"So victorious one, what is it you wish to know?" The Seer's voice scraped through the hall.
Bjorn studied the bent figure before him. Strange how in all these years, he had never thought to ask the man's name. Where had he come from before settling in Kattegat? What life had he lived before those beings touched him?
Nothing. Bjorn knew nothing. And it didn't sit well with him.
But those weren't the questions that had brought him here tonight.
He gestured toward the chair opposite him. "Sit. Please."
The Seer lowered himself and Bjorn waited until the old man had settled before he began.
"Asgard, realm of the Aesir gods. Midgard, the world of men where we stand now. Jotunheim, where the giants dwell in ice and stone. Vanaheim, home to the Vanir gods. Alfheim, where the light elves shine. Svartalfheim—or some call it Nidavellir—where the dwarves forge their wonders in the dark. Niflheim, the realm of primordial ice and mist. Muspelheim, burning with the first fire. And Helheim, where the dead walk in shadow."
Bjorn leaned forward, his voice dropping lower. "It is said that all nine worlds are connected by the branches and roots of Yggdrasill. The world tree. The same tree from which Odin hung himself, spear-pierced, for nine days and nine nights, until the runes revealed themselves to him."
He paused, letting the words settle in the old man's head.
"Let's say... I also wanted to gain the wisdom of the runes." Bjorn's eyes locked onto where the Seer's eyes should have been. "Where would I hang myself?"
The question hung in the air. Bjorn knew the old man understood what he was truly asking. They could have dispensed with this performance entirely; Bjorn could have walked into the Seer's hovel and spoken plainly about what he needed, laid it all bare without riddles.
And besides, the Seer already knew what Bjorn wanted. He always knew. So Bjorn spoke in half-truths, intended for anyone listening.
The Seer said nothing and the silence stretched between them. His face remained a mask of weathered flesh and sunken features, not even a twitch at the corners of his mouth.
Bjorn couldn't tell if the old man was thinking, turning the question over in whatever passed for his mind. Or if he was refusing to answer.
'Or perhaps he was consulting with them?' Bjorn thought.
Minutes passed and the fire in the hearth crackled. Ivar shifted slightly in Bjorn's arms, still lost to sleep despite the conversation unfolding above him.
"If Yggdrasill itself is too much for me to hung from," Bjorn tried again, adjusting his approach, "how can I do so from something smaller? Or at least something that touches the realm of the gods?"
The Seer's hand lifted then, slowly. Those weathered fingers, gnarled as tree roots themselves, pointed toward Bjorn's hip. Toward where 'Soft Death' rested in its scabbard, the sword that had already tasted his blood once before.
Then the Seer spoke that Bjorn would need to plant an ash tree in the ground. Then he would have to nurture it, feed it through ritual. Blood ritual.
The same ritual he had performed when he stood before Haraldson and the rest.
He would have to plunge the blade through his own body again. Let his blood flow into the earth where the ash tree grew, consecrate it with his life force until it became something more than wood and leaves.
Bjorn arranged for the Seer to return to his dwelling in a royal carriage, the same elaborate transport that had brought him to the hall.
After the old man had gone, Bjorn sat in his chair, Ivar's small weight still resting against him. The boy slept on. And Bjorn's silver hair caught the firelight.
'Could he survive it again?' That was the question that circled in Bjorn's mind like a carrion bird.
A sword through the heart. He had done it once before, but that had been different. Back then, he'd had the nanomachines coursing through his blood. He had been able to direct them, focus them at the point of injury, command them to heal him faster than he could heal now.
He didn't have that anymore.
Bjorn went to sleep after settling Ivar in his cradle under the watch of Lagertha, watching for a moment as the boy's chest rose and fell in the easy rhythm of infant dreams. The next morning, like every morning, Bjorn woke before dawn. Responsibility didn't wait for the sun.
He stood before a basin of cold water, working his fingers through his silver hair until it lay properly, then splashed his face until his eyes felt clear. Around him, the household was already stirring to life.
The women servants moved through the hall, their voices low murmurs as they prepared the morning meal. The smell of porridge bubbling over the fire mixed with the sharper scents of smoked fish and fresh bread. Someone had already tapped one of the Frankish wine casks, and the rich tang of it cut through the other smells. Ragnar probably.
By the time Bjorn made his way to the table, his family was already gathering. Ragnar sat at one end, frankish wine in his hand.
Lagertha took her place beside him with Ivar settled on her lap, the boy's small hands already reaching for whatever food came within his grasp.
Gyda slipped into her seat with grace. Ubbe and Hvitserk were already arguing about something in harsh whispers.
