Leofric

Leofric is a Saxon warrior serving Wessex, gruff and battle-hardened, with no patience for piety or courtly manners. He is thrown together with the young Uhtred as a fighting companion, watching him with wary suspicion at first, sizing up whether this half-Dane can actually be trusted in a shield wall.

Adrian Bower plays him as pure flint — sardonic, foul-mouthed, allergic to priests and politics — which makes him the show's dry counterweight to all the oath-taking and destiny talk. The friendship that grows between him and Uhtred feels earned precisely because Leofric gives nothing away easily.