Gyda's arms ached from doing the same movement for a while now, as another villager approached. The contributions grew heavier with each offering, silver and amber, grains... weighing down the sacred container that would journey to Uppsala.
"Shouldn't you be the one handling this?" she asked when Bjorn passed by, carrying his own preparations.
He paused, glancing at the line that still stretched beyond the longhouse doors. "Says who?"
"You're the earl." The words came out sharper than she intended.
Bjorn's mouth twitched. "Usually the earl's wife manages the offerings. But since I lack one of those..." He shrugged. "Mother would do it, but she won't leave Ubbe. He's still too small for such a journey."
Gyda pressed her lips together. The baby's cries had echoed through the walls all morning, punctuated by their mother's exhausted humming.
"Besides," Bjorn's voice softened as he touched her hair, "the people should know you and see your face. It matters more than you think."
Bjorn smiled, but it looked very annoying to Gyda, then he made a fist teasing gesture towards her, "Stay strong."
After he left, Gyda watched him join Athelstan near the corner of the longhouse. The monk stood rigid, his knuckles were white where they gripped his cloak. Even from across the yard, she could see the tension in his face.
The next contributor stepped forward, an old man leaning heavily on his walking stick. His rheumy eyes found hers as he pressed a silver arm-ring into her palm. The metal was warm from his body heat.
"For the gods," he wheezed. "Tell them Gunnar remembers the old ways. My legs won't carry me to Uppsala anymore, but my devotion hasn't weakened."
The ring was heavier than it looked. Gyda placed it carefully in the wooden container with the other offerings, feeling the intricate knotwork carved into the metal. "The All-Father will know," she promised. "Your sacrifice will reach Uppsala."
Gunnar nodded and shuffled away, leaving behind the faint scent of woodsmoke and old wool.
The widow Astrid came next, clutching a leather pouch. Her hands shook as she opened it, revealing amber beads that caught the morning light like trapped honey.
"My grandmother's," Astrid said, her voice barely audible. "She said they held summer's warmth inside. Maybe they'll bring our men home safe."
Gyda accepted the beads, placing them gently in the chest beside the other treasures. Each one was perfect, unmarked by time. She wondered how many hands had touched them, how many prayers they'd absorbed over the years.
Athelstan counted his breaths. In, hold, out. The technique the monks had taught him for prayer felt hollow now, useless against what he just learned.
"Seventy-two sacrifices," he said to Bjorn while testing the words. Maybe saying them aloud would make them feel less real.
"Yes."
"Including nine humans." Bjorn turned to look at him then, and Athelstan saw something in his eyes, but a kind of resigned acceptance that made his stomach twist.
"Every nine years," Bjorn said. "Every king, every jarl, every chieftain attends. The rest can send representatives, but most come themselves. Uppsala isn't just about the sacrifices. It's where alliances will be formed, where disputes get settled. Where our world stays connected."
Athelstan watched Gunnar hobble away from Gyda, his cane clicking against the frozen ground. A lifetime of service, and now he gave his silver freely to gods that would demand blood. "Nine people will die."
"They compete for the honor."
The words hit Athelstan like ice water. "They want to die?"
"They want glory and purpose. To know that their death matters." Bjorn's voice carried no judgment, only fact. "In our world, to give a son, a brother, a father, what higher gift could a family offer the gods? Their blood lifts everyone up."
Athelstan's hands started trembling and reached for the cross arm ring under his sleeves. "What about their families? Their wives and their children?"
"Well, some beg them to stay. Others boast about it really." Bjorn paused, considering. "If a man's courage fails at the last moment, he's no longer worthy. His blood becomes worthless, and the gods grow angry. But there's always another willing to take his place."
The silence stretched between them. Athelstan stared at the ground, at the frost crystals forming between the wooden planks.
"It's just how things work around here," Bjorn said finally. "And Nobody can change it." Though he finished the rest in silence. 'Yet'
The question came suddenly: "So... Do you want to come with us?"
