Ragnar had expected something to change once he got married. What, exactly, he wasn't entirely sure. Maybe for the world to look a bit differently. Or maybe for the world to look at him differently. But, upon waking up in his empty bed, everything felt so very… normal. As if it were just any day rather than a pivotal moment in his life.
It was a strangely disappointing feeling that he wasn't quite sure what to make of. All the same, he rolled out of bed to find that a servant had prepared an outfit for the day, and he began to dress himself. It could be something of a chore at times, especially with the knots and buttons to hold the outfit together, but Father had little respect for those that couldn't even put on their own boots and neither did he.
Once he was dressed, he stepped out of the room that he had been sequestered inside of. They had been granted a manor for the sake of privacy within the city, though calling it a manor was exceedingly generous. Still, it was a building with more than one room, which made it the closest thing the city had to one.
Maeve was seated by the hearth, a knife in her hand as she carved out shafts for arrows. Her gaze flickered up, and they stared at each other for a beat too long, before her lips quirked up. “I thought you'd be the type to rise before the sun does,” she remarked to him, resuming her whittling.
“I don't usually stay up so late,” Ragnar defended himself, casting a glance at the rays of light pouring through the windows. It wasn't quite noon, but it wasn't far off either. “And when I do, I'm used to someone waking me up.” If not Father or one of his brothers, than a servant.
“Hm. I asked them to leave us be for the day,” Maeve told him, and that would explain why they were the only two in the building. “We're married now, but… truth be told, I don't have a clue what you're like when you're alone.”
Ragnar stilled for a moment before he decided to approach the hearth. “That's because I'm not usually alone,” he admitted. There was always someone nearby -- a bodyguard, a servant, one of his siblings, or a parent.
“Hm. I meant more that I don't know what you're like when you're not being a prince,” she clarified. “We got married because of politics, but I wanted to leave them at the door for a bit.”
“How greedy,” Ragnar acknowledged, making her smile grow a fraction.
“Aye, a bit,” she admitted. He was a prince of an empire, and now she was the wife of a prince. Politics would be part of their lives until they died. Ragnar had known and accepted that from a very young age, and it didn't really bother him. Not truly. But, as he sat in a carved chair, the conversation lapsing, he could admit that he wasn’t prepared for… this.
The silence. The absence of expectations. The simple fact that he lacked an easy answer to her question -- who was he when he was alone?
Maeve continued to whittle away at the arrow shaft, checking its straightness with a glance, before she broke the silence.
“I'm the one that killed King Causantín,” she informed in a tone that didn't at all reflect the weight of the crime that she was confessing to.
Ragnar took in a slow breath, blinking at how the admission of regicide was delivered rather than the confession itself. Mostly because… “I thought as much,” Ragnar admitted. Maeve cocked an eyebrow in his direction, asking a silent question. “Your brother all but offered your hand. Your absence for such an offer was strange.”
She seemed to ponder that for a moment before nodding in acceptance, so Ragnar continued. “I knew that whoever had killed him had been amongst his hunting party,” he said, picking up one of the completed arrows. “Outwardly, you had no motive to kill him, so you weren't seriously considered as a suspect by anyone. But when we met for the second time in the storeroom, I began to suspect you as the assassin.”
He rolled the arrow between two fingers before presenting it to Maeve, “I didn't know for certain, of course. But I suspected."
There was a glimmer in her eyes that Ragnar wasn't skilled enough to decipher as she took back the arrow. “Not going to ask why, are you?”
“I wouldn't think you'd confess to murder without giving a reason for it,” he pointed out.
“I might. It's not like you can do anything about it now,” she pointed out, but she seemed satisfied with his response.
“That'd be a bit too cruel, wouldn't it?” As she said, confession or not, there was very little that Ragnar could do with the information now that they were husband and wife. Formally accusing her after they had been married wouldn't just tarnish his own image, it would shatter the budding relationship between Alba and Scandinavia, putting to rest any possibility of an easy vassalage. To do so would be pointless, stupid, and completely invalidate all the reasons they got married in the first place.
Maeve smiled in a way that made heat crawl up his neck, but she answered all the same. “I don't have one really good reason to do it, but I have a lot of little ones.”
“Compelling ones, I hope?” She had murdered a king, after all. And it had taken him days to die.
“Some, maybe. Others, I doubt that they would make much sense to you since you aren't from here.” Maeve admitted, being startlingly honest. “Pride has always been important to the clans. We've spilled more blood in the name of pride than we ever had for the gods or good sense. But the biggest point of pride of all is our supposed victory over the Romans.”
She snorted, “As if we actually won. My ancestors twisted our history until the truth was barely recognizable. We were on the cusp of defeat. Half of the clans were fighting amongst themselves while the other half had already submitted to the Romans. Then their Emperor went and died, and all of a sudden, the Romans had better things to do than finish us off. But, if you listen to any tale or poem -- they tucked their tails between their legs, built a big wall to hide behind, and cowered behind it until their whole empire collapsed.”
