Rurik betrayed no flicker of feeling. He sat apart in the longhouse, spoon in hand, sipping quietly at his bowl of mutton broth. The steam rose in pale ribbons, carrying with it a scent of fat and herbs that still felt alien to him. He thought back to his youth among the farmsteads near Gothenburg. In those lean years, a hot bowl of meat broth was a rare gift—something tasted perhaps ten times at most. To encounter it now, in the smoky gloom of another man's hall, stirred in him a small ache of memory, as if his younger self still lingered, astonished at such plenty.
He drained the last mouthful, set the wooden spoon aside, and muttered low:
"Another bowl."
Yet his appetite was not only for food. He noted with care all that the hall revealed. Stein, the local chieftain, had made it plain enough that Rurik's presence was unwelcome; the words had not been spoken directly, but the silences, the turned shoulders, the tightened lips told him as much. Rurik was not a man to force company where it was denied. He measured the strength of the gathering and judged it pitiful. Apart from the mail shirt worn by his own Helgi, and the battered scale cuirass clinging to Stein himself, there was nothing here that deserved to be called armor. Shields of thin pinewood, axes more fit for chopping timber than cleaving men, a scattering of spears with heads rusted or bent—such were the armaments of this so-called alliance.
And yet they spoke boldly of storming Glasgow. Rurik gave no smile, but the thought flickered bitterly through his mind: It is a jest. A rabble armed with scrap metal dreams of conquest.
Better, he reckoned, to be excluded. If they break themselves against the Gaels, my name will not be dragged down in their disgrace. Their defeat will be their own.
He understood now, more than ever, the coin of fame. A man's renown was worth more than silver, more than land. It drew men as a beacon draws moths. Already from the fjords and fields of the north, farmers and wanderers came across the sea to follow him. Some were lured by the promise of thirty free acres; others, and perhaps more, by the names that had grown around him like banners in the wind—"God-chosen," "the Serpent of the North." Men did not merely follow Rurik—they believed in the tale of him.
And belief was power. He knew it. Were he to raise the cry for war against the Picts tomorrow, a thousand eager raiders might flock to his side. They would ask no wages. They needed only a promise—that the spoils of victory would be theirs to share. Such men were wild, hungry, reckless, but also fearless. For a leader who could master them, they were the sharpest of weapons.
Soon Helgi put out with forty chosen men, their longship slipping across the grey water. Rurik climbed the cliff above the harbor and watched the sail dwindle to a pale wing against the horizon. The sea wind bit cold on his brow, but the chill within him was of worry, not weather.
Brita came softly, her children hushed at her side. She looked up at him, searching his face.
"You fear they may be defeated?"
Rurik's answer came slow and heavy.
"Yes. War is no child's game. One must plan before one strikes—gather knowledge of the foe, arm the host, fix a single clear aim. Without these, the sword is swung blindly. Look to Northumbria, look to Dumbarton. One was chaos, the other victory."
He spoke with earnest force, and his voice seemed to echo in the salt air.
"In Northumbria, the host blundered like flies without heads. Each leader pulled his own way; none knew what he sought. At Manchester, we walked into ambush. At York, we circled and dithered before the walls, letting the enemy regain strength. We were an inch from utter ruin.
But at Dumbarton, the tale was different. Ivar and I began our labors in winter itself. We built ships, we forged weapons, we summoned the nobles of Manchester and Lancaster to our cause. Our aim was fixed: Dumbarton would fall, and it did. There was no quarrel between us, no wavering. In two months the fortress was ours, and all we set out to do was done."
He saw Brita's face pale, her lips pressed thin with unspoken dread. Quickly he added, softening his tone:
"Take heart. Helgi is clad in mail. No common sword, no peasant's arrow will pierce it. He should come to no grave harm."
Days later, Rurik himself took ship for St. Kilda. He had heard tales of the isle's wealth in guano, precious for the fields. Yet when he trod its rock and crags, his hopes were dashed—the yield was scant, hardly worth the voyage. The expedition had been vain.
When at last he returned to Skye, grim tidings awaited him. The fleet that had sailed for Glasgow was shattered. Of the four hundred men who had set out, fewer than half returned. Helgi lived, but his report was grim. They had lost their way and wasted two days before finding the mouth of the Clyde. By then, the Gaels had gathered in strength. At Glasgow's gates a thousand militia stood ready. The shield-walls met, the lines heaved, but numbers told their tale. The Gaels broke them and scattered them like chaff before the wind.
Thus the Isles Alliance's first venture ended—in shame, in rout, in blood.
When Rurik listened to the survivors stammer their tale, he felt no laughter rise in him, not even scorn. Their folly was too vast for mockery. He only turned away, weary at heart. The next morning, he made ready to depart.
Before he left, he urged his sister and her household to come with him.
"Why waste your years among these worms of the isles? Come to Tynemouth. There the earth is black and rich, the fields wide and kind. Better to till good soil than cling to this barren rock."
But Helgi bristled, his pride stung.
"A mere setback. You make too much of it."
So be it. If his brother-in-law was bound to the island by stubbornness, Rurik would not tear him away. He set his sail for home.
At Tynemouth, wealth awaited him. From the fall of Dumbarton he had gained treasure worth two hundred and forty pounds of silver—thrice the revenue of his lands in a year. With such silver in hand, he resolved on a greater work. A town should rise beneath his walls, a place of trade and craft, a jewel of his domain.
In his study, he summoned Herjigif, Mitcham, and Jorunn. Upon the table he unrolled a sheet of papyrus. With a stick of charcoal he marked a wide tract of land east of the fortress—sixty hectares, no less.
"Tynemouth is too cramped," he said. "There is no room for more workshops. Here we shall raise a palisade, and within it, a borough. Let it be called Tynnetown."
His voice grew eager. "Agriculture alone cannot make us rich. It is trade, it is craft that swells a lord's purse. We shall draw merchants and artisans from the land around."
Mitcham nodded, but his brow was troubled.
"My lord, by right you may demand two weeks' corvée each year. Yet for so vast a wall, two weeks' labor will not suffice."
"Then we shall pay them," Rurik said, his tone firm.
Across the river, nearly two thousand refugees struggled on their allotted acres. In this age without machines, the work of turning waste into farmland was endless toil. They felled trees, burned stumps, cleared stones for walls, tore roots from the deep soil lest they choke the crops. By agreement, the local gentry were to provide them bread and tools during their first two years.
But the landowners bore their lord no love. Their obedience was hollow, their service spiteful. They sent bread adulterated with sawdust and sand, tools broken or blunted, oxen too old to plough.
The refugees came to Rurik with anger in their eyes.
"My lord, these loaves are harder than oak!"
"The beasts can scarcely walk, let alone draw a plough."
"They mean to starve us all!"
The murmur swelled like a tide. Jorunn, ever watchful, signaled the shield-men to close around their lord.
Rurik raised his hand for silence. His voice, when it came, was clear and calm, carrying to the edge of the crowd.
"Men, I will hire you. Work upon the wall of Tynnetown, and your families shall not go hungry. I will pay you well, and all will eat by the strength of your own arms."
He named a wage fairer than any had dreamed. At once four hundred able men stepped forth, their faces alight with hope. So the work began, and the wooden wall of Tynnetown slowly rose against the sky.
From the watchtower, Rurik looked down on the laborers below, and a thought struck him with sudden clarity.
"To employ the poor upon works that sustain them, to feed their kin by the toil of their own hands—this, surely, is what the wise call relief through labor."