Hrafn, his Lord Commander, sat rigid and alert despite the early hour.
Siggy, head of the household servants, took her place as well.
The rest of the thralls ate elsewhere, at their own table in another part of the hall. They weren't given leftovers like in other halls throughout the north.
In his house, the thralls ate their fill. Their bellies stayed full, they had shelter over their heads, and they were treated like human beings worthy of basic dignity. As long as they remained loyal, of course. That was the unspoken agreement.
The family ate together, though calling it peaceful would have been generous. The boys kept up their nonsense talk, voices rising and falling as they competed for attention.
Someone knocked over a cup.
Gyda complained about Hvitserk kicking her under the table.
Athelstan would have joined them if he'd slept in the great hall. But it seemed the monk had spent another night with his lover in his own longhouse. Bjorn didn't begrudge him that. The man had earned whatever happiness he could find. If he was happy that is.
As the meal wound down and people began pushing back from the table, Bjorn cleared his throat. The conversations died down.
"Get yourselves ready," he said, looking around at his family and then at Hrafn. "We're going to visit the construction site today. I want to see the progress myself, see how much longer before it's finished. It's where we will live in the future."
That got everyone's attention. The women excused themselves to dress for the occasion, taking the boys with them. Athelstan appeared not long after with Thyri at his side, both of them looking like they'd dressed in a hurry.
Bjorn gestured for Athelstan to prepare himself as well. He didn't particularly care whether Thyri came or not—that was Athelstan's business.
When everyone had assembled outside, the women and younger children climbed into the four-wheeled horse wagon. The thing rolled smoothly enough on the packed earth, though Bjorn knew it would struggle if they took it off the main paths.
Bjorn, Ragnar, Athelstan, and the older boys took horses. Poor Ivar remained in his mother's lap inside the wagon, still too young to ride.
The construction site wasn't far. You could walk there if you wanted, though it would take the better part of an hour at a steady pace. On horseback, they'd make it in half that time.
As they rode, Bjorn found his attention drawn to the road itself. Every time he looked down at the rutted, uneven surface, he felt a spike of irritation. The roads in these lands were a disgrace. Mud and stones and holes that could break a horse's leg if you weren't careful.
He sighed and pushed the thought aside. One problem at a time.
The walls appeared in the distance as they climbed the hill, grey granite rising against the sky. As they drew closer, those walls grew and grew until they dominated everything, blocking out the horizon. Bjorn heard the gasps from Ubbe and Hvitserk, both boys going quiet, their small minds confronted with something too big to process immediately.
Ragnar remained silent, but Bjorn caught the way his father's eyes tracked along the fortifications, calculating, measuring.
"I have seen the walls of Paris, they were way smaller than this. How tall are these walls?" Athelstan's voice came out slightly breathless as he craned his neck upward.
"When I told you I was building something beyond anything this world has ever seen, did you think it was a lie?" Bjorn didn't blame him for the reaction. The site sprawled across several acres, all of it encircled by defenses that would all kings weep with envy.
The inner wall rose 30 meters high, solid granite that would take a giant to breach. The outer wall stood at 24 meters, still taller than any fortification. Between the two walls ran a wide moat, or ditch, depending on which section you looked at.
If anyone ever attacked this place, they'd have to fight through the outer wall first, somehow cross the moat while arrows and worse rained down on them, then face the inner wall while already exhausted and depleted. It would be a slaughter.
The entire structure was built over geothermal vents, natural channels of heat rising from deep in the earth. Bjorn had designed it so that scalding water could be piped through the walls, the floors, the pools.
Even in the depths of winter, when snowstorms turned the world white and deadly, this place would stay warm. That had been his vision from the start—a fortress that could withstand both human enemies and the wraths of nature themselves.
They reached the south gate, the one facing the fjord. Bjorn reined in his horse and gestured toward it.
"This is the grandest gate," he said, addressing his family but knowing Athelstan was listening most intently. "It will be used by everyone who comes to meet with us. Merchants, jarls, foreign envoys—they'll all pass through here."
"Is it? And the walls are already finished?" Ragnar's question carried an undertone Bjorn couldn't quite read. His father immediately turned to Athelstan, and the two of them started whispering and laughing to each other, their heads bent close.
Bjorn felt a little jealous. "Let's go," he said, nudging his horse forward.
He led them across a stone bridge that spanned a short dry ditch. This outer ditch was shallow, more of a deterrent than a true obstacle. It would slow down battering rams, force attackers to adjust their approach.
His silver hair caught the wind and streamed behind him as they crossed.
