์Asa was the daughter of King Harald Granraude of Agder. King Gudrød the Hunter (Gudrød Veidekonge) of Borre in Vestfold proposed marriage to her after the death of his first wife, but her father refused the marriage. Gudrød Veidekonge then killed her father and her brother, abducted her and married her. One year later, she became the mother of Halfdan the Black. One year after this, Åsa took her revenge and had her servant kill her husband.
She left the kingdom of Borre to her stepson Olaf Geirstad-Alf (now dead) and took her own son with her to the kingdom of Agder, her birth country, where she took power.
Now she rules Agder.
Also read very slowly this chapter because Halfdan is a very important character for the rise of Bjorn. And there is some foreshadowing.
Late February-Early march. 794 A.D
Outside, the wind pressed against the heavy wooden shutters, carrying with it the last cold of winter.
Inside the great hall at Borre was quiet, save for the crackling fire and the soft murmur of voices that rose and fell.
Halfdan sat at the head of the long wooden table, his weathered hands resting flat against its rough surface for a moment before his fingers began their familiar drumming, it was a slow rhythm that matched his thoughts.
Around him, the small circle of trusted men had drawn their chairs close, leaning forward as if sharing secrets with the shadows themselves.
Their faces, carved by years of salt spray and battle, caught the pale light of flickering torches mounted along the stone walls. The flames danced, casting their features in sharp relief one moment, then softening them the next.
Olver Spake, Halfdan's foster father, had been quiet for some time, his pale eyes studying the grain of the wood between his hands. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and each word was measured.
"The snow thaws sooner this year," he said. "My scouts... they've been watching the mountain passes since the last storm. They report the frost will break by the next moon, maybe sooner if this wind keeps up."
Halfdan's drumming paused. He lifted his gaze to the map spread before them, a crudely carved wooden board, its surface scarred by countless planning sessions. Wooden tokens, some worn smooth by handling, marked villages and forests, rivers and hills. His finger traced a line along what represented the southern border.
"That means Nordli will be stirring soon," Halfdan said, his voice carrying the weight of certainty. "The border farms too. They'll be eager to get their seed in the ground." He paused, his finger stopping on a cluster of tokens. "And ripe for taking."
Harek Gand shifted his considerable weight in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him. He was a man built like an oak, he was broad, solid, unmovable when he chose to be. Now he rubbed his grizzled chin, the gesture slow and thoughtful.
"Aye, but they'll be ready for us too," Harek said after a moment. "Those raiders we sent last season, the ones who made it back, they brought word that Gandalf's men are rebuilding their stockpiles faster than we expected. Grain, weapons, horses. They know what's coming with the spring thaw."
A murmur passed among the men. Some nodded grimly, others exchanged meaningful glances.
The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up into the darkness of the rafters.
"So then, Halfdan," Guthrum, brother of the queen said. "What's your mind on this? Do we bring the full weight of our strength down on them and make it a proper war? Or do we dance around the edges like wolves, hit and run until they're worn down?"
The question hung in the air. Halfdan's gaze sharpened, moving from face to face around the table. These men had followed him through seasons of raiding, had bled with him, had trusted him with their lives and the lives of their warriors.
He leaned forward, his finger stabbing down at tokens representing grain stores. "We move fast when the mud dries. Hit their stores before they can distribute the seed, burn their farms. Take their horses so they can't pursue us properly. Leave them scrambling."
Olver leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice dropping even lower than before. The torchlight caught the silver in his beard as he spoke.
"Is it true, then? The whispers I've been hearing?" He paused, studying Halfdan's face. "That you've sent word to the northern jarls? Trying to turn them against Gandalf, isolate him?"
For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of the fire. Halfdan was quiet, considering his words. These men were his inner circle, but even among friends, some truths were dangerous.
"A man fights better when he knows his enemies can't call for help," Halfdan said at last, his tone carefully neutral. "Better to have allies watching Gandalf's back door than to face him when he's got the whole north to draw from."
Harek's weathered face darkened, his thick brows drawing together. He'd always been the one to voice hard truths, even when they stung.
"But some of the men are saying you push too hard, too fast," Harek said, his voice carrying a note of warning. "That you stretch us thin. We've got barely enough warriors to hold our own lands, let alone go raiding deep into enemy territory."
