The Great Thing or AllThing in Kattegat ended in a rather peaceful matter. Disputes and feuds were still solved by the law, recited by the lawspeaker for now and written by Athelstan himself. The gathered chieftains and free men dispersed like crows after a feast, their voices carrying across the muddy streets as they returned to their halls and ships.
Just as the Thing ended, and Bjorn was returning with his huskarls to his Hall, he felt a heat coming from his sword, as well as vibrating, as if it had caught a certain frequency of something. The sensation pulsed through the leather-wrapped hilt, traveling up his arm like the tremor before an earthquake.
Bjorn frowned and looked at his sword on his hip. 'What's happening?' He thought, for this was the first time something like this had occurred. In all his years, his blade had been silent for something so extraordinary. Now it reacted as if telling him something is happening.
He pulled the sword, and it just kept vibrating and trembling in his arms, the steel humming a note that seemed to resonate in his very bones. The runes etched along its fuller seemed to shimmer in the dying light, though he couldn't be certain if it was real or his imagination.
Hrafn asked, "What's wrong?" The leader of his huskarls stepped closer, hand instinctively moving to his own weapon, eyes scanning for threats. Yet Bjorn had no answer himself.
He looked to the sky, thinking it must be Odin and Thor or anyone with this kind of power making themselves known. But there was nothing. No thunder cracking the sky, no nearby pair of ravens circling.
The sky was a purple thing, bruised and beautiful, with an orange sun that was slowly disappearing into the horizon. A few early stars pricked through the gathering darkness, cold and indifferent.
He thought if today was a certain day that he forgot about—some anniversary of battle or sacrifice, some feast day for a particular god. But that was unlikely. His memory was beyond what it had been before he came to this world, and he never forgot a thing, no matter how small it was. Every face, every oath, every portent—they were all filed away in his mind. And yet he had no answer for this phenomenon.
Bjorn just stood there, rooted in his place for a long time, as if glued to the earth itself, with a vibrating sword in his hand, looking around him at the people marching and glancing at him.
They saw his trance and frown, saw the way the king stood frozen. People came and went with their matters—a merchant leading a packhorse, a woman carrying water, children chasing each other with wooden swords—but they gave him wide berth, sensing something sacred or terrible was occurring.
He was blind, and the sensation unnerved him more than any blade at his throat.
The sword's trembling began to slow, the heat subsiding like a fever breaking. The vibrations became weaker, more intermittent, until finally—as the last sliver of sun vanished—they stopped entirely. The blade was cold and silent once more.
Bjorn's grip loosened slightly. His breath, which he hadn't realized he'd been holding, escaped in a white cloud. Around him, his huskarls shifted uneasily, waiting for explanation or command.
"Back to the hall," Bjorn finally said, his voice rougher than intended.
"Should i call for the seer?" Hrafn said.
"The seer?" Bjorn frowned, he never talked to him since the burning of Uppsala. And he never needed to, he never cared what the seer saw in his visions. They never made sense anyway.
Bjorn shook his head. "There is no need. Let's go."
As his men moved to obey, Bjorn sheathed the sword slowly. Something had changed. He could feel it.
-x-X-x-
Meanwhile, a little bit far from Bjorn, in a dwelling so poor it barely warranted the name, a child was born to a slave mother.
The hovel reeked of blood and sweat and the bitter herbs the midwife had burned to ease the labor. Smoke hung in the rafters like gray wool, and the only light came from a guttering tallow candle that cast more shadows than illumination.
The slave mother, whose name had been forgotten by everyone except herself, held her baby in her arms with trembling fingers. Her strength was leaving her, flowing out with the blood that pooled beneath her, but she had just enough left for this one thing.
"Freydis," she whispered, her lips barely moving. "Your name is Freydis."
The name meant "lady" or "noblewoman"—a cruel joke, perhaps, or a desperate prayer. A name far too grand for a slave girl born in poverty and pain. But it was all she had to give.
The mother smiled, just a fraction, and then closed her eyes forever. Her last breath was so soft it barely stirred the air.
In his hall, Bjorn's sword, still in his arms, gave one final, imperceptible tremor.
-x-X-x-
Excerpt from The Story We Lived — By Athelstan, Once of Lindisfarne
20th day of December, in the Year 797 A.D.
A local Thing convened in Kattegat before the harvest season, less ceremonious than the Great Thing but no less consequential. Three inland kingdoms came to swear their loyalty to Bjorn—or perhaps more accurately, to swear loyalty to the promise of silver and ships and the raids that would fill their coffers.
The Jarls of Hedmark appeared first, all three of them, their retinues small but their voices loud in proclamation. They did not kneel like in back in Northumbria and England in general. They swore before the assembly and spoke the words : 'Ek heiti heita þér trúar ok drápra með þér, konungr, ok fylgja þér í orrostum ok friði, meðan þú réðr rétt.'
The words meant : "I, bind my hand and my arms to you, King. I will defend your lands, honor your law, and follow your command in war and peace, as long as you rule justly."
Then they grasped hands, and each chieftain offered a gift to the other party, and Bjorn in return reciprocated.
Bjorn's face revealed nothing as he accepted their oaths. He was pleased, i know it, though he would never show it.
Then came the King and two Jarls from Solør, the poorest and smallest of the three kingdoms. Their clothing was less fine, their weapons more worn. I wondered what desperation drove them here, what winters had been harsh enough to make even a king bend his pride.
