After a night's rest, Rurik gave his orders. Thirty Viking farmers, along with carts drawn by oxen, would carry provisions and the wounded back to Tynborg. The rest pressed onward, steel glinting beneath the pale northern sun.
By midday the host reached a rolling expanse of wild grassland. There Harry reined up, raising his arm toward a long, faint line that stretched into the horizon. Half-buried in turf and moss, it ran unbroken across hill and vale.
"My lord," he said, "that is the great wall the Romans left behind. It marches from here to the western sea."
Hadrian's Wall.
Rurik urged his grey horse forward, a memory rising in his mind like smoke from a dying fire.
In the year of our Lord 122, Emperor Hadrian had ridden north through Britain. To check the raids of the Picts—those highland tribes whom the Romans named Caledonii—he decreed a barrier unlike any seen before. From the River Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth in the west stretched a hundred and more kilometers of stone: four and a half meters high, three meters broad at the base. Towers crowned it, mile after mile, a spine of Rome herself thrust across the island.
Rurik dismounted and climbed a stair of weathered stone. A pair of sparrows burst from a crevice, leaving two soft brown feathers tumbling in the air. At the top he laid a hand upon the battlement, its surface scarred with centuries of rain and wind. Beyond spread the wide emptiness of the moor, silent and forlorn.
He felt an ache in his chest, as though he stood among the ruins of another world. Without willing it, he found himself reciting half a verse, words that belonged not to this place, not even to this tongue, but to some deeper well of memory:
"I am Ozymandias, King of Kings.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."
His gaze swept the desolate horizon. Nothing endured but broken walls and the patient grasses.
"Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
Boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
He fell silent.
Harry and Mitcham, ignorant of the language but sensing the solemnity, clapped and praised loudly, their clamor jarring the moment. Rurik shook himself from reverie and ordered the march resumed.
By late afternoon they struck their second target. The pattern repeated: the ram smashed through the outer gate. Yet this lord was canny. He and his men withdrew into a stout stone tower, prepared for a long defense.
"Hold!" Rurik barked. "Do not force the stairs."
Instead he commanded the lower floor heaped with brushwood. Smoke rolled upward, choking and stinging. Within the hour, coughing and gasping, the defenders yielded. The fight was over before the sun touched the horizon.
This manor was smaller than the first. Its wealth proved modest. The auction raised but ten pounds of silver, and the stores of grain and beasts were meagre. One prize alone delighted the men: a cellar brimming with casks of ale. That night the Vikings drank deep, singing until the rafters rang.
Dawn found them sprawled in the yard like corpses, heads pillowed on empty barrels. Rurik, surveying the ruin, sighed and granted an extra day of rest.
That single day proved fateful. Word sped across the countryside. The remaining four manors—alarmed, desperate—met in secret council. By the time the Norse resumed their march, their foes had forged a plan.
Two days later Rurik beheld four figures waiting upon the road. They were well-dressed, clearly men of standing. He narrowed his eyes, suspecting a ruse.
"So. They mean to stand together," he murmured. "Better so. We finish them all at once, and be done with this wandering."
A manor seldom yielded more than fifty fighting men. At most two hundred could these lords muster, and to Rurik such numbers were trifling.
"Form shield-wall!" he ordered, scanning the ridges for hidden troops. Yet no movement stirred the grass. He looked eastward, where pheasants scratched at seeds in the brush. So many birds, bright-feathered and unconcerned—no men lay hidden there.
At last Jorund shaded his eyes and said, "My lord, I think they mean to surrender."
Surrender? Rurik almost laughed. He had expected defiance, or some foolhardy raid against undefended Tynborg. Instead, four gentry came on foot, faces pale, and sank to one knee before him.
"My lord," they cried, "we have harbored no treason. We missed your feast through mischance only. Spare us, and our houses are yours in service."
To prove their earnestness, they offered ransom: each would pay two pounds of silver, a horse, two oxen, two pigs, and six sheep.
Rurik stroked his beard. He turned to the local elders who had followed in his train. "What say you?"
Most, though some envied the lords' estates, counseled acceptance. They wished no further bloodshed; better peace than ruin.
Rurik considered, then nodded. "So be it. We have shown strength, and now we show mercy. Let this be warning enough."
The foremost squire grasped Rurik's hand, pressing lips to the gold ring upon his finger. The others followed in turn. Then they signaled, and from behind a low ridge emerged a dozen peasants driving cattle and swine—the ransom in flesh and coin.
"Mitcham," Rurik called. "Take tally."
The new taxman bowed with oily eagerness. "Yes, my lord."
Thus ended the foray. Rurik returned to Tynborg with ninety-five raiders at his side. There he dissolved the band. Each man received five silver coins—nearly half a pound of silver in all, four hundred seventy-five pennies. Fair payment for fair service.
The Vikings, content, struck south to seek their fortunes elsewhere. At the gate they swore to spread word across the seas: in Tynborg a lord rewarded settlers with thirty acres freehold and two years without tax.
"Who knows," one grinned, "when my sword arm weakens, I may bring my kin and dwell here myself."
When the host had gone, Rurik counted his spoils. In all he had cleared thirty-one pounds of silver, one suit of mail, and sundry beasts.
He set order upon the estate. The pigs and sheep went to pens, the horses to pasture. The oxen he resolved to sell to his own people, for an ox could plough fifteen acres, and every family must have two. Payment might be spread over three years, but no man might slaughter an ox for meat.
"Let it be known," Rurik declared, "any who kills an ox without leave shall suffer heavy punishment. Even when lawful, the hide must be given over. From hides we shall fashion armor, studded with iron plates—a poor man's harness, yet better than none."
He sighed. I had hoped to raise more shieldmen. That must wait.
Shieldmen, household guards—their worth was beyond price, but so too was their upkeep. Arms, armor, and, above all, food. For his twenty he ordered daily twenty river-fish and twenty eggs, with ale on occasion to keep their loyalty.
His thoughts turned, as often, to history. He remembered a tale from the Tang dynasty. In the old days, each soldier on campaign received rations of wine, beef, rice, and bread. But Emperor Dezong, breaking this custom, gave instead coarse fare. The result was mutiny: the Jingyuan troops rose in fury, and Dezong fled Chang'an, the third emperor to abandon the capital in disgrace.
"No," Rurik muttered, "this is no place to pinch coin. The men must eat well, or the sword in their hand may turn against me. I must find wealth elsewhere."
Thus closed the campaign. Rurik had seen the mighty ruin of Hadrian's Wall, broken yet enduring; he had conquered manors by fire and silver; he had bound peasants to his cause with promises of land. Yet he knew: this was but the first step in a greater game.