Athelstan looked up, surprised. Bjorn's expression was unreadable, but there was something almost hopeful in his voice.
"Who knows," Bjorn grinned, "you might even find a pretty girl to marry."
Despite everything, Athelstan almost smiled. "I'll come."
Bjorn reached under his cloak and produced a silver arm-ring, simpler than Gunnar's, but well-made. "You'll need this then." His expression grew serious as he glanced at Athelstan's wrist. "And it would be better if you removed yours. There will be thousands of people there. If they see that cross... It will be rather troublesome."
Athelstan's fingers went automatically to his arm ring cross. The thought of removing it felt like removing part of himself.
But he nodded.
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After a long day of preparation, Bjorn, Ragnar, Rollo, Floki, the seer, and the rest of the retinue took the 15 to 21 days road to Uppsala.
The procession stretched along the snowy path as huskarls marched in formation, the thralls with the weight of supplies and sacred offerings, and the skald already murmuring verses about the momentous journey ahead.
Bjorn marched near the front, but his eyes kept drifting back to the seer. The old man rode the horse slowly apart from the others, his black cloak was making him look like a tear in the winter landscape.
"You look tired, old man, even though i gave you my horse" Bjorn called out, slowing his pace until the seer caught up.
The seer turned his face toward Bjorn with that face where eyes should have been but were not. "It is not these old bones that are tired," he said, his voice like wind through a graveyard. "It is my soul."
"Your soul?" Bjorn's eyebrows rose.
"It screams because of what I've seen. What you're about to do."
The words hung between them. Around them, the retinue continued their march, unaware of the weight of the conversation unfolding in their midst.
Bjorn was quiet for a long moment, his boots were crunching against the frost-hardened earth. "You have the sight," he said finally, his voice low enough that only the seer could hear. "And i really mean it, true sight, not the fumbling of lesser seers. You could stop this if you chose to."
"Could I?" The seer's head tilted slightly, as if listening to voices that existed beyond the realm of the living.
"You know what I plan to do. You saw it in your visions. You even spoke of it, even if it didn't make sense at that time." Bjorn's voice grew harder. "You have the power to prevent it. All you need to do is tell one person."
The seer was quiet for several steps, his breathing labored in the cooling air. "What the gods allowed me to see will come to pass."
He continued. "When men come to me seeking knowledge of their fate, do you know what I tell them each of them?"
Bjorn raised his eyebrows, giving no answer whatsoever, and he just waited for him to finish.
"Do you think knowing the future means you can change it?" The seer's voice carried a bitter edge. "A man may know that winter comes, but he cannot stop the snow from falling. He may know that death approaches, but he cannot turn the blade aside once the Norns have chosen his thread for cutting."
The question hung in the air between them, and Bjorn had no ready answer.
Ahead, Uppsala's sacred groves came into view, the massive ash trees that had stood since the world was young, their branches heavy with the bones and offerings of countless generations.
The procession had moved ahead of them now, and in the growing dusk, the two figures stood alone on the road, the young Earl with crazy planning, and the blind seer who could see too much. Above them, the first stars began to appear, they were cold and distant... just like the eyes of uncaring gods.
"The vision comes to me every night now," the seer continued, his voice growing stronger, more terrible. "I see you standing before the great temple. I see the screams of the priests. The cries of men. The deaths. But most of all, I see the moment when you realize what you have truly done. Severing something that can never be restored."
Bjorn wondered. "And yet you say nothing to stop it."
"We are merely walking toward our appointed places in a story that was written before the world began."
They resumed walking, their footsteps now the only sound in the gathering darkness.
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The burial mounds rose from the snow as if they were some king of sleeping giants. As the procession wound past them, Ragnar gestured toward the three largest with his hand.
"You see those? The Yngling kings sleep there. The greatest rulers Sweden ever knew"
Athelstan's eyes followed the gesture to the massive stone-crowned mounds. "Which kings?"
"Aun the Old in the first one," Ragnar's voice carried across the column of marching men. "They say he lived two hundