183. Do Not Welcome the New Shoots.
183. Do Not Welcome the New Shoots.
The Gulf of Finland to the north froze over uniformly, drawing the passage of sled travelers.
Of course, no matter how masterful the Sámi were over the snowy plains, even they dared not race their sleds deep out onto the open sea.
Naturally, as they glided over a number of frozen inland lakes, my father-in-law's reindeer farm had become a key hub of far-northern trade.
'Far-northern trade'—the phrase sounded grand, as if Jurchen tribes might burst forth at any moment, but the actual scale was smaller than one might think.
Grain and meat chiefly traveled northward (the Sámi had little interest in olives), while hides, reindeer antlers, and occasionally fine fox furs came south.
Even wolf pelts, which everyone had thought were wiped out entirely by the shepherds of Åros's tireless efforts, appeared now and then—so unmistakably the Sámi trend this winter was hunting and trade.
In any case, thanks to the Sámi peoples' active overtures, a sauna craze had unexpectedly swept Åros.
There was plentiful stacked timber, and in the dead of winter there was little to do besides drink. Unable to sit idle, those who grew restless eventually picked a day and erected a large cabin outside the east and west gates, and under the approval and guidance of Inga, daughter of the great Sámi landowner, a reasonably passable sauna was successfully installed.
But soon the sauna failed to catch on greatly by the North Sea—owing to the Northern men's taste for cold-water bathing even in midwinter, combined with the bother of having to douse oneself with water after sweating it out in a bath.
For the sake of my disappointed wife, I did command the construction of a sauna in my newly-built god-house, which was already undergoing extensive remodeling. Still.
With the thought that people's tastes were truly inscrutable, I ordered the sauna building, so painstakingly erected, to be shut down and dismantled.
If left standing, there was no telling what sort of purpose that building might evolve into; I resolved to eliminate it before a brothel or gambling den beyond my oversight could move in.
Those very things I had just mentioned had accompanied humanity's history—but if given too much slack, all manner of tiresome trouble might arise. Therefore, keeping a proper distance, seemingly there yet not, knowingly yet pretending not to know—I judged this was the best course for now.
Probably, I reflected, to perfectly control the darker aspects of human society, one would ultimately have to accept the dominion of Brother Skynet. Or else erase sexual desire through genetic modification...
At any rate, it was on a day when I felt the somewhat lively winter gradually passing, marked by such sundry matters.
The fourth month of winter. By the solar calendar, late January of the year 868.
There was no New Year's celebration, but the farmers, far keener to seasonal changes than I, unsealed the tightly shuttered storehouses and jars to check the condition of their various seeds.
Wheat, barley, rye, oats, wild strawberries, apples, onions, garlic, dill (Dilla, a plant of the parsley family, mainly used for spice)
Smoked meats and fish, laid up so plentifully they still could not be finished. And copious amounts of drink.
In other words, they were now gradually preparing for spring—much like the warriors of Norðland, who after a brief month-long winter's rest, had returned to training.
It must have meant that the time approached for me, my brothers, and my subordinates as well, to resume the work of a Felag, a Konungr, a Jarl.
'Actually, the truth might be that everyone else was working and I was the only one loafing around.'
What more could I expect in a world without guaranteed paternity leave. It had already been two months, and the images of Inga and Sigmarr—still a newborn (?) babe—lingered before my eyes, yet overcome by Inga's insistence that Felag could not go on like this, I set out from that chamber brimming with happiness and love, heavy-hearted.
"Heck- heck- heck-"
Before the door sat Boksil, planted solidly—who had transmuted into a monster over the past two months. Now grown as large as any fair-sized hound, the creature beheld me with a vacant gaze, as if to say, 'See, master? Why aren't you going, what'cha doin'?'
"You ungrateful beast! Now that Sigmarr is here, am I suddenly no longer needed!?"
How many cuts of meat had I personally sliced for you—how could you treat me so?
"Heck- heck- heck-"
As Boksil tilted its head as if it could not fathom what I was saying and refused to budge, the two cats, Skoll and Hati, came in its stead to rub against both my feet before vanishing somewhere.