Maeve picked up another arrow to start whittling. “Like with the Romans, we knew that you were coming long before you actually arrived. And the clans pointed to our victory over the Romans, deluding themselves with the thought that if we managed to do it once, then we'd be able to do it again.”
Ragnar said nothing, letting her speak and get whatever it was that weighed on her off her chest. Nor did he offer any confirmations that his father would have undoubtedly finished what the Romans started centuries ago. From what he saw of them, they had little chance of defeating them in a pitched battle.
“King Causantín was the cautious sort. Always checked his footing before he took a step. I liked that about him,” Maeve admitted, and it was a strange thing to hear her compliment the man she’d murdered. “But even with my engagement to his son, he just didn't have the support to drown out the fools. He knew it, so he would have gone with whatever they said because that meant he kept getting to be king. Even if it led Alba into a war that we wouldn't have been able to survive.”
Meaning that King Causantín had been predisposed to the Romans? That didn't seem right-
Ah.
He meant to betray Father. Possibly in battle or in the immediate aftermath of it. Such a tactic wouldn't have worked against Father, but King Causantín wouldn't have known that much.
“So, you killed him,” Ragnar acknowledged.
“So, I killed him,” Maeve agreed. “I… didn't mean for it to take days. I was nervous, so my aim wasn't what it should have been.” Well, that was a relief. If she liked King Causantín and still sentenced him to die a slow death, he couldn't imagine what she'd do to the people she disliked.
“Hm,” Ragnar hummed in acknowledgment, earning a reproachful glance.
“That's all you have to say?” Maeve remarked, clearly expecting more. Her guard was up, as if she were expecting condemnation.
The issue was… that was about the sum of his thoughts. “I appreciate you telling me,” Ragnar said, and that wasn't what she wanted to hear based on how her eyes flattened. “But…”
He wasn't even sure how to phrase it. It was something he always kind of felt, but never put into words. “My father believes in honor. Usually to the point it acts as a detriment to his ambitions. He'll guard himself from intrigue, and he'll keep a keen eye on the plots that surround him, but… to him, assassination, blackmail, extortion, and other dark acts are tools that he refuses to engage with. Even when he does stand to gain from it.”
Now Maeve tilted her head. “And you don't?”
“Assassination and war are extensions of diplomacy rather than failures of it,” Ragnar replied. “I don't intend to go around murdering people for the sake of convenience, of course. They are tools to use when the situation calls for them. What you described… I feel that it fits that condition.” So there was no anger in him that his wife had murdered King Causantín. There was no real surprise either, because he’d already had suspicions, but it hadn't been worth it to confirm them, especially since she had gotten away with it.
“And how do you know if the situation calls for it?” Maeve pressed, her tone betraying her interest.
To that, Ragnar shrugged. “I don't know yet. I've killed on the battlefield, but I haven't ordered someone's death. I feel like that will be different, somehow. Until then, I'll learn from my father and my aunts.” Aunt Jill in particular. Father shied away from intrigue, while Aunt Morrigan specialized in it. Aunt Jill seemed like a fair middle ground to try to emulate.
“Huh,” Maeve returned, seemingly mollified by his response. “How practical of you.” That felt like a compliment, so Ragnar decided to take it as one.
“Why the sudden confession, anyway?” Ragnar asked, knowing that it couldn't be a surge of guilt or anything like it.
“Mostly because I thought you should know. My brother knows that I did it, and if he thinks he can use the information against you, then he will,” she answered, almost dismissive of the fact her brother planned to extort them. He was in a position to. It wouldn't take much twisting to paint them -- he and his family -- as the aggressors. That it was their idea all along.
Of course, Maeve and Lucas would suffer for it alongside them, but the narrative of the situation would twist from his father taking advantage of the situation to being its mastermind.
“The rest? Well, I thought you'd answer a question honestly if I was honest first,” Maeve continued. She lowered the whittling knife and the half finished arrow. “I'm your wife now. Sooner or later, you'll be the King of Alba. That's all but set in stone. But there is a higher crown that you can claim, and people expect you to take it.”
He didn't mean to, but Ragner found himself tensing, knowing exactly what she was going to ask.
“Do you want it? Your father's crown?” Maeve asked him directly, pinning him with a measuring look that told him that he shouldn't even try lying. “Enough to take it if needed?”
Ragnar worked his jaw for a long second, his gaze drifting from her to the hearth that sat near. When he did speak, he chose to be honest.
“I don't really care about being the Allvaldr, or my father’s heir,” he admitted. “My father… he sleeps once every few days, did you know that? And even then, there are hardly enough hours in the day for him to do everything that he needs to. And that's with my mother and aunts helping him. It's an endless amount of work and he constantly deals with people that he wouldn’t piss on even if they were on fire. Most days, I don't think even he wants to be the Allvaldr. He just has to be because otherwise, Charlemagne would have swept over us like the tide and eradicated our faith.”