The gate itself was magnificent. Massive double oak doors, each about 4 meters wide and 6 meters tall, reinforced with thick iron bands and studs that gleamed in the morning light. Above the doors, a heavy iron portcullis waited like a row of metal teeth.
Bjorn pointed up at it. "Do you know what that thing is useful for, Ubbe?"
His brother, sitting in front of him on the horse, shook his head.
"If someone attacked us and managed to get this far, we'd drop that on them immediately. Those spikes would punch right through armor, through men, and through whatever was underneath. Cool, isn't it?"
Ubbe's eyes went wide.
Flanking the gate stood two squat gatehouse towers, each rising about 15 meters high. Arrow slits punctured the stone at regular intervals, and machicolations—those overhanging sections with holes in the floor—jutted out near the top. Perfect for dropping stones or pouring boiling liquid onto anyone foolish enough to cluster near the gate.
The whole gate structure was built directly into the outer wall, making it part of the fortification rather than a weak point.
The men stationed inside opened the doors without fanfare as Bjorn and Ubbe approached on the horse. The heavy creak of wood and iron resounded as the gates swung inward.
The horse stepped into the outer bailey, that wide ring-shaped space between the two walls. The area stretched 40 meters across at its widest points—enough room for two carts to pass each other comfortably, or for a full cavalry charge if it ever came to a siege. The ground was packed earth and gravel with scattered patches of grass that hadn't been trampled yet.
The sound of hooves on the hard-packed surface echoed between the walls. Ubbe twisted in the saddle, his mouth hanging open as he tried to take in everything at once.
His hands kept pointing—left toward the long rows of wooden stables with their fresh timber and thatched roofs, right toward the kennels where the dogs were already barking at their passage, left again toward the guest longhouses that would house visiting warriors and their retinues.
Ahead, curving around the inner wall, Bjorn could see the spaces marked out for the training yards. The archery butts were already in place—straw targets mounted on poles at various distances. The horse exercise rings had been laid out but not yet fenced.
Smoke rose from a smithy off to one side, the clang of hammer on metal audible even at this distance. Small vegetable plots had been started in the sections with the best sunlight. Piles of firewood, barrels, and carts sat in organized clusters, ready to be moved wherever they were needed.
It would become like a small village inside these walls.
The sound of work filled the air—hammers striking and men shouting instructions to each other.
"What is that wide ditch close to the second wall?" Ubbe asked, his voice tight with curiosity.
"It's called a moat," Bjorn said. "A ditch dug to break an assault before it reaches the wall." He studied it as they approached.
It ran parallel to the inner wall, fifteen meters wide and at least six deep. "An army cannot charge across it. Ladders become useless. Shields mean nothing when men are climbing out of a pit under arrows and stones."
At the bottom, sharpened stakes bristled upward like teeth. Most of this section was dry, though Bjorn knew that parts of the moat were fed by hot-spring channels. In those areas, shallow steaming water pooled—one or two meters deep, warm, and carrying the faint sulfur smell of the earth's heat.
"You see, if you want to cross it, there are only two ways." Bjorn shifted in his saddle so Ubbe could see his face. "There's the fixed wooden bridge we're about to use—that's for peacetime, like now. But if we were attacked, there's a drawbridge right in front of that gate ahead of us. We'd raise it, and suddenly there'd be no way across except to jump and hope you survived the fall onto those stakes."
They crossed the bridge, and as they did, Bjorn felt his awareness sharpen. This was the kill zone. Anyone on this bridge was completely exposed to archers positioned on the inner wall above.
Bjorn nudged his horse forward through the inner gate. This one was similar in design to the outer gate but smaller and stronger. The towers flanking it rose higher, the doors sat thicker in their frame.
Inside the inner bailey, the atmosphere changed. Everything was more orderly here. This was the prestigious heart of the fortress.
To the right, the great keep rose like a stone mountain. Even unfinished, it dominated the skyline. Thirty meters tall—as tall as the inner wall itself. It would remain the tallest structure even after everything else was built.
The library tower, the armory, the small courtyards with their steaming pools—all of those would be dwarfed by the keep.
Straight ahead, the foundation had been laid for the great hall. The throne hall, really. Where Bjorn would hold court, where people from all over the world would come to swear their oaths or air their grievances.
And to the left...the grove. The empty space where Bjorn was still weighing his options and trying to decide if he could survive driving a sword through his own heart to nurture a magical tree with his blood.
"King Bjorn! King Bjorn!"
The nervous shout pulled him from his thoughts. Bjorn turned in his saddle and saw a man hurrying toward him—the leader of the stonemasons, the one he'd brought from England.
