Ragnar sat on his favorite crate, staring at a piece of charcoal that crumbled in his hand. The furnace had been running non-stop for two days. It was spewing out liquid iron, which was fantastic, but it was also devouring the local forest at a terrifying rate.
"If we keep this up," Ragnar muttered, "we'll conquer England only to find a desert."
He closed his eyes and summoned the geological map of Britain from his past life. He was in Northumbria. The North East coast.
Newcastle. Or as it was likely called now, Monkchester or just "That Place with the Romans."
"Vinod... I mean, Bjorn!" Ragnar shouted, momentarily forgetting which timeline he was in.
Bjorn ducked into the tent. He was covered in soot, looking like a giant burnt marshmallow. "You called, Brother? The furnace is roaring, but Toke is tired of running in the wheel. He demands more ale."
"Forget Toke for a moment," Ragnar said. "I need you to send a scout team north along the coast. Tell them to look for black rocks."
Bjorn squinted. "Rocks? We have rocks here. Grey ones. Brown ones."
"Black ones," Ragnar clarified. "Rocks that sit on the beach and look wet. If you throw them in the fire, they burn hotter than wood. The locals call it 'Sea Coal.' Bring me a wagon full."
Bjorn looked at Ragnar with deep suspicion. "Burning rocks. First, you make iron flow like water, now you want to set stones on fire. Fine. I will send Starkad. He likes picking things up from the beach."
With the fuel crisis theoretically delegated, Ragnar turned to the bigger problem.
The Blast Furnace was too efficient. That was a sentence Ragnar never thought he'd say in the 9th century. They had cast thousands of arrowheads. They had cast ingots. But they also had a massive pile of "seconds" brittle cast iron pots, ugly skillets, and farming tools that had cooled too fast.
The "Iron Tithe" debt hung over Ragnar's head. He had promised the soldiers double the value of their scrap. The Treasury was empty. If he didn't turn this pile of ugly iron into silver soon, Jarl Einar would likely try to feed him to the furnace.
"Summon the Council," Ragnar ordered. "We need to talk business."
Ten minutes later, the "Board of Directors" had assembled.
There was Ulf, the Head of Military Operations (and anxious father).
There was Jarl Sigurd, the Head of Finance (currently ulcer-prone).
And Princess Gyda, the Mistress of the Ledger (and the only one who seemed to be enjoying the chaos).
"Gentlemen, and Princess," Ragnar began, pointing to a stack of cast-iron frying pans piled in the corner. "We have a liquidity problem. We are rich in iron, but poor in silver. We need a market."
Jarl Sigurd grunted, rubbing his bearded chin. "The market is York. We sack it, we take the silver."
"York is a siege," Ragnar countered. "Sieges take time. The men want their payout now. We need to sell our surplus stock."
He picked up a heavy, ugly iron skillet.
"Who buys this?" Ragnar asked.
The room went silent as they brainstormed.
Jarl Sigurd was the first to speak. "We sail to Frankia. The Franks love pots. They cook complicated things."
Ragnar shook his head immediately. "Too far. By the time we sail there and back, the siege will be over, or the men will have mutinied. We need a local buyer."
"We sell to the Danes in Dublin?" Ulf suggested. "They are our kin. They have silver."
"The Irish Sea is swarming with pirates," Ragnar rejected. "We'd lose half the cargo. And the Danes in Dublin are cheap. They'll try to pay us in stolen sheep."
Ragnar leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous idea.
"I have a different proposal. We sell to the Mercians."
" The Mercians?!" Sigurd shouted, slamming his hand on the table. "They are Saxons! They are Christians! They are the allies of Northumbria!"
"Technically," Gyda interjected calmly, flipping a page in her ledger, "Mercia and Northumbria hate each other. They have been fighting over border lands for two hundred years. The enemy of my enemy is my customer."
Ragnar nodded at her. She gets it.
"But they are still Saxons!" Ulf argued. "If we give them iron, they will make swords. And next year, they will use those swords to kill us."
"That," Ragnar smiled, tapping the brittle cast-iron skillet, "is exactly what I am counting on."
He stood up and walked around the table.
"This is Cast Iron. It is hard, but it is brittle. It makes great pots. It makes great ploughshares for farming. But if a smith tries to hammer this into a longsword... it will shatter the first time it hits a shield."
Ragnar looked at his advisors.
"We flood the Mercian market with cheap iron. We take their silver. We take their grain. In return, they get metal that is perfect for farming but terrible for war. If they try to weaponize it, they sabotage their own army."
Sigurd's mouth fell open. He looked at the skillet with new respect. "You want to sell them... bad weapons?"
"I want to sell them agricultural products," Ragnar corrected innocently. "If they misuse them, that voids the warranty."
