Viking Invasion-Chapter 58 – Armaments

"Ivar is far too reckless. How could he utter such words so carelessly?"

Rurik shook his head, half in admiration, half in disbelief. He led the messenger across the courtyard toward the armory — a low, stone-built hall that smelled of tanned leather, oil, and iron. At the far end lay neat stacks of freshly made weapons: feathered arrows bound in bundles, circular shields painted in gray and blue, and a row of yew bows gleaming faintly under the torchlight.

"There," Rurik said, gesturing with an open palm. "That’s the lot of it."

The messenger bowed slightly in gratitude, but then frowned. "I thank you for your generosity, my lord — but why have so many of these arrows no heads?"

Rurik spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Because the forges can do no more. I’ve only five smiths under my rule, and counting their apprentices, scarcely a dozen men who know the hammer’s art. Iron is scarce, time is dear. Take them as they are — your master can fit the points himself once he’s home in Dublin."

The messenger bent down to inspect the wares. Three hundred yew bows, each strung with new cord; one thousand round shields with polished iron bosses; one thousand sets of light-gray tunics for foot soldiers; fifteen thousand arrows, of which nearly a third lacked heads.

It was all Tynborough possessed in reserve. Rurik had meant to sell the lot to the lord of Bergen, but that man still owed him from their last bargain. Let him stew in debt a while longer — until the arrears were paid in full, no new trade would be struck.

When the inspection was done, the messenger nodded, satisfaction glimmering in his eyes. "Your help will not be forgotten, my lord. In the autumn we may return — do you perhaps want slaves in payment?"

"Slaves?" Rurik’s tone turned dry. "The North already teems with refugees enough to choke the valleys. I’ve no use for bondsmen whose loyalty melts the first time the lash falls. If Ivar cannot pay in silver or gold, let him send books instead — any scrolls he can find. I’ll take histories, treatises, whatever learning his plunder yields. Only spare me theology; I’ve no patience for monks’ riddles."

He paused, and the edge of irony crept into his voice. "Though, perhaps Bjorn would welcome your slaves. He’s planting a colony on some barren island and could use hands for his fields. The man is awash with silver, after all."

At the mention of Bjorn, the messenger’s face brightened. "Indeed, my lord. They say he holds wealth enough to buy three hundred souls — men and women alike. I’ll be sure to tell him of your generosity."

He departed in good spirits, leaving Rurik once more to the hush of his hall. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

July came with a breath of salt and heat. Bjorn himself arrived at Tyn with a single ship — half-sunk, sails torn, and every man aboard gaunt from hunger. They brought with them sacks of ash, fine and gray as powder.

"Here," Bjorn said curtly, tossing down a leather pouch. "The volcanic ash you wanted."

Rurik examined it with care, its texture soft as sifted snow. According to their bargain, he repaid the seafarer with food, six sheep, and ten pounds of silver — a fair exchange, considering the perils of the voyage. He even sold Bjorn a longship for the same sum, a vessel sturdy enough to bear him back across the northern sea.

With the ash secured, Rurik at last set to work on what he had long envisioned: the Roman art of concrete. He mixed the gray dust with lime and sand, whispering under his breath the old formula he had culled from a Latin scroll — a relic copied from imperial engineers long dead. But prudence held him back; he would not risk the main keep on a new craft. Instead, he chose a small section of the inner wall, a place where failure would not doom the fortress.

Bjorn stood beside him, arms folded, watching the process unfold. "You’ve spent a fortune mimicking the Romans," he said, half mockingly. "You build their mills, read their books, now even shape stone as they did. Keep this up, Rurik, and one day you’ll wake to find yourself a Roman outright."

"That would not be the worst fate," Rurik replied, stretching his back after the labor. "The world changes, Bjorn. A people that refuses to learn from others grows brittle — then breaks. To survive, we must take what is sound from foreign hands and cast away what has rotted in our own."

Bjorn tilted his head. "And who decides what is rot and what is root? Which traditions deserve to live — and which must die?"

It was a question that hung heavy in the air. Neither man spoke for a while. The rhythm of the river filled the silence, and a cool wind carried the scent of lime across the yard.

Before long, Bjorn’s ships were laden again — this time with a hundred slaves purchased from Derwent lands. Two longships, their decks crowded with bound figures, drifted down the river and out to sea. Rurik watched their sails dwindle to pale specks against the horizon before turning back toward the town.