As the man drew closer, Bjorn's nose wrinkled. The foul smell of sex radiated from him like heat from a forge. This was the second time Bjorn had met with him and found him in this state.
When he'd first taken the man from the west, he'd been timid, scared of everyone and everything. Now look at him—emboldened by safety and comfort to the point of neglecting his appearance and duties.
"Go clean yourself first." Bjorn's voice came out cold. He gestured toward his family, toward Lagertha and Gyda in particular. "I have my mother and sister with me. I didn't bring them here to have their first sight of this place ruined by the stench of your bedchamber."
"I'm terribly sorry, m-my lord." The stonemason was sweating despite the morning chill. He tried to straighten his crooked clothes, tugging at the fabric with shaking hands. He was a bald man with a beard and a round face that had gone red with embarrassment. "I-I wasn't informed of your coming, t-that's why I couldn't welcome you properly."
'So the man had still been sleeping at this hour instead of overseeing his responsibilities.'
"You should thank all the gods today that the walls are well done," he said quietly. The quiet made it worse somehow, more threatening than if he'd shouted. "Otherwise your head would not have stayed on your body any longer than necessary. Now go clean yourself. I'll hear your report afterward."
The stonemason practically ran back the way he'd come, moving with considerably more urgency than he'd approached with.
'Unprofessional,' Bjorn thought. He'd have to keep a closer eye on the man.
"Where do we go next?" Ubbe's voice brought him back to the moment.
Bjorn paused, looking around. Men worked everywhere, lifting stones with pulley systems that reduced the strain and sped up the construction. The engineering was sound, but there wasn't much to see beyond labor and half-finished walls.
"Let's wait for them to join us," Bjorn said, turning his horse to look back toward where the wagon had stopped.
When his family finally caught up, they clustered around him with questions tumbling over each other, curiosity bright in their eyes.
"How big is the great hall?" Gyda asked.
"Big enough to seat more than five hundred people on trestle tables when we hold feasts." Bjorn could picture it already—the massive space filled with warriors and jarls from all over the world, the noise of celebration echoing off the walls. "I'll sit on a raised high seat. A massive wooden throne with direwolf arms carved to look like they're snarling. There will be galleries at the rear for private conversations, alcoves where business can be conducted away from the crowd. The floors will be heated by the springs, and without surprise of course, there'll be a roaring central hearth."
He continued, describing how the great keep would serve as his private solar and family quarters, connected to other structures by covered bridges so you could move between buildings even in winter storms. The cellars would provide storage for food and weapons, enough to withstand a siege lasting months.
Then there were the glass gardens—domed structures warmed by the springs where they could grow herbs, vegetables, and fruits year-round. Siege-proof sustenance.
And deep underground, vaults where his stone statue would sit on a throne after he died. His children's statues would join him there when their time came, and their children after them. A hall of kings stretching into the future.
The stonemason returned eventually, properly cleaned and dressed this time. He smelled significantly better.
He showed them around, pointing out features and explaining construction techniques, but he didn't add anything Bjorn didn't already know. Still, it was good for the family to hear it from the man doing the work.
When they'd seen enough, Bjorn pulled the stonemason aside for a final word.
"I want you to finish the great keep as soon as possible," he said. "Then the throne room immediately after. When they're done, inform me right away."
The stonemason nodded, though confusion flickered across his face. He didn't understand the urgency, but that didn't matter. He'd do as commanded.
The numbers ran through Bjorn's head as they prepared to leave. He was paying for slaves to do the unskilled work—his own thralls numbered too few for a project this size. He'd rented close to five hundred slaves from other karls and bondi, from landholding families who could spare the labor. That cost him 63 pounds of silver yearly.
Then there was feeding them. At 0.3 pounds of silver per person annually, five hundred workers meant burning through one hundred and fifty pounds of silver in food value alone.
Three years had passed since he began building the castle, and his expenses had already reached 640 pounds of silver.
But thankfully, he had farms capable of producing that food. He was the King of all Norway, after all.
Any greater burden would have strained his finances. The other farms already fed his huskarls who weren't managing agricultural work, along with their families. That was how loyalty worked when there were no raids to fight, no plunder to distribute. Bjorn had to pay from his own lands, his own stores.
The tolls from his trading hubs brought in silver—low hundreds of pounds yearly. But paying to rent slaves because he didn't own enough himself left a bad taste in his mouth. It felt like weakness, like he wasn't established enough yet.
They took the road home, the King's guard forming up around them.
Bjorn rode at the front, his posture straight and proud. His silver hair flew in the wind like a banner, catching the light. Behind him, his family talked and laughed, still excited by what they'd seen.
