10.
10.
"Stop! Everyone stop! Lord, merciful heaven... Ceda! I said stop it!"
"But Archbishop Ceolnoth! Those are Northmen...! They'll kill us all!"
"I said stop! You there, take the bow from Ceda's hands at once and send him down below!"
When I blocked an arrow that came flying without the slightest warning, irritation flared up inside me. 'Was this a situation to brush off with, "Whoops, nearly died there, eh?"?'
But as I watched the scuffle unfolding atop the wall, the unpleasant feelings that had been quietly needling my brain melted away as if washed clean.
'This was all the original sin of the Northmen, so who could I curse now...'
If I had been the first Dane to set foot on this land, that would be one thing, but my predecessors had already wreaked utter havoc, so I had better set aside any hope of a friendly gesture from the Angles and Saxons, at least.
'Anyway, the Archbishop, was it.'
The Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a familiar ring to it. I couldn't quite remember, but it felt as if I had heard it once in my previous life. Was he someone important, perhaps?
"Listen here, Dane! I shall apologize for the earlier discourtesy. Fortunately, thanks to your extraordinary strength, no one was hurt, so why not simply withdraw!"
The space between the high wall and us, arrayed before it. Through that tension-fraught space, the old man's vigorous voice resounded, echoing strongly.
'If he celebrated Mass with that voice, at least no one would fall asleep in the middle. Wait, but did they even hold Mass at this time? What did Catholics even do when they went to church in the first place? They sang a lot, I recall...'
I had little connection to religion, truth be told. Wasn't the 21st century the splendid age of reason? The age when man went out into space. Not knowing about religion was no hindrance to living.
...
What exactly did I know? Damn it, I had even finished a four-year university, yet nowhere had I ever learned the history or religion of this era—9th-century Europe.
"As you can see, this place is nothing but the wall built by old Rome and the feeble people within! Yet this is a place whose safety is guaranteed by the Cyning of Wessex, Æthelberht, so if you act foolishly, you will feel his wrath!"
Æthelberht Cyning of Wessex. Hm. I had never heard of him. I briefly met eyes with the Archbishop, who stood rigidly upright atop the thick wall, striving to maintain the most composed expression possible.
'That man was bluffing, wasn't he?'
Though I was somewhat blind to this period of the world, I nonetheless had something to rely on. Namely, the abilities bestowed upon me by Europa Kings.
These six attributes—broadly divided into Stewardship, Martial, Diplomacy, Learning, Intrigue, and Prowess—were applied to me by some unfathomable standard when I was transmigrated into this world, but one thing I had learned over seventeen winters was that my ability to read others' intentions and perceive the truth was exceptional.
Hiding the truth before my eyes was nigh impossible, and that old Archbishop was, for some reason, more afraid of us than was warranted.
"Ivar, do you know anything about Wessex?"
"Wessex? One of the kingdoms our neighbors the Saxons built."
I stared blankly at Ivar as he smoothly stepped out from behind me and spoke with perfect composure. Wasn't that information too obvious? Would I really be asking that with arrows flying at us?
"...Hm. The Cyning must have changed again in the meantime. When I last came to this land, the Cyning of Wessex was named Æthelwulf."
With that halfway satisfactory answer, I abandoned any expectation of more useful information from Ivar's mouth and stepped forward toward the Archbishop on the wall.
"O Archbishop of Canterbury, and people of Canterbury! I am Helgi Ragnarsson of Árós!"
Tension was a word that seemed nonexistent to me. Not because I was an extreme attention-seeker, but because of the various traits inherent in this body. Would a magnanimous spirit that could calmly scratch its back even as an axe-blade fell upon its head be shaken by merely speaking a few words?
Yet the people of Canterbury, upon receiving my voice that seemed to reverberate over mountains and sea, appeared greatly shaken indeed. First, I had to dispel their fear. Having come and seen for myself, I understood. That wall truly could not be taken with six hundred men.
Then at the very least, even if we could not be friends, I ought to improve their disposition toward me a little.
'Looking at it realistically, there was no way whatsoever to get over that wall with six hundred men right now.'
Excluding the two hundred left behind to guard the ships moored at Dover and to watch for any possible betrayal by Eadbert, we had six hundred warriors here. On the other hand, the Canterbury soldiery I could see atop that great wall alone numbered over three hundred at a rough estimate. How many more lay behind, I could not well gauge.
Considering this was their home ground, the very sight of us threatening such a large fortress was utterly absurd.
This was likely evidence of just how great the terror our predecessors had left upon them truly was.
"I did not come here to fight! To prove it, I shall now lay down the shield and spear in my hands!"
"Helgi!"
I heard Ivar's voice urgently trying to dissuade me from one step behind, but I laid down shield and spear without hesitation. And for good measure, the fine Frankish sword gifted by my father as well.
"I shall neither burn your lands nor take your people as slaves!"
Those people probably did not know that I could snatch a flying arrow with my bare hands, but in any event, this performance of mine seemed to dilute slightly the invisible, tightly-strung tension between Canterbury and us. However, the Archbishop, who even from a distance looked as though his stubbornness was prodigious, barred me from approaching the wall any further.
"Enough, enough! I can see that you truly desire to speak, son of Ragnar... Helgi!"
The Archbishop's eyes, which had inserted a subtle hesitation on my father's name, were filled with even greater tension.
'This man knows my father.'
"Your father Ragnar—do you mean Ragnar, Konungr of the Danes, son of Sigurd?!"
Konungr of the Danes. Ragnar.
The people on the wall began to murmur at that name. A name that evoked animosity in some, wariness in others, and united all in fear.
"Yes. O Archbishop. Do you know my father?!"
