Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 62: Truth

The Construction Site of Titan, Northumbria

Weeks passed, and the landscape of the North began to change.

Ragnar, the Director of Industry, was busy. He was currently standing knee-deep in a muddy trench on the floodplains south of York, wearing his executive armor and holding a shovel.

Around him, the Ministry of Infrastructure was conducting the first major pour of Project Concrete.

"Agitate the slurry!" Cedric the Saxon shouted to a team of Danish prisoners. "Get the bubbles out! If there are air pockets, the wall fails! If the wall fails, the Director liquidates us!"

Ragnar watched the grey sludge flow into the wooden forms reinforced with iron rebar.

"It sets underwater," Ragnar whispered to himself, poking the drying mix with a stick. "Roman Cement. The lost art."

While Ragnar was playing in the mud, the rest of the Jernheim Corporation was humming. Gyda was managing the cash flow from the East Anglian harvest. Helga was mass-producing soap. And far to the south, the "Marketing Department" was about to have a very bad day.

....

Canterbury Cathedral, Kingdom of Kent

Brother Aethelstan knelt on the stone floor. He was currently undergoing a "performance review" by the local clergy.

Aethelstan had spent the last month infiltrating the southern churches. He hadn’t been preaching violence. He had been preaching hygiene. He had shown the local monks how to boil water to stop the "flux." He had shown them how to rotate crops.

He was becoming dangerously popular.

"Rise, Brother," a voice boomed from the altar.

Aethelstan stood up. His knees cracked. He missed his boots with the rubber soles; he was wearing sandals to blend in, and they were terribly inefficient for arch support.

Facing him was Bishop Eadred. Eadred was a man who looked like he had eaten the previous Bishop. He was draped in gold-threaded robes that cost more than a warship, and his fingers were covered in rings.

"I hear troubling reports, Aethelstan," Bishop Eadred said, descending the steps. "You speak of the Northmen with... admiration."

Aethelstan kept his face neutral. This was the test.

"Not admiration, Your Grace," Aethelstan lied smoothly. "Curiosity. The Northmen are heathens, yes. But their plows turn the earth deeper. Their soap kills the lice. Is it not God’s will that we be clean?"

Bishop Eadred scoffed. The sound echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

"Cleanliness of the body is a distraction!" Eadred chastised, waving a hand heavy with gems. "It is the soul that matters. And the Northmen... they are soulless."

Eadred walked closer, lowering his voice. He assumed Aethelstan, being a lowly monk from the provinces, was on his side.

"You are naive, Brother. You see a plow and think it is progress. I see a trap. The ’Builder’ in York... this Ragnar... he is a Heretic. He has been damned by the Archbishop himself."

Aethelstan felt a twitch in his jaw. Ragnar wasn’t a heretic; he was just an engineer with a deadline.

"Damned?" Aethelstan asked, feigning shock. "But surely, Your Grace, if we trade with them... if we convert them..."

"There will be no conversion!" Eadred snapped. "Do you think we will tolerate a pagan empire on our doorstep? An empire that sells cloth cheaper than our own guilds? An empire that teaches peasants to read?"

The Bishop laughed, a wet, unpleasant sound. "We will not have to put up with the Builder for much longer."

Aethelstan’s internal alarm bells started ringing.

"I... I do not understand," Aethelstan stammered, playing the part of the confused simpleton. "Is there a plan? The King of Wessex is afraid to march."

"The King of Wessex is a coward who likes velvet," Eadred sneered. "But the Church? The Church has friends with deeper pockets."

Eadred beckoned Aethelstan closer. He smelled of expensive wine and stale sweat—a combination Aethelstan found highly inefficient.

"Have you heard of the Order of the White Cross?" Eadred whispered.

Aethelstan shook his head. "They are Frankish," Eadred explained, his eyes gleaming with malice. "Fanatics. Heavy cavalry. Funded by the Emperor of Frankia himself. They do not fight for land. They fight for the purity of the Faith."

