Against his will, Uhtred, the formidable warrior, is ordered to initiate conversations with the Vikings to seal the peace, but ends up discovering that they have laid a trap for him. The men who surround the king do not trust him, the Danes dream of killing him and his only trusted person, Etelfleda, Alfredo's daughter, is confined in a convent. Uhtred himself, confined to a miserable estate in Mercia, observes how the clerics closest to the king advise him a policy of pacification and conversion while, on the borders of the kingdom, the enemies of Wessex grow stronger every day. The Danes speak of peace, but they are preparing for war. They dream of seizing Wessex, the most prosperous of the Saxon territories. Rumors are running that Alfred the Great, the man who has ruled the kingdom's destiny for nearly thirty years, is dying, and there is no shortage of bad omens. Muerte de Reyes is a splendid novel about how a dream was forged, England, and how it was about to be ruined.