The criticism settled over the table. Several of the other men shifted uncomfortably, their eyes moving between Harek and Halfdan. It was dangerous ground, questioning a leader's judgment, but it was also necessary.
Halfdan's eyes narrowed slightly, though his voice remained steady. "Better to be bold and risk a loss than to sit in our halls and wait for ruin to find us. Gandalf won't stay content with what he has. He'll come for us eventually, when he's strong enough. I'd rather meet him on ground of my choosing."
Earl Atle Mjove the Slender, close friend of Halfdan, shifted in his seat. He was younger than the others, his beard still more brown than gray, but his reputation in legal matters had earned him a place at this table.
"And what of Bjorn?" Earl Atle asked, his voice carrying a note of curiosity. "The lad sits tight in his holdings around Kattegat, keeps to himself mostly. But the traders who pass through bring word that he's been gaining followers. Young men, mostly, but eager ones."
Harek's weathered face darkened immediately, his fist coming down on the table with a dull thud that made the wooden tokens jump.
"Exactly!" he growled, his voice heavy with frustration. "That's precisely why it should have been me who went as envoy to meet this Bjorn. I know how to speak to young warriors, how to make them see sense. He would have been our ally by now, sworn and sealed."
His eyes flicked toward Guthrum with barely concealed contempt. "Instead, all we got was empty words and wasted time."
Guthrum straightened in his chair as if he'd been struck, his face flushing red above his carefully groomed beard. When he spoke, his voice was tight with wounded pride and barely controlled anger.
"Empty words?" he repeated, his tone dangerously quiet. "I'll have you know I spent two days in that boy's hall, trying to understand him and at least get a reaction from him. He is the type to never be swayed by threats and bluster, Harek. He requires... finesse."
"Finesse?" Harek barked out a harsh laugh. "Is that what you call coming back with nothing but promises to 'consider our proposal'?"
Guthrum's hand moved instinctively toward his sword hilt before he caught himself. "I did more in two days of careful negotiation than your heavy-handed approach would have accomplished in three moons."
The tension in the hall had grown thick as smoke. The other jarls watched the exchange like men watching a blade fight, knowing that words could cut as deep as steel when spoken between proud men.
Halfdan had been listening in silence, his fingers never ceasing their rhythmic drumming on the table. Now he raised one hand, and the gesture was enough to quiet both men, though they continued to glare at each other across the wooden surface.
"Enough," Halfdan said quietly, but his voice carried the authority of absolute command. He looked first at Harek, then at Guthrum, his expression unreadable in the flickering torchlight.
"Harek, your point about lost time has merit. But Guthrum is right about Bjorn's nature, the boy is no fool to be browbeaten into submission." He paused, letting his words settle. "And Guthrum, while your approach may have been correct, the results speak for themselves. We need more than Bjorn's consideration; we need his commitment."
Both men fell silent, though the hostility between them still crackled like green wood in a fire.
Halfdan snorted softly, though there was no real mockery in it. "Let him have his village politics. Oslofjord has no kingdom yet, and Bjorn's got more sense than to make enemies he can't handle." He paused, his fingers resuming their drumming. "We have no quarrel with him, not yet anyway."
Olver exchanged a quick glance with Harek, the kind of look that passed between men who had known each other through too many campaigns to count.
"Not yet," Olver repeated, his voice thoughtful. "But if the fighting spreads, if it grows beyond raiding into something larger... well, villagers have a way of choosing sides whether their leaders want them to or not."
The truth of that settled over them all. They had seen it before, small disputes growing into blood feuds, blood feuds becoming wars that consumed entire regions. The difference between a successful raid and the beginning of something larger was often thinner than the edge of a blade.
Halfdan reached out and tapped one of the wooden tokens with his fingernail, a small piece that represented a farming settlement on the border between his lands and Gandalf's in Vingulmark. The sound was sharp in the quiet hall.
"Then we make sure those sides choose wisely," he said. "We show them that we're strong, that we protect what's ours and take what we need. That we're the kind of men they'd want as allies, not enemies."
The fire flickered lower, the flames settling into a hypnotic dance. The men fell silent, each lost in his own thoughts, weighing possibilities, counting costs.
Halfdan looked up at the sound, his weathered face thoughtful in the dying firelight. When he spoke again, his voice was steady but quiet, carrying the weight of certainty and the edge of anticipation.
