When it came to raising revenue, Rurik's first thought was to open new enterprises. Tyneburg lay upon the northern bank of the river, an ideal site for a water-powered mill and a water-driven sawmill.
He spent half a day sketching a rough design, then summoned the smith's son, Kadel, together with two peasants skilled in carpentry.
"I intend to build a watermill," Rurik told them. "See to it. When it is done, there will be a reward."
"A mill?" Kadel repeated. The youth, only seventeen years old, had arrived two days earlier with a bag of tools slung across his back. Short and broad-shouldered, with a sharp, lively gaze, he took the parchment from Rurik and studied it.
"I've seen such a thing," he said at last. "As a child I went with my father to work at a monastery. They had every kind of contrivance—wells, gardens, vineyards, a watermill, even a fulling mill. Their rule was always to build close to rivers, so they might harness the water."
Rurik nodded, satisfied. "Good. If you need hands or supplies, come to me directly."
Taking up the task, Kadel led the two part-time carpenters to the riverside. Once the site was chosen, he began to summon back the memory of what he had seen in that monastery.
A mill's workings were, in truth, simple: the current drove a wooden wheel, which turned a vertical shaft, which in turn set the millstones grinding.
But comparing this principle to Rurik's sketch, Kadel found the design far more intricate. Four gears in all, some with notations demanding iron fittings.
"Is all this really necessary?" he muttered, tugging at his hair, before going to ask his lord.
"This is a design I learned in the Eastern Roman lands," Rurik replied evenly. "It is more efficient than the common kind. If you doubt yourself, fashion a small wooden model first, understand the mechanism, and only then attempt the full construction."
So the youth obeyed. For the next six weeks he wrestled with the problem, often turning to Rurik for rudimentary lessons in mechanics—levers, pulleys, and the like. At last, through hard labor, he produced a model half a man's height.
"Ha! I've done it!"
He squatted by the riverbank, watching the millstones turn under the push of the current, and bellowed his triumph across the Tyne until the waterfowl rose shrieking from the reeds.
Suddenly, four longships appeared downstream, heavily laden with more than two hundred Vikings.
"The raiders are here!" Kadel cried, abandoning his model and running for his life. His panic set off a stampede: peasants dropped their tools in the fields, snatched up children, and drove livestock toward Tyneburg's gates.
Though many of these farmers were Norsemen themselves, they were not so foolish as to trust strangers of the same blood. In Scandinavia, Viking bands often fell upon their own kin; greed had little regard for kinship.
From the watchtower on Tyneburg's southeastern corner, Rurik gazed down in vexation at the milling crowd by the gate. "Clear those wagons from the way," he ordered the shield-guards. "Let the people through. Arm the able-bodied men. Send the women and children into the hall—they're not to be wandering the streets."
These peasants were a sorry sight. Though fleeing for their lives, many refused to leave a single possession behind—one man even staggered under the weight of a wooden table. Rurik could only shake his head.
Turning his eyes back to the river, he stroked his beard in thought.
"Who in the gods' name has come to rob me? What could they hope to gain from this barren land?"
The territory boasted but sixty-one Anglo-Saxon households and sixty-three Norse, together scarcely four hundred seventy souls. Little enough to tempt raiders.
The only true wealth lay in Rurik's hoard of forty-one pounds of silver, two mail hauberks, twenty suits of scale armor, and the dragon-forged sword at his side.
"Fortunately," he mused, "I've dug a moat beyond the walls this past month. With that and the palisade, two hundred men should not be impossible to withstand."
Within minutes the four ships grounded on the shore, and their crews—more than two hundred—leapt down, formed a shield-wall, and advanced slowly toward Tyneburg's eastern wall.
At seventy paces, Rurik loosed an arrow into the ground before them, then raised his voice. "I am Rurik Hákonsson, lord of Tyneburg, invested by King Ragnar himself. This land is poor; better you turn south in search of richer plunder."
From the shield-wall stepped a towering figure. He came forward ten paces, called out, "Are you Rurik, the God-Chosen?"
"We've no quarrel," the man continued. "We seek to go south and join King Ragnar, but we have lost our way."
Lost your way? Rurik thought grimly. Had I been slower, you'd have gladly mistaken me for your prey.
He mastered his temper and pointed them onward: follow the coast southward; pass the mouth of the Tees, then the great marshland, and beyond it the Humber estuary, where another lord held sway.
"So it is," the man replied with a sheepish smile. "We hail from Sweden's eastern shore. This is our first voyage to Britain. Yet we are not wholly mistaken—one among us has sought you out."
From behind the shields emerged a dark-robed figure. Rurik knew him at once: the Crow-Speaker, whom he had glimpsed once before.
"As I foretold," the seer cried, lifting back his hood to reveal a pallid, fever-bright face. "The gods' omens are fulfilled! You will conquer Northumbria entire, achieving what none before you have dared!"
He chanted the names of Ragnar, Ivar, and Rurik, until the ranks behind him thundered like an assembly of devotees.
"God-Chosen!"
"Serpent of the North!" —for they mistook Rurik's dragon-sigil for some vast snake.
"Elect of the Æsir!"
By now, Rurik reckoned a battle unlikely. He ordered the shield-guards to drive out one ox, two swine, six sheep, with bread and mead besides, and bid the strangers feast.
Food and strong drink, together with the Crow-Speaker's ravings, did their work: a quarter of the newcomers chose to remain and settle under Rurik's banner. The rest, learning he had no campaign planned, departed cheerfully to seek fortune further south.
The next day, with stores replenished, the longships drifted away to the sound of their rowing-songs.
"Let Ragnar trouble himself with their appetites," Rurik muttered, rubbing at the dark circles beneath his eyes.
When he counted the stores, the wine-cellar stood bare, the last barrel of mead drained. Half the grain was gone as well—barely enough to last until the autumn levy. He would need to borrow from the local gentry.
Wearily, he mounted his horse and rode east of Tyneburg, there to assign lands to the fifty Norse newcomers: bachelors, families, twenty-five households in all, each granted thirty acres—seven hundred fifty in sum.
"Two years free of tax," Rurik told them. "No brawling. No thieving. No killing."
With those few words, and the shield-guards at his back, he left them to their plows. This storm, at least, had passed without bloodshed. But for safety's sake, he resolved to raise watch-beacons along the river, that warning might reach him before the next.