while becoming, in spite of everything, a twisted father figure to him.
• Bjorn: His loyal second-in-command and the closest thing he has to a friend, a fact Askeladd only admits at the very end.
• Canute: The prince Askeladd decides to make a king, seeing in Canute the ruler who could change the world his mother dreamed of.
• Thors: The one man who beat him fairly; Askeladd killed him by trickery and respects his memory more than he respects most living men.
• Floki: The Jomsviking who hired him to kill Thors, a business arrangement between two men who would happily ruin each other.

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