CHAPTER 5 – AN UNWELCOME VISIT
Female Viking warrior of the 9th Century C.E.
10:14 (Denmark Time)
Friday, January 13, 862 C.E.
King’s longhouse, Ribe, Kingdom of Denmark
King Horik II of Denmark, a fit young man of 21 sporting a short blond beard, was in the small barn attached to his royal longhouse, brushing his favorite horse, when one of his royal guards came to him with a message.
‘’Excuse me for disturbing you, Your Majesty, but a delegation from the settlement of Lindholm Høje, near Aalborg, is here to see you.’’
Stopping his brushing for a moment, Horik eyed questioningly his bodyguard.
‘’Did they say what they wanted to discuss with me?’’
‘’Their leader, a woman named Thorrun, said that their settlement desperately needs your help, Your Majesty.’’
Horik stiffened at once on hearing the name told by his guard.
‘’Thorrun? As in the widow of deceased Björn Ironside?’’
‘’She’s the one, sir.’’
Horik put down his brush and walked out of the barn and into his longhouse, followed by his guard. Stopping in his private room long enough to quickly clean up his face and hands with the help of a sponge and of a basin full of water, he then put on his belt, which supported his sword, dagger and purse, and went from his room to the large common room where his wooden throne sat in front of a central fire pit. He took the time to sit down on his throne before giving an order to a guard.
‘’Let Thorrun and her delegation in!’’
‘’Right away, Your Majesty!’’
Horik got a bit surprised when the delegation from Lindholm Høje entered the longhouse’s hall: it was only composed of women. However, Horik got over his surprise quickly, as he should have expected that: over 23,000 Danes who had left two years ago to attack and loot various parts of Francia and of England had never returned, massacred nearly to the last by men supposedly from the future who used fantastic flying ships made of steel. He then noticed the thin, nearly gaunt looks of his female visitors, probably the result of slow starvation. Horik was actually too familiar with such looks, as the whole of Denmark was cruelly suffering from the loss of so many men and teenage boys, which had left too few people available to do the necessary fishing and farming needed to properly feed the population.
‘’Welcome to Ribe, Thorrun of Lindholm HøJe. What may I do for you and for your companions?’’
Thorrun, who wore a sword at her belt, bowed her head in salute before answering him.
‘’Your Majesty, our settlement desperately needs your help with two things. First, the lack of men in our village has left us short of people to do enough of the fishing and farming needed to feed our people, let alone produce enough to give us surplus to sell to others. As a result, we have been suffering from hunger in the last month. However, we now have another, even more severe and urgent problem: two weeks ago, a Swedish flotilla attacked us and looted our settlement and Aalborg, taking away our reserves of food for the Winter and also taking a number of our younger women and girls with them before leaving. Since they sank all the boats moored in Aalborg, we could not come here by sea and had to travel by land, which is why we couldn’t come here faster.’’
That news instantly made Horik angry, not at those women but at the Swedes, who were now profiting from the overseas military disasters that had struck his kingdom.
‘’That Erik Refilsson bastard! He calls himself King of Sweden but acts like a vulgar thief! How many Swedes attacked Aalborg?’’
‘’There were over 600 of them, Your Majesty. We did our best to resist them but they overwhelmed us and then looted our houses before burning them. Those of us who still survive had to flee and hide into the woods.’’
Horik then belatedly noticed at that moment the dirty and bloodied bandage Thorrun wore around her left forearm and nodded his head soberly. His own warriors now numbered less than 200 men, a pitiful number by the standards of only two years ago. However he had to do something to help those women, if he wanted to avoid losing the respect of his people.
‘’Unfortunately, I myself am cruelly short on warriors, Thorrun, but I can give you some reserves of grain and dried and salted fish, so that your people could have something to eat during the Winter. I will have a chariot loaded with food supplies at once.’’
