Once the spoils had been divided, King Erik began the building of ships. More than eight hundred Vikings, laden with wealth, followed him back to the north, while the remaining twelve hundred chose to settle in Britain.
After bidding farewell to their comrades, Ragnar persuaded the nobles to spend the winter in York.
"Only twelve hundred remain—far too few to hold so vast a land. If we scatter too soon, we will only weaken ourselves."
"His Majesty speaks wisely," Leonard agreed. With scarcely eighty men left after most of his following returned home, he had no intention of marching off to take Mancunium with so small a force.
The other nobles reached the same conclusion: better to wait until spring, when fresh waves of Norse settlers would cross into Britain, and only then assume possession of their fiefs.
Once consensus was reached, Ragnar ordered the city's defenses repaired and the countryside pacified. Upon learning that Prince Ælla was mustering troops in the south, he led eight hundred warriors against him.
Poorly armed and dispirited, Ælla's force stood no chance. Ragnar's men won an easy victory, and the prince barely escaped with his life.
Watching him flee on horseback, Ragnar had meant to jeer at the pitiful sight, but the words died in his throat. Instead, a strange unease gripped him: a sense that this fugitive would one day prove a grievous thorn in his side.
For that reason, Ragnar pursued him for more than a month as the leaves yellowed and fell. Ælla's support dwindled day by day, until at last he slipped into the kingdom of Mercia.
With the first snow, Ragnar returned to York. During that lull he set himself to study Old English under Paschal's tutelage.
To his surprise, the king proved a gifted linguist, second only to Rurik—the acknowledged genius among them.
"It seems I was born for languages," Ragnar declared with satisfaction.
Yet learning Old English was only the beginning. The written tongue of the West remained Latin, and to fulfill his kingly duties Ragnar must master that too, along with arithmetic. From dawn till dusk he bent to his lessons, sighing that this new life was far harsher than he had ever imagined.
"He who wears the crown must bear its weight," Rurik replied coolly. "This is only the beginning. You will have far more burdens yet to come."
Ragnar's grumbling did not sway him. Rurik continued to drill his vocabulary. Though he had spoken modern English in his former life, a millennium's distance made Old English nearly a different language altogether.
Still, he persevered. A ruler ignorant of his subjects' tongue would inevitably be deceived by stewards and taxmen, who would fatten themselves at the people's expense—leaving the king the poorer in the end.
Winter gave way to spring. Ice melted, rivers ran free, and more Norsemen arrived in Northumbria by the week.
By early April, Rurik had gathered a hundred freebooters seeking plunder, and two hundred settlers who wished to till the soil. Among them he found familiar faces from Gothenburg—his old neighbor Jorund and twenty others.
They told him the winter past had been bitter beyond measure. Many had frozen to death, and those who remained could endure no longer. So they had crossed the sea to begin anew.
"Thank you for placing your trust in me," Rurik said gravely. "Each household shall have thirty acres of land. For two years, you will pay no taxes."
When the Romans withdrew from Britain in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons crossed over from northern Germany, driving out the Celts. Land was abundant and people few; each family could claim as much as 120 acres, a unit of measure known as a hide.
Times changed. The average yeoman's holding shrank. Thirty acres came to be called a virgate. Above them stood the great landlords; below, poor peasants, tenants, and serfs struggling on the edge of subsistence.
(According to the Domesday Book of the eleventh century, nearly nine percent of England's population lived as serfs.)
Thus Rurik's offer of thirty acres was warmly received by the two hundred farmers. As for the roving swordsmen who wanted silver, not soil, he pledged they would see their fill of plunder—or else he would pay them from his own purse.
With men enough secured, he drew up a detailed list of provisions and submitted it to Ragnar's newly appointed chamberlain, Gunnar.
"Old friend, I have but sixty pounds of silver. Pray, be lenient."
"Easily done," Gunnar drawled from a reclining chair in the palace garden, camellias bright around him. Two Anglo-Saxon girls tended him with soft hands. He could scarcely be bothered to rise.
"Take what you wish. Bring me the bill when you're done."
Thwarted in his bid for real power, Gunnar had sulked for half a year, feigning indifference. When Leonard and Ulf had come for supplies, he had mocked them mercilessly until the matter reached Ragnar himself—yet the king's rebuke had been little more than perfunctory.
Rurik, unwilling to quarrel, thanked him curtly and led his new shield-bearers to the armoury.
Every Viking went to sea with shield and axe. Rurik had no shortage of such weapons. What he needed was armour. For his twenty guardsmen, he requisitioned:
Twenty suits of worn iron scale
Twenty iron helmets
Fifty longbows and two thousand arrows
Under the eyes of four Anglo-Saxon clerks, the men hauled the gear to waiting wagons. Rurik also bought grain and iron tools for tillage.
When all was ready, he returned to Gunnar, who was still entwined with his maidens, to ask about livestock.
"They're all penned east of the city," Gunnar answered lazily, pulling his hand free of a girl's gown. He beckoned two clerks. "Pay first. These men will take you."
He rose long enough to inspect the carts. "Is that all? Barely forty pounds' worth of silver. Why not take more?"
"A modest household," Rurik sighed. "Not like Leonard, with coffers overflowing. Fifteen pounds remain for livestock. The last five must not be touched—I've promised my raiders that if plunder falls short, I will make up the loss myself."
At that, Gunnar's sour humor lifted. Perhaps the so-called great lords lived no more grandly than he. After a moment's thought, he let Rurik take several bolts of cloth besides.
"You'll need a banner when you march north to claim your fief. Think of this as a gift from me."
"Farewell, brother," Rurik said.
He bought ten horses and forty oxen from the eastern pens, set his affairs in order, and led his company northward, bound at last for his new lands.