The sight gave me the wistful feeling that even the beasts were telling me to hurry off to work, but at last I moved my feet, one reluctant step after another.
*****
"Late though it may be, I offer my heartfelt congratulations on having a son, Felag!"
"My thanks, Rurik Konungr. I must also thank you once more for resolving the Karelian matter so well. It must have been no easy task—how do things stand there now?"
Rurik Konungr, who had crossed the eastern sea the moment the weather and water eased, appeared quite hale. Was it because he had sated his abundant lust for conquest? Or because he had eaten and lived well?
Thanks to Rurik, who likewise gifted my son Sigmarr a wooden sword and shield, Sigmarr already came to possess his tenth wooden sword-and-shield set. Besides that—the glittering red gem Damian had at last wrested into his hands, the purple dye sent directly by the Emperor of Eastern Rome, the high-grade quill pen and silk swaddling cloths (...) Leon had come bearing as tribute.
Setting aside thoughts of the adorable Sigmarr, once again adding entries to his list of property, I turned greater attention to Rurik's words.
"After their chieftain fell, the Karelian Finns swiftly collapsed. Beneath the marble quarries lay their stronghold, but by the stockade battle against the combined forces of the Sámi, Suomi, and Novgorod, every able warrior was either slain or taken captive. Mercifully, they accepted reality quickly—and now they are docile under the benevolent rule of Felag."
My request—to avoid inflicting unnecessary death and suffering—must have been a profoundly awkward demand from the standpoint of one actually commanding the war. Yet, as expected, Rurik and Oleg had carried it out well.
"That is glad tidings. Truly glad tidings, Rurik Konungr. Ivar and Hrólfr speak of a watercourse flowing eastward from Lake Ladoga—see that you look into it well. Full-scale trade with the Khazars could prove a great boon to Novgorod."
The place where Ivar had acquired Allah's mysterious magic ring was Atil of the Khazar Khaganate, which one reached by riding the watercourse flowing east from Lake Ladoga all the way downriver.
That place was significant not simply because it was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate which had swallowed an enormous territory, but because it enabled trade with the Abbasid Caliphate beyond.
More plainly put, it meant access to a market comparable in scale to Eastern Rome's and goods no less technologically advanced.
No matter how the land of those turbaned easterners might lack order due to maddening civil war, the flow of silver was not something human strength could arrest. Merchants would still come and go—so long as we secured reliable trading partners, it could truly become a great strength for Novgorod.
"Ah, Felag. In truth, there is something I wish to speak of relative to that."
However, the fearsome warrior-king before my eyes seemed to have a slightly different thought. Rurik, who wetted his throat with ale while watching my puzzled look, soon set down his cleanly emptied cup with care and opened his mouth, his gaze resolute.
"Felag. The watercourse east of Lake Ladoga also shall be duly offered to Felag, ruler of the North Sea."
'I said not to offer it, just let it be Novgorod's?'
"Yet Oleg and I have conceived of a new direction for advance. Naturally, this would come after striking East Frankia and the Obotrites beside it, but Novgorod shall march westward and offer the entire coastline encircling the North Sea to Felag and the goddess Hel!"
What was he saying just now?
Had the Rus' ambition for a warm-water port begun from this very moment?
Faced with this staggering aspiration, this ambition, I felt as if a cramp seized my brain, but I did not show it.
If one truly thought about it, was not the very existence of a North Sea lord who commanded all of Britain and the Rus itself the very embodiment of ambition?
Moreover, it was difficult to deem the notion mistaken—for 'west of Novgorod' meant the lands mainly settled by Slavic-affiliated peoples such as the Ests, Livs, and Letts.
Thanks to our Norse forebears who had already plied the waterways across the globe, these were faces more familiar than one might think—close enough that they had already bought and sold goods, and even seen each other's blood.
'It's not impossible, but must they...?'
The question 'Must they truly seize that place?' could not find its way out before Rurik's blazing eyes.
"I grasp your meaning well. But for the immediate present we must be devising how to fight the mighty Franks—let us ponder it a little further for now."