‘’Thank you, Your Majesty! That is…’’
Some kind of noise from outside the longhouse then interrupted her, making her and King Horik look towards the main entrance of the building. Thorrun’s eyes widened in horror when she saw a tall, fully armored dark gray silhouette walk in as if it owned the place. She had seen a number of such armored warriors three months ago, in Bordeaux, when she and the few Viking survivors in town had been unceremoniously booted out of Francia.
‘’THE MEN FROM THE FUTURE! THEY ARE HERE!’’ she shouted in alarm while grabbing her sword and pulling it out of its scabbard. Strangely enough, none of the royal guards apparently reacted to her alarm. Equally strangely, the armored warrior, whose face was hidden by an opaque face shield, appeared to be alone. Then, as Thorrun and King Horik stood ready to defend themselves with their swords, the armored warrior stopped and raised both hands to the level of its shoulders before speaking in a kind of Norse dialect that, while a bit different from the Eastern Norse spoken in Denmark, was still intelligible.
‘’Hold on and listen! I simply came to deliver a message from my leaders.’’
Thorrun involuntarily lowered her sword from the surprise on hearing the warrior: it had a female tone of voice. The sex of the warrior became more evident when it opened its face shield, revealing the face of a young woman. However, that woman stood a good half head taller than Thorrun, who was considered a tall, strong woman even by Viking standards.
‘’Like I said, I came to deliver a message to King Horik, not to attack Ribe.’’
Going over his own surprise, Horik slowly sat down on his throne but kept his sword out, holding it at the vertical, tip down in front of him.
‘’Go ahead and deliver your message, woman.’’
‘’I will actually show you my message, as prepared by my leaders. Just give me a minute and you will be able to see it.’’
Taking out of a large pouch slung across her armored torso a sort of thick flat plate, the woman then put it down on the ground, one pace in front of her, then pushed a button on its top surface. To the Vikings’ amazement, the plate seemingly split in two in relation to its thickness, with the top half plate then silently rising to a height of two meters above the ground before stopping in a hover position. Thorrun and Horik nearly jumped back when a colored, ghost-like human shape appeared between the top and bottom plates, showing a tall young woman with long black hair and a pair of green eyes. The ghostly woman apparently could see them, as she looked directly at King Horik before starting to speak in the same kind of Norse dialect spoken by the female warrior in armor.
‘’Greetings, King Horik of Denmark! My name is Doctor Ann Shelton and I am the plenipotentiary representative of the Human Expansion for Europe, with base in Toulouse. I sent you Corporal Diane Champagne so that you could listen to my message. Please listen to its entirety before asking me any question. The Human Expansion, which you call ‘the people from the future’ has now decreed as illegal and criminal the practice of capturing, trafficking and holding human beings into slavery, along with the practice of torture in whatever forms. Both slavery and torture will now be considered by us as capital crimes subject to the death penalty, and this anywhere in the World. We know that you and many of your subjects hold many slaves captured during past raiding expeditions against Francia, England and Ireland. We want these slaves freed and handed to us, so that we could repatriate them to their original homes. My soldiers will return in force in ten days, by which time we will expect to see your slaves assembled and ready to leave in the towns and cities in which they are presently held. Any non-compliance or attempt at hiding slaves from us will be harshly dealt with by us. You may now ask questions to me if you have any before acknowledging my message.’’
Horik, taken off balance by this magical-like talking image, could only nod his head, knowing full well that resisting those people from the future would only bring him disaster.
‘’I…I will pass your message around Denmark, Ann Shelton.’’
Ann Shelton, who was transmitting in direct her message via holographic projection, nodded her head in satisfaction. She however did not tell Horik then that her message was presently being announced by loudspeakers mounted on ships to all the main towns and settlements in Denmark.
‘’Excellent! We honestly didn’t want to have to hurt your people unless you hurt in turn your slaves. Make sure that no slave owner retaliates against them by killing them.’’
‘’I will pass that word as well, Lady Shelton.’’
Ann Shelton was about to terminate the link when Thorrun suddenly shouted at her holographic image.
‘’WAIT! WHAT ABOUT OUR OWN PEOPLE TAKEN AWAY BY THE SWEDES?’’
That earned Thorrun a sharp look from the hologram.