The sheer deviousness of the plan settled over the Vikings. To rob a man with an axe was glorious. To rob a man by selling him a sword that broke? That was... Loki-level mischief.
"I like it," King Horik's voice boomed from the entrance. The King had been listening from outside, eating an apple. "It is dishonest. It is greedy. It is perfect."
The King sat down at the head of the table. "But," Horik wiped his mouth, "Mercia is south of here. The border is guarded. How do we move five tons of iron skillets into enemy territory without getting shot?"
The room fell silent again..
This was the Logistics Hurdle. They couldn't just march a caravan into Mercia. They needed a smuggler. Someone who knew the back roads, the bribes, and the secret river crossings.
"I don't know the land," Ragnar admitted. "I know the machines, but I don't know the politics of the mud."
"Does anyone?" Ragnar asked the room. "Who knows a man who walks between the lines?"
Silence stretched. Even Gyda looked thoughtful but stumped. Then, from the back of the tent, Ulf cleared his throat.
"Ah... Your Highness," Ulf said slowly, looking a bit embarrassed. "I have no idea about Mercian politics, but I know a prisoner who does."
Ragnar turned to his father. "Who?"
Ulf scratched his neck. "Do you remember the raid on the monastery last week? The one where we found the wine cellar?"
"Vividly," Ragnar said.
"We found a man in the dungeon," Ulf explained. "He wasn't a monk. He was locked up by the monks. He claims he is a 'Traveler.' But he speaks Norse, Saxon, and Frankish. And he has a tattoo of a snake on his neck."
Ragnar's interest piqued. A polyglot prisoner in a monk's dungeon? That screamed 'Professional Criminal.'
"Where is he now?" Ragnar asked.
"Bjorn has him," Ulf chuckled. "He says his name is Aethelwulf, but the men call him 'The Weasel'."
Ragnar stood up immediately. "Bring me The Weasel."
Ten Minutes Later...
Bjorn dragged a man into the tent.
Aethelwulf "The Weasel" was a scrawny man with shifting eyes and a nose that had clearly been broken at least three times. He wore a ragged tunic, but his hands were soft—not the hands of a worker, but the hands of a card sharp.
He looked at the King, then at Ragnar, then at the pile of iron skillets.
"I didn't steal the potatoes," Aethelwulf said quickly. "Whatever Bjorn said, it was a misunderstanding involving a goat."
"We don't care about the potatoes," Ragnar said, sitting on the edge of the table. "We want to talk about trade."
Aethelwulf blinked. He looked around the room filled with armed Vikings. "Trade? You usually just take things."
"We are diversifying," Ragnar said. "I have five tons of iron. I want to sell it in Mercia. I need silver and grain. And I need to do it without the Mercian King hanging my men."
The Weasel looked at the iron. He picked up a skillet. He tapped it with his fingernail.
"Cast iron," Aethelwulf muttered. "Brittle. High carbon content. Good for soup, bad for parrying."
Ragnar froze. "You know metallurgy?"
"I know that I sold a shipment of swords made from this stuff to a minor Lord in Wessex once," Aethelwulf grinned, revealing a missing tooth. "He was very upset when his sword broke during a duel. That's why I was hiding in the monastery in the North. The monks offer sanctuary... for a price."
Ragnar laughed. This man was perfect. A con artist from the 9th century who understood the product.
"Can you get us into the Mercian markets?" Ragnar asked.
Aethelwulf narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for me? Besides not being killed?"
"Ten percent of the profit," Ragnar offered. "And your freedom."
"Twenty percent," Aethelwulf countered instantly. "And a horse. A fast one."
"Fifteen," Gyda cut in, her voice sharp. "And a donkey. You look like a donkey rider."
Aethelwulf looked at the Princess. He saw the cold calculation in her eyes. He gulped.
"Fifteen and a donkey," he agreed. "But we don't go through the main roads. We go through the Fens. The swamps. I know a Reeve in Lincoln who loves bribes more than he loves God."
Ragnar stood up and extended his hand.
"Welcome to the Industrial Corps, Weasel," Ragnar said. "You are now the Head of Export."
Aethelwulf shook the hand cautiously. "Head of Export. Sounds dangerous."
"It is," Ragnar grinned. "But the retirement plan is excellent."
He turned to Sigurd.
"Load the wagons," Ragnar ordered. "Cover the iron with hay. Weasel leads the way. We are going to flood Mercia with the finest, most breakable cookware in history."
As the Weasel was led away to inspect the cargo, King Horik shook his head, looking at Ragnar with a mixture of awe and concern.
"You build machines that throw rocks," the King muttered. "You build furnaces that melt stones. And now you build a trade empire with a criminal and a donkey."
"It's called vertical integration, my King," Ragnar said, picking up his slate.
"I don't know what that means," Horik sighed, biting into another apple. "Just make sure the donkey comes back. I like that donkey."