Days passed. The land survey and registration continued its slow march across Norway, his scribes moving from settlement to settlement. Somewhere else, other teams searched for the silver mine by studying the shape of the land.
It wasn't until a week later that word finally came.
The messenger arrived mud-splattered and breathless, having ridden hard to reach Kattegat. They had found it—the silver deposit exposed at the surface, gleaming dully in the northern light.
Bjorn stood in his hall holding the message, turning it over in his mind. Neither team had any knowledge of mining silver. How could they?
And if he was being honest with himself, Bjorn's own knowledge didn't extend much further.
He gathered his huskarls within the hour. By the time the sun reached its peak, they were aboard long-serpents—growing more common with every passing year as his shipyards expanded—hugging the coastline as they sailed toward Kaupang.
The water was dark and cold, the sky threatening snow that hadn't yet fallen. Winter was coming, breathing down their necks, and Bjorn wanted to see the site before deciding whether to establish a camp, ahead of the season's arrival that would soon make travel impossible.
They entered the river mouth at Kaupang, the ships' hulls cutting through water that had started to ice at the edges. The river narrowed as they pushed inland, the banks drawing closer on either side.
Bjorn ordered the ships to halt where the river settlements began, as the rest of the journey would be made over land. Fishing huts mostly, with smoke rising from their roofs and nets hanging to dry. The people there watched the warriors disembark with wary eyes.
Bjorn stepped onto the muddy shore with his huskarls forming up behind him. One of the men from the survey team was waiting there, practically vibrating with barely contained excitement.
"This way, my lord. West from here."
They walked. The terrain rose gradually, moving from the flat riverland into hills thick with pine and birch. The ground was rocky, difficult. Bjorn's boots found every loose stone, every hidden root. His breath came out in white clouds.
When they finally reached the site, Bjorn stopped and studied what his men had found.
There it was—the vein of rock containing silver, thick as a man's arm where it broke through the surface. The exposure ran for several meters before disappearing back into the hillside. Bjorn crouched down, running his fingers over the stone. The silver content was visible even to his untrained eye, darker streaks against the grey rock.
He straightened and looked around at the assembled men. They were waiting for orders, waiting for him to tell them what came next.
"Start digging a tunnel," he said, pointing to where the vein disappeared into the earth. "Follow it. I want to see how deep this goes."
The men exchanged glances but didn't question him. They began immediately, some finding picks and shovels from the supplies they'd brought, others starting to clear the area around the vein.
Bjorn joined them as well, his mind though was already moving ahead. By logic, the deeper the vein went, the more they could extract. If it continued far into the mountain, if they could follow it without the rock giving out... this could be something significant.
But knowing that and actually mining it were different problems.
He knew what he was good at, so he started with what he understood. Water would be an issue underground. It always was. So they'd need a water-powered pump to remove it from the tunnels as they dug deeper. He sketched out the design in his mind, calculating the mechanics.
They'd need a winch and pulley system to lift the heavy rock and ore out. The deeper they went, the more critical that would become. Men couldn't haul hundred-pound loads up steep tunnels indefinitely.
Strong wooden tunnel supports would prevent collapse. He'd seen enough construction to know how weight distributed through timber, how to brace against the pressure of earth trying to reclaim the space they carved into it.
Ventilation would matter too. Smoke and bad air killed miners as surely as cave-ins. They'd need shafts, channels to draw fresh air down and pull the stale air out.
And for processing the ore itself—the blast furnaces he'd already built would be essential. Advanced smelting meant they could mine rock with lower silver content and still extract value. They didn't need to find only the richest veins. They could process efficiently, extract more from less.
The tunnel grew day by day. The men dug in shifts, following the vein as it angled downward into the mountain. One meter became five. Five became ten. The silver content remained consistent, sometimes even increasing as they went deeper.
Bjorn spent his days at the site, watching the progress, making adjustments to the systems they were building. At night he slept in a tent with his huskarls, planning the next day's work.
The more they dug, the more certain Bjorn became of one thing: this tunnel was truly massive. The vein didn't peter out or narrow to nothing. It kept going, kept promising more silver deeper in the earth.
Which meant he needed more than a temporary camp of tents and cooking fires.
He needed a military camp. A fortified position.
Bjorn stood at the tunnel entrance as the sun set, watching his breath frost in the air.
Author's note :Real historic silver output from the Kongsberg Silver Mines in Norway:
Total production over its entire operational life (1623–1958):
≈ 1,350 tonnes = (1,350,000 kg= 2,976,237 lb ) of silver were extracted.