Aethelstan felt a chill. Frankish Heavy Cavalry. Cataphracts. Men and horses covered in chainmail. They were the tanks of the 9th century. Ragnar’s pikes were good, but against a charge of two thousand heavy knights?

"The Emperor supports this?" Aethelstan asked.

"The Emperor fears the ’Industrial’ goods," Eadred confided, clearly enjoying the gossip. "He says the Northman’s cheap steel is disrupting the Frankish markets. So, the Church has struck a deal."

"What deal?"

"In the spring," Eadred grinned, "a Crusade will be launched. Not from Wessex. But from the sea. The Frankish fleet will land in East Anglia. They will link up with the Mercian rebels. They will burn the factories. They will smash the looms."

Eadred patted Aethelstan on the shoulder.

"So you see, Brother? You do not need to worry about the Northman’s soap. By summer, York will be ash. And the ’Director’ will be burning in a much hotter furnace."

Aethelstan walked out of the cathedral in a daze.

He sat on a stone bench in the courtyard. Around him, monks were chanting in Latin. It sounded droning and repurposed.

"They want to burn it down," Aethelstan whispered.

He thought of the school in York where children learned math. He thought of the hospital where Eira washed wounds with alcohol. He thought of the pension fund for the elderly thralls.

The Church didn’t care about God. They cared about market share. They were afraid that Ragnar’s "efficiency" was making their "miracles" look obsolete.

"They are a monopoly," Aethelstan realized. "A corrupt, stagnant monopoly."

He looked at the hollow staff in his hand the one Leif the Lesser had given him. Inside was a dagger. But a dagger wasn’t enough to stop a Crusade.

He needed something stronger. He needed Information.

He went back to the Bishop’s solar later that evening. Eadred was deep into his cups, drinking communion wine like it was water.

"Brother!" Eadred slurred. "Come, drink! To the destruction of the Heathen!"

Aethelstan sat down. He forced a smile. "To the destruction," Aethelstan agreed, raising a cup.

...

For the next three hours, Aethelstan played the role of the eager student. He poured the wine. He nodded at the rants.

And Eadred talked.

"Loose lips sink ships," Leif had told him. And Eadred’s lips were very loose.

"The Franks land at Ipswich," Eadred giggled. "Ten thousand silver livres used to bribe the mercenaries. The attack happens after Easter."

Aethelstan memorized every detail. The landing sites. The troop numbers. The names of the Frankish commanders.

By midnight, Eadred was snoring face-down on the table.

Aethelstan stood up. He looked at the Bishop. He felt a sudden urge to use the hidden dagger. It would be efficient. It would remove a threat.

But Ragnar’s voice echoed in his head: Thinking small is a liability. Think like a corporation.

Killing one Bishop wouldn’t stop the Crusade. But exposing the corruption? Destroying the moral authority of the Church? That was Disruption.

Aethelstan left the room. He went to the scriptorium.

He grabbed a stack of parchment. He grabbed a quill.

Ragnar had told him about a man from the future named Martin Luther. A man who nailed a list of complaints to a door.

"I will not just write complaints," Aethelstan muttered, dipping the quill. "I will write an Audit Report."

He began to write.

THE 95 INEFFICIENCIES OF THE MODERN CHURCH

Item 1: The hoarding of wealth in gold statues while the workforce starves is a misallocation of resources.

Item 2: Selling forgiveness (Indulgences) is a fraudulent transaction.

Item 3: Refusing to use soap is a violation of public health standards.

Item 4: God loves Geometry. Why do you fear Math?

He wrote until dawn. He detailed the Frankish bribe. He detailed the plot to burn the schools. He detailed the Bishop’s wine habit.

He rolled up the parchments. He put them in his hollow staff.

He walked out of Canterbury as the sun rose. He walked with the stride of a Viking Jarl who had a deadline.

"I need to get to the Press," Aethelstan said to the road.

Ragnar had built a printing press. A primitive screw-press used for making tax forms.

"If I print this," Aethelstan smiled grimly, "I can distribute ten thousand copies. I can flood the market with the Truth."

He began to run.