The young Uhtred, having helped Alfred the Great to turn Wessex into an independent Saxon kingdom, returns to the north with the purpose of finding his stepsister. But along the way he will find a land engulfed in chaos and war, and a Guthred who has gone from being a slave to a pretender to the throne. The gentlemen of the North takes the approach of the series a step further, dedicated above all to the presentation of settings, characters and political conflicts, and in this novel the ability to narrate military actions and describe their consequences, one of the signs of identity by Cornwell, shines higher, in perfectly recreated war-torn settings.