Romerike sent five Jarls—their kingdom fragmented by lakes and forests, or so they claimed. I suspect the fragmentation has less to do with the nature land there and more to do with old blood feuds and stubbornness. Still, they came. They swore. The assembly witnessed it.
Only Gudbrandsdalen refused. Their king preferred to remain independent.
I saw the flash of something cross Bjorn's face when the messenger delivered their refusal—not quite anger, but Impatience, perhaps.
Bjorn's face rarely betray the thoughts within. But I have lived among these people long enough now to understand what he does not need to say: weak kings can be disposed by the Thing just as easily as they are made.
The people here believe in strength, in results, in leaders who can fill bellies and arm warriors. A king who stands alone while his neighbors grow rich and powerful will not stand for long.
I do not know if the King of Gudbrandsdalen is strong or weak. But I suspect he will become weaker with each passing season as the kingdoms around him prosper under Bjorn's arrangement. Tensions will grow. Even I, who am no warrior or strategist, can see that clearly.
And I could feel war approaching, like a storm swelling day by day, slowly casting its shadow over all of Norway. I didn't know when or where or against who, but it's coming.
The Jarls bring little in terms of standing forces. Between eight and twelve huskarls each, according to Bjorn. The king maintain between twenty-five and forty.
But the real strength lies in the levy—the free men who can be called to arms in times of need. Low hundreds from each kingdom, if they called them all. Yet as Bjorn pointed out with bluntness, they possess weak weapons. Farming tools converted to weapons of war. Old swords passed down through generations, their edges dull and their hilts wrapped in fraying leather.
"Wars are won by whoever has more food," Bjorn told me once, and I have thought about those words often. Not the sharpest blades or the bravest hearts, but grain and dried fish and salted meat.
Two weeks after the Thing ended, news arrived from Alfheim that shook the fragile peace. The Jarl had died—suddenly, and suspiciously. His child was judged too young to rule, and so they called another Thing to choose a new leader.
Bjorn, as protector of Alfheim, sailed before winter to resolve this. I did not accompany him on this journey, but when he returned, he brought with him the chieftains of Alfheim and a new Jarl. More significantly, they had finally chosen Bjorn as their King.
I suspect agreements were made in there, in private. The new Jarl understood something—perhaps what Bjorn wanted, perhaps what he himself wanted. I cannot help but wonder: did Bjorn arrange the old Jarl's death? Or did the new Jarl simply recognize an opportunity and seize it with both hands?
Bjorn showed little interest in investigating how the old Jarl died, which speaks volumes in itself. Justice and vengeance are pursued with vigor in this society, unless pursuing them would be... inconvenient.
I am becoming too much like them, I think. I accept these dark possibilities with barely a prayer for the dead man's soul.
And so by the end of 797 A.D., Bjorn controlled six kingdoms. More than twenty thousand souls living under his protection, paying him tribute, calling him king or protector or—in Eadric's increasingly fervent moments—son of the gods.
Twenty thousand people. I try to imagine them all: the farmers in their fields, the fishermen on their boats, the thralls in their bondage, the children running through villages. All of them connected by threads of loyalty and tribute to one man who sits in his hall in Kattegat.
I often wandered how strong Bjorn is compared to the Kings in England.
I found Bjorn one day bent over papers and wooden models, planning something that defies belief: a stone hall of unprecedented size. "The biggest thing this world has ever seen," he said.
The scope of the project is staggering. He has begun training more stonemasons for he needed forty of them, and speaks of needing nearly a thousand thralls to reduce costs. Even with such measures, he estimates the cost at more than three hundred pounds of silver.
I did not even bother calculating it in the DROTTIR coins he has minted, though by my reckoning it would be well over one hundred thousand, perhaps even two hundred thousand pieces.
I wonder constantly how he will feed such a workforce, where he will house them. I see him thinking about it day and night, present in body but absent in spirit.
I have taken to praying; to Odin and Thor, and yes, still to Christ, though I feel the weight of that dual devotion like stones in my chest. When I see the thunder roll across the sky, when I watch Bjorn, I cannot help but believe the Norse gods exist.
I envy Eadric, the mint master. He accepted these gods easily, seamlessly, and now speaks of Bjorn as "the son of the gods" without any apparent internal conflict. Did he renounce Christ to blend in with the people here, or does he simply prefer their openness to the restrictions we once lived under?
I caught myself recently thinking of "the monks" rather than "us monks."
Athelstan, once of Lindisfarne. That is who I was.
The year ended peacefully, with hope spreading among the people. The harvest was abundant, though Bjorn insists it has not yet reached its full potential.
A curious thing has begun to happen: some farmers bring gifts directly to Bjorn rather than to their local chieftains. Only when the chieftain is weak, of course, they are not foolish enough to insult a strong leader. But I see the shift beginning, the way power accumulates toward its center.
Whether this small fire will grow into something uncontrollable, I cannot say. But I watch it carefully and record what I see.
Most of my days are spent teaching people to read and write. Simple letters at first, then words, then sentences. Some learn quickly, hungry for this knowledge. Others struggle, their hands more suited to axes and plows than styluses and parchment.
I keep records of the 'Things'—both Great and local—writing down the laws spoken, the oaths sworn, the disputes resolved. I maintain accounts of food surpluses from Bjorn's farms and the tribute paid yearly by the kingdoms under his rule.
It is meticulous, tedious work, but necessary.