"We prepare," he said simply. "Check our weapons, count our stores, send word to the men we can trust. The season is turning, and with it, everything changes." He paused, his eyes moving around the table one more time. "Soon, Vingulmark will be ours."
The heavy wooden doors of the hall suddenly burst open with a crash. Every head turned toward the interruption, hands instinctively moving toward sword hilts.
A young servant stood in the doorway with his chest heaving as if he had run the length of the hall. His face was pale with exhaustion and something else, fear, perhaps, or the weight of terrible news.
Snow dusted his shoulders and clung to his hair, melting in the sudden warmth and dripping onto the rushes at his feet.
When he tried to speak, the words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other in his haste to deliver his message.
"My lord, forgive the intrusion, but it's your wife..."
But before the words could fully leave his lips, Halfdan was already moving. His chair scraped violently against the stone floor as he shot to his feet, the sound harsh in the sudden silence. Without a word to his assembled men, without even a backward glance, he strode toward the door.
His boots rang against the stones as he pushed past the stammering servant, leaving the warmth of the hall behind and disappearing into the cold corridor beyond.
The men sat frozen around the table.
----------------------------------
Halfdan entered the dim chamber, his boots muffled by the thick rushes scattered across the stone floor. The faint scent of herbs lingered in the air; chamomile, willow bark, and something that he couldn't name.
It was the smell of sickness, of desperate remedies that weren't working.
His wife lay on the low bed beneath the narrow window, wrapped in thick woolen blankets that seemed to swallow her diminished form. Her face was pale as fresh snow, and her breathing came in slow, uneven rhythms that made his chest tighten with each labored breath.
She was surrounded by the healers; three women in dark robes who hovered around the bed like ravens, their faces etched with worry and frustration.
When Halfdan entered, they stepped back slightly, their movements quick and nervous.
Halfdan's eyes swept over them before settling on their faces. His voice, when it came, was controlled but edged with the authority of a man accustomed to answers.
"What's wrong with her again?" he asked, though his tone suggested he expected better news than the last time he'd asked.
The youngest healer, a woman with graying hair pulled back severely, opened her mouth to speak but no words came. She looked to her companions, then back to Halfdan, her hands wringing together.
"I... We..." she stammered, then fell silent.
Halfdan's patience, already stretched thin by weeks of watching his wife waste away, snapped like an overtaxed rope.
"Damn it, speak!" he barked, his voice filling the small chamber. "I don't pay you to stumble over your tongues!"
The leader of the healers, an older woman whose face bore the lines of decades spent tending the sick and dying, stepped forward. Her voice was steady, but Halfdan could see the defeat in her eyes.
"We don't know, my lord," she said simply. "The hiti (fever) that broke three days past... it's returned. Stronger than before. Her body burns with heat, yet she shivers as if caught in a winter storm. The remedies that helped before..." She spread her hands helplessly. "They do nothing now."
Halfdan felt something cold settle in his stomach, but his voice remained hard. "Well, you are healers, are you not? Use your herbs and your knowledge. Heal her."
"My lord," the woman began carefully, "we have tried everything in our power. The fever medicines, the cooling baths, the prayers to Eir. Perhaps if we could send word to the wise women in the northern settlements—"
"Perhaps?" Halfdan's voice rose. "I don't want perhaps. I want my wife well."
From the bed came a voice, weak but unmistakably carrying the tone of a woman accustomed to being obeyed. Ragnhild's eyes had opened, and though they were dimmed by illness, they still held the strength that had first caught Halfdan's attention years ago when he saved her from that crazy berserker.
"Stop being hard on them," she said, each word carefully measured to conserve her strength. "It's not their fault, Halfdan. Some things... some things are beyond the reach of herbs and prayers."
Halfdan looked at his wife, then at the healers, and felt the fight drain out of him like water from a cracked vessel. With a heavy sigh, he raised his hand and made a dismissive gesture toward the door.
The healers needed no further encouragement. They gathered their pouches and bowls with quick, efficient movements, relief evident on their faces as they hurried toward the door. The oldest paused for a moment at the threshold.
"We will continue to prepare new remedies, my lord," she said quietly. "And we will pray."
Then they were gone, leaving Halfdan and Ragnhild alone in the herb-scented chamber. Halfdan pulled up a wooden stool beside the bed and sat down heavily, the weight of the day, the weight of everything, settling on his shoulders.