"...Of course. How could I forget that name? The name of Ragnar, the plunderer of Paris...! Ah, what has come at last, O Ella of Northumbria. Now what on earth is to be done about this matter?"
Uttered almost in passing, the Archbishop's murmured words to himself could not elude my beast-like hearing.
"There is not a soul here who does not know your father! Helgi, son of Ragnar! Then you have come to avenge your father! But this Canterbury has no connection whatsoever to Northumbria! We are merely poor lambs under the protection of the Cyning of Wessex!"
That was enough. I had heard all I needed to hear. I had hoped a little, but any negotiation seemed to have fallen through. Canterbury had absolutely no intention of sharing bread and salt with us.
"I understand, O Archbishop of Canterbury! We shall withdraw now!"
I turned my back on the wall without any lingering regret. Then I saw Ivar, precisely about fifteen paces away, picking up the shield I had dropped and warily watching for any arrow that might fly.
At the sight of him rolling his eyes that way, a laugh leaked out of me, and a smile spread across my face as I bent down to pick up my spear and sword again.
"So, my clumsy Lawspeaker brother. Regrettably, the conversation did not go well, I take it?"
Ivar extended the shield, waggling his eyebrows mischievously.
"Ivar, are you comparing me to those hidebound Lawspeakers? Those men would eat their meals according to law as well."
"Hahaha! They're the ones who even take their seats at the Thing according to the old laws. But that was not my meaning, Helgi. It's just that the way you spoke with that old man was exactly as stiff as a Lawspeaker."
The conversation between brothers, with people still strung tight enough not to un-nock their arrows behind us, was exceedingly tranquil.
"Did I not say so? That gaining friends in this land would be difficult."
"Even so, it was not entirely fruitless, Ivar."
At my earnest tone, Ivar's eyes glinted for an instant.
"Oh?"
Ivar, who had signaled the warriors waiting in ranks with shield and spear to return to Dover, marched in the midst of the column and jabbed me in the side.
"What did you find out from your talk with that old man?"
"First of all, clumsy efforts at making friends won't work. These people know Father's name all too well."
At my answer, Ivar puffed out his chest proudly, snorting.
"Father is indeed the warrior of whom Valhalla would be most proud."
At those words, the shoulders of the warriors advancing around us in escort seemed to tense with strength as well.
'That was not a compliment.'
Because of that fame, our expedition would likely face countless battles ahead. No, rather, these warriors of Odin would wish for just that. Bloody fighting.
Fortunately, I, a warrior of Hel, and my personal retinue had little intention of going to Valhalla, so we were a bit more composed and rational.
"Secondly, the Konungr—no, the Cyning of Wessex, for some reason or other, would be in no position to support this Kent."
"Oho—."
This time it seemed a more intriguing topic, for Ivar's eyebrows arched into a wide 'V'.
"It was Æthelberht, was it? The Cyning of Wessex."
Ivar, who had been briefly pulling from inside his clothes the coin engraved with the face of Ella, Cyning of Northumbria, and fiddling with it, nodded.
"Good. Once we reach Dover, let us confirm this information with our collaborator, Earl Eadbert."
"And after that?"
Mischief filled Ivar's eyes again as he stubbornly persisted in calling Eadbert 'Iadeuberteu'.
"If your guess proves true. There would be no need to target that place surrounded by those absurd walls. Not right now, that is."
Leaving behind that meaningful final remark, the commander of the vanguard, Ivar, continued.
"We should leave Dover to Sigurd, who will follow after, and head further up ourselves. Helgi."
"Further up, you say?"
"The kingdom of the Angles in the east—East Anglia. Let us go there."
"Good."
And thus, our next destination was decided.
*****
865 AD. The third month of summer. An unnamed shore of the Kingdom of East Anglia.
Earl Eadbert of Dover did not know much either.
The founder of the current Wessex dynasty came from the Kingdom of Kent, but that was already several generations past, and the present reality was that Winchester had established itself as the seat of Wessex kings, so the relatively remote Earl of Dover was excluded from the center.
In truth, as I understood it, it was questionable whether such a 'center' even existed. First of all, in this age, from a 21st-century sensibility, there was no such thing as a national capital; wherever the king went, moving about with the seasons and his retinue, that place became the political center; and where a great cathedral stood, or where the roads and forts the old Roman Empire had laid out remained, that area became a regional center.
In any case, as a result of Eadbert diligently questioning the merchants who boldly traveled as far as Wessex and the Kingdom of Mercia beyond, we learned the following facts.
'Æthelberht Cyning of Wessex did not have many days left to live.'
Likely the next king of Wessex would be his younger brother Æthelred. Æthelberht had two young sons who could not yet even speak properly, but Germanic law did not grant the kingship to a child. Of course, when those children grew a little older and reached an age to think for themselves, the situation would grow complicated...
'What mattered to me right now was that Wessex truly had no spirit to spare to look elsewhere. At least not until Æthelred succeeded to the throne and some time passed.'
In any age, a stable succession was difficult, and in the case of the current Germanic chiefdoms, which were infinitely far from absolute kingship, it was even harder to find a man who had descended from the throne with his life intact.
No, that problem was hard to avoid even for the Roman Empire, the Islamic empires, and even the far-flung Eastern states.
In other words, this meant that an opportunity had opened for us Northmen to gain great advantage on the island of Britain.
The summer wind was warm, and the shore of the Kingdom of East Anglia was a soft sandy beach, unlike Dover in the Kingdom of Kent. And that golden sand gently received our Norse longships, as if asking why we had only just come.
Much as it had received the Angles and Saxons roughly three hundred years before.