"Of course, Felag. I did not speak simply to draw blood. It was, in truth, recent movements of the Ests which seemed hard to fathom that prompted my thought. They seemed exactly like the Sámi and Suomi when they desired trade with the North Sea."
The Ests desired trade? That could not be right. Sat at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland opening into Novgorod, their very location was a channel through which money flowed—the Ests had naturally been trading with Norse merchants long before.
That meant they wanted something else.
What might it be?
"We must not lower our guard, for we cannot know. I do not well grasp the circumstances of the Ests, but is not a desperate person capable of anything?"
"Felag's word is just. Novgorod and Polotsk shall not relax their vigilance to the west."
Now that I considered it, the forces of Polotsk were by no means small—and from the quietude of Miroslaus, who had crossed over with Rurik, it was clear he had probed Rurik's intentions to some degree.
A man of Miroslaus's resourcefulness, who under the pretext of grain transport had built trade routes while growing acquainted with countless Sámi and Suomi chieftains, would likely have finished his calculations in his head.
Seeing signs that my subordinates, slowly realizing the true power of uniting beneath my banner, were on the verge of running wild—at such times it fell all the more to me to hold the center firm.
The burden of a Felag was heavy indeed.
"I ever place my trust in you, Rurik Konungr. Shall we then, with those gathered here today, discuss the soon-approaching spring and the war?"
Rurik and Hrólfr, Refil, Stórolfr, Leon, Miroslaus—come from the North Sea.
Konungr Bagsecg, lord of Hedeby in the land of the Jutes which could be called the front line, and my brothers Halfdan and Sigurðr.
Konungr Halfdan of Kaupang and Jarl Harald, who would take part in this war as members of the North Sea.
And even Eirik, Baldr, and Thorbjörn, who could be called my secretariat.
It was no exaggeration to say that, save for Björn and Ivar and Ubba who were over on the island of Britain, my core lieutenants stationed in the Scandinavian mainland and the east were assembled to a man.
"If Karl of West Frankia is renowned for his diplomatic skill, then Louis of East Frankia is renowned as a fine fighter, they say. Furthermore, the people of the old Saxon lands have long been part of Francia, and Hamburg is a fortress that the Frankish Carolus (Charlemagne) himself selected the site for and raised up from its cornerstone. It will be by no means easy."
Though a careless misstep might have soured the mood from the start, matters were different when the man speaking was Olaf Konungr, famed throughout Norse society.
The dominator of the kingdom of the Northern Isles of Britain, father of Jarl Tosteinn, Olaf was ostensibly Tosteinn's and my liaison and had remained in Åros to manage certain uncooperative traditionalists within Kaupang—but to my eye, it seemed he had simply retired, following Björn's example.
At any rate, because he was an important human asset who, together with Halfdan the Black and Konungr Bagsecg present here, most closely held the memories of Carolus of the Frankish Empire—a figure of what could be called my grandfather's generation—he attended today's council in a sort of advisory role.
And he spoke words that precisely met my expectations.
The East Frankish and Obotrite front, which might prove more difficult than West Frankia where I myself would move.
Once Konungr Olaf had finished speaking, the true protagonists of this war—my brothers Halfdan and Sigurðr of my own generation, and Harald of Kaupang—visibly subdued the excessive battle-heat that had risen in them.
"A warrior who is only brave dies quickly. My thanks for the wise counsel, Olaf Konungr."
"It shames me to offer such words before the strongest of all. As you may perceive, it was not counsel directed at Felag. Merely the fretful fretting of an old man."
Olaf, having splendidly fulfilled the role of steering the mood, delicately leaned back with an eloquence that carried quite a bit of Damian's air about it. I, conversely, inclined my body forward as I spoke.
'They've been drinking together often—they're growing alike.'
At this rate, old foxes might multiply further in my court.
"Now, is not war a matter of numbers? Let us begin by assembling the intelligence and start with the enemy's numbers."
""Aye, Felag!""
Amid voices that seemed to have risen in spirits somewhere, one after another parchment laden with all manner of intelligence began to be laid upon the long table.