Ragnar watched a trio of children, their faces smeared with soot and snot, chasing a half-starved dog through the freezing slush.
One of them held a wooden sword, swinging it wildly at the biting wind. Their tunics were threadbare, patched with mismatched scraps of rabbit fur.
Ragnar stopped, his gloved hands tightening over the silver head of his cane.
What am I doing here? He looked around at the turf-roofed longhouses, the smoking fire pits, the miserable, freezing squalor of the Viking age. This was the land he had bled to escape. It was nothing but ice, rocks, and the stubborn fools who chose to freeze on them.
Across the sea, he was the Iron Father. He owned the soot-choked skies of the Midlands. He had steam engines pounding day and night, foundries pouring molten steel, and thousands of contractors bound by ink and silver to his will. He was halfway to forging a unified Kingdom of England under a monopoly of iron.