For a moment, they were quiet. Outside, the wind rattled the wooden shutters, and somewhere in the hall beyond, he could hear the distant sounds of life continuing, servants about their duties, the low murmur of voices, the scrape of benches being moved.
"Did you send word for our son?" Ragnhild asked quietly, her eyes fixed on his face.
"I did," Halfdan replied, his voice softer now, the harsh edge gone. "A rider left this morning, though the roads are still treacherous with ice." He paused, his weathered hands clasped before him. "The great queen of Agder keeps him close in her hall, under her watch. She's protective of him, perhaps more than she needs to be."
Ragnhild's mouth curved in the faintest suggestion of a smile. "Your mother was always protective of what she considers hers. People still remember what happened between your father and her."
"Aye," Halfdan said with a short laugh that held no humor. "Harald is safe there, safer than he would be here. She'll bring him when the roads thaw properly... Well, send someone she trusts."
"Your mother will keep him safe," she murmured, her voice so soft it was almost lost in the whisper of wind outside.
Halfdan nodded, though something in her tone made him look at her more carefully. "Safer there than here, for now. When this business with Gandalf is settled, when the borders are secure..."
He let the words trail off, but Ragnhild's gaze returned to him, and something passed between them, an understanding neither wished to name aloud. They both knew that wars had a way of growing beyond their intended boundaries, that safety was a luxury that could vanish like morning mist.
Ragnhild shifted slightly under the heavy blankets, and a faint cough escaped her lips, dry and rasping. When she spoke again, her voice carried a weariness that went deeper than physical exhaustion.
"I'm tired," she admitted, the words barely above a whisper. "But it's not just the body that's weary, Halfdan. Something feels... unsettled. Like a storm building on a clear day."
Halfdan's eyes darkened, and he leaned forward slightly. "What do you mean? Is it the fever? Are you seeing things that aren't there?"
Ragnhild was quiet for a long moment, her eyes closed as if she were looking at something he couldn't see. When she opened them again, there was something in her gaze that made his skin prickle, not of madness, but a clarity that somehow seemed more frightening.
"The great tree," she said simply.
The words hit Halfdan. He straightened in his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the bed. "Ragnhild..."
"When I first dreamed of it," she continued, her voice growing stronger despite her weakness, "when I was heavy with Harald, I saw myself pull a thorn from my clothes. Such a small thing, no bigger than my fingernail. But when I cast it to the ground, it grew."
Her eyes found his, holding them. "It grew into a tree so mighty that its branches could shelter all of Norway."
Halfdan's throat felt tight. "Of course I remember. You told me the vision while the birth pains were still fresh. Its branches spread so wide they could cover all of Norway from the mountains to the sea." He paused, his voice dropping. "Isn't that the prophecy that set us on this path? The vision that made us believe we could unify all the scattered kingdoms?"
Ragnhild looked at him with an expression of profound sadness, the kind of sorrow that comes from seeing too far into the future.
"I've seen it again," she whispered. "Night after night, the same dream. But now..." Her voice broke slightly. "Now I see it burning."
The words fell into the chamber, creating a silence. Halfdan stared at his wife, his mind struggling to process what she had said.
"Burning?" he repeated, his voice hoarse.
"The great tree, our tree, consumed by flames. The branches that were meant to shelter Norway turned to ash and smoke. The trunk, so mighty and proud, reduced to a blackened stump." Tears gathered in her eyes. "And in the dream, I can hear the screaming of all those who sought shelter beneath its branches."
The silence stretched between them like a chasm. Outside, the wind had grown stronger, and the shutters rattled more insistently, as if something were trying to get in.
Finally, Ragnhild spoke again, her voice barely audible but filled with the weight of absolute certainty.
"It's a bad omen, Halfdan." She reached out with one pale, trembling hand to touch his arm. "I think... I think it would be better if you stopped. All of it. The raids, the alliances, the dream of unification. Before the tree catches fire and burns us all."
She paused, her fingers gripping his arm with surprising strength, and when she spoke again, her words carried the finality of a funeral bell.
"It's a bad omen."
Halfdan looked down at her hand on his arm, then up at her face, and for the first time in years, he didn't know what to say.
The woman who had given him the vision that had shaped his destiny was now asking him to abandon it.
The tree that had promised to shelter all of Norway might instead consume it.
Outside, a raven cawed in the distance, it was harsh and mocking, and the sound seemed to echo through the chamber like laughter from the gods.