“That doesn't answer my question,” Maeve pointed out. “What do you want?”
“I…” Ragnar faltered. “I just want to live up to my father's expectations,” he admitted after a second of hesitation. “If I become the heir, then that feels like a sign that I am. If I don't, then it feels like I fell short somehow. But actually being the Allvaldr? I don't really care one way or the other.”
It felt almost shameful to admit. That his father was going to spend his life building an empire that could stand for a thousand years, and Ragnar… didn't really care about it. Or, he didn't care as much about it as he cared about disappointing his father.
What he didn't appreciate was Maeve snorting in amusement, making him narrow his eyes, but she waved off his ire. “I'm not laughing at you. Not really. I'm just not sure you realize how rare that is. Most princes and lordlings can't wait for their fathers to die because it means they get a title they aren't prepared for. Then they go on to have kids that they know don't care about them, so they don't care in turn.”
Maeve leaned back in her seat, humming with contentment. “That's not the answer I expected,” she admitted. “But I think that I like it. No ambition for the sake of it, but you're a little too dutiful for your own good.”
That made a knot between his shoulders come undone that he only became aware of once it vanished. “And now?” He prompted, wanting to know what she intended to do with the information.
“Now?” She echoed before shrugging, “I think I'll enjoy our marriage.”
A small breath of amusement escaped him, “Well that is a comfort. I'd hate it if assassinating royalty became a habit for you.”
A slow grin tugged at her lips that she couldn't quite wipe away, “See to it that you stay on my good side, and it won't.”
The conversation lapsed and this time, it felt far more comfortable.
…
“Look who finally decided to join us,” Harald remarked upon seeing Ragnar enter Father’s office. Ragnar felt everyone’s attention shift to him, and he wasn’t sure what to make of the smiles. Or the pats on the back. They were treating him as if he had taken a great stride in his life, but things still felt normal, even as he took his place by his father’s side.
Father rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze, but moved on with the discussion that they all had been summoned for.
“Ecbert and his lords are committing to an offensive,” Father began, and that stifled the cheer in the room. “He's gathered all the strength of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. Our scouts report that he has an army more than a hundred thousand strong. Closer to a hundred and fifty, I imagine.”
“How?” Harald blurted, earning a reproachful glance from Uncle Haldur. Chastised, he continued all the same. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, uncle, but… how?”
“By putting spears in the hands of farmers,” Uncle Haldur answered, earning a nod from Father.
“Most of the army consists of refugees from our raid,” he informed in a hard tone. “Or those that seek religious revenge for the sack of Rome.” At that, many eyes slid to Hjalmar, who stood near the center of the table in a seat of honor.
He met the glances and offered a small shrug, “Sorry.”
That earned a few chuckles, the tension in the room easing just a touch. Father put a great deal of faith in the man. Ragnar was inclined to trust him just for that, but he couldn't say that he knew him particularly well. He did have a sharp sense of humor, though. Of all the gifts that he’d received for the wedding, the pope's strange hat was among his favorites.
“They will be ill trained, poorly equipped, and disorganized,” Father continued. “But I won't lie to you. They don't need to be any more than that when there's that many of them. Short of holding an entrenched position, we don't have a hope of withstanding the sheer weight of their numbers, and fighting from an entrenched position would see us besieged.”
“We must face them,” Lucas replied, a sense of urgency lurking in the back of his tone. He realized the truth of it -- such an army could not be assembled and not be used. Even if Father ordered the end of their raid, that army would be marched up to Alba for its alliance with Scandinavia.
Given that it would one day be his future domain, Ragnar was inclined to defend it.
“We will,” Father assured those at the table. “We must. The Christians are creating a narrative, and for better or worse, we must play our part in it.” There were many at the table that didn't know what to make of that, but Ragnar did.
The sack of Rome, and the raiding of Britannia, all followed by the rise of a ‘pagan’ empire to the north. Father had had him read the Bible cover to cover, so that he could understand the thinking and motivations of their enemies. One lesson stood out -- Christianity thrived in the face of oppression. The more the Romans had tried to grind out the sparks of their faith, the more kindling they fed them until it became an uncontrollable flame.
Charlemagne was using that same sense of adversity and righteous rage to bind his fragile empire together. It was an easy rhetoric to establish. To the South and West were Muslims. To the North were ‘pagans.’ And to the East were the Khazars, who practiced Judaism or Tengrism. Christianity was quite literally surrounded and under attack on all sides.
“What we must do is be on the offensive,” Father continued. “We harry them to a battlefield of our choosing. We destroy their supplies enroute, break the will of their men before they have a chance to fight. Against such an enemy, we cannot fight them as one cohesive whole, but in a thousand small battles before we finish them.”
It was a fine speech. Those at the table thought so as well.
But, deep down, Ragnar began to wonder…
What game was Ecbert playing at?