He realized then how long it had been since he last visited the school. On impulse, he went there at once.

It had been two years since the Raven-Speaker had come from the north — a gaunt, bright-eyed man who had once served as a seer and keeper of runes. Together, Rurik and he had forged a new written script, more supple than the old runes, easier for children’s hands to learn. With Rurik’s silver, they had built a small temple and a simple school beside it, where orphans learned letters and numbers instead of prayers.

Three slim books formed the entire foundation of the curriculum: Elementary Runes, Introductory Mathematics, and Natural Studies for Beginners. The Raven-Speaker, with his calm patience, had trained a handful of shamans to teach from them — men and women who could barely write when they began, but who now stood at the front of classes like monks chanting liturgy.

As the years passed, more shamans came seeking refuge and purpose. Rurik interviewed each in person, testing their temperament more than their skill. Those who proved sound were given short instruction, then sent to teach.

By the summer of 846, the school housed one hundred and fifty orphans, divided into six classes. Sixteen teachers oversaw them — barely enough to keep order. The plan was simple: five years of basic schooling, after which only the most capable would continue. The rest would find work — clerks, stewards, tax collectors, or overseers in Rurik’s expanding workshops.

He murmured to himself as he walked the corridor: "The school opened in 844. Now it’s mid-846. In three years the first graduates will emerge. By then, if I’ve conquered the Pictish lands, I’ll have a trained body of scribes ready to govern them. No more chaos like Ivar’s dominion."

To Rurik, his brother had become a living cautionary tale — a mirror of everything to avoid. Ivar’s conquests in Ireland had sunk into quagmire; each victory gave birth to two rebellions. Exhausted, he ruled little but his own campfires. Even in Derwent, his neglect had borne bitter fruit: the free farmers dwindled while the local gentry amassed vast estates. Authority slipped from his grasp piece by piece, until his rule was a shell, hollow and fragile.

"Conquest is easy," Rurik thought, "governance is the true ordeal. A land untended decays faster than it can be taken."

At the schoolhouse door, he paused to listen. From within came the dull murmur of recitation — children droning passages they scarcely understood, their teacher’s voice a lifeless echo of the text.

He watched through the window. The woman at the lectern, a middle-aged shamaness, read from Natural Studies in a singsong tone, never pausing to explain. The pupils mimicked her with the same solemn dullness, like acolytes repeating a charm.

Rurik’s fingers itched to intervene, to seize the book and breathe life into the words — to make the lesson a living thing. But he forced himself to stand still.

A ruler could not direct every motion in his realm. Delegation was a necessity, not a flaw. If he taught this one class, what then? Tomorrow, another would falter, and the cycle would begin anew. Better to shape the teachers than to lecture the children.

He sighed and turned away.

In the Raven-Speaker’s small office, he demanded the latest lesson plans, scanning them line by line. Then he sent a servant running to summon every teacher in the school.

When they were gathered before him — a nervous crowd of sixteen — Rurik spoke with calm firmness.

"We will hold an examination," he said. "Every pupil will be tested in runes, numbers, and nature. Afterward, they shall have two months’ rest, and you, my friends, shall study. I will see to your training myself. A teacher must at least master the knowledge he claims to teach."

He tapped the ledger with a finger. "Each year I spend fifteen pounds of silver on this institution. I expect to see its worth."

That night, by the light of a single candle, Rurik composed the test papers himself — one set for each grade. The results, when they came, were disastrous. Only five children passed all three subjects.

Still, there was one name that drew his eye. "Sebert Stormwind," he murmured, tracing the letters with his thumb. "Weak in reading, perhaps, but mathematics — eighty-five points. Remarkable."

In recent months, names had begun to multiply among the students. To distinguish them, Rurik had allowed each to choose a surname — drawn from nature and the northern tongue: Stormwind, Icefall, Wildfire, Fjordborn. Half the rolls now bore the mark of Stormwind.

He smiled faintly at that — the seed of a new age, crude yet full of promise. The children chanted in the courtyard, their voices sharp and bright against the wind. Above them, the unfinished walls of Tynborough rose higher with every passing day, gray stone laid atop gray, bound together by the very Roman mortar whose secret had crossed centuries to find new life in the North.