‘’What are you talking about, Thorrun?’’
While Thorrun was a bit taken aback by the fact that the ghost knew her name, she still answered its question at once.
‘’I am talking about the dozens of women and girls taken away from Aalborg two weeks ago by Swedish raiders, who also burned down our houses and stole our reserves of food.’’
The ghostly woman stared at her in silence for a few seconds, with her expression softening noticeably before she spoke.
‘’I hear your plea, Thorrun, and sympathize with your plight. I will have my ships and soldiers look for those Swedish raiders and their captives. I will be able to give you an update on this in ten days, when we will collect your slaves. I will see you then.’’
The holographic image then disappeared, with the top plate of the projector system then slowly flying down to reattach itself to its base plate. Diane Champagne then picked up the projector unit and put it back in its transport pouch before looking at Horik.
‘’Remember, King Horik: all the slaves assembled in ten days and with no acts of retaliation against them. We sincerely hope that our relations will become more correct after this.’’
She then turned around and walked out. Following her out at a near run, Horik and Thorrun were in time to watch Diane Champagne fly off by her own and start climbing quickly towards a huge metallic sphere floating over Ribe. As for the guards Horik had posted at the entrance of his longhouse, they lay unconscious on the ground on each side of the door. Horik passed a hand on his forehead to wipe the cold sweat now covering it.
‘’By Odin! How could anyone fight people with such powers? I hope that they will keep their part of this deal.’’
10:08 (Denmark Time)
Monday, January 23, 862 C.E.
Port area of Aalborg, western delta of the Limfjord
Northern Denmark
Thorrun, who had grown impatient with the waiting while guarding the dozen or so Frankish slaves due to be freed in Aalborg, stiffened when she saw a gray spherical shape appear far away in the western sky. The local women and the few old men waiting around her also reacted to that sight, but with near panic, prompting a shout from Thorrun.
‘’HOLD YOUR GROUND AND STOP SHAKING LIKE SHEEPS! THIS DEAL MUST BE RESPECTED.’’
Somehow her invective was enough to make her compatriots stay and wait while the gray flying ship made its approach, finally landing silently and smoothly in a field next to the port area. Thorrun held her breath as a sort of ramp lowered under the belly of the flying ship and a number of people started coming down the ramp. She and her compatriots pushed savage screams of joy when they recognized the first persons coming down the ramp as being some of the women and girls taken by Swedish pirates. The Danes in the crowd then ran into a mad rush to go meet the newcomers with kisses and open arms. Thorrun couldn’t help feel some belated remorse then as she eyed the Frankish slaves due to be released in the care of the people from the future: she now could understand the kind of grief and despair they must have felt when they had been taken into slavery by Thorrun’s compatriots. Her attention was then attracted to two warriors in gray armored suits now coming down the ramp. Those two warriors walked calmly to her, stopping a few paces from Thorrun. One of them, a man judging by his voice, then spoke to her.
‘’Thank you for honoring this deal, Thorrun. As you can see, we were able to trace back and find those Swedish raiders and the women and girls they enslaved. We also found the foodstuff they stole and will be unloading it from our ship shortly. Be advised that we will also unload at the same time some extra foodstuff, along with a number of large tents which will help shelter your people until you can rebuild new houses.’’
‘’I suppose that I should still hate you and your people for killing my husband and so many of our men, but I can now start to see your side in all this.’’
‘’And we understand that all these past atrocities were basically a common occurrence around this world…until now. However, things are now going to change, fast! Hopefully, our future relations will be more friendly from now on. Those are the only slaves you were holding in Aalborg?’’
‘’Yes! We didn’t have that many of them around here. They are now yours to pick up.’’
‘’Thank you!’’
The man in gray armor then spoke successively in Occitan, Saxon and Old German, addressing the slaves and making them move towards the waiting ship. Once they were aboard the ship, some machines rolled out and dropped in the field a number of crates and bundles before returning inside the ship. The latter then silently flew off the ground and quickly gained altitude before speeding away in the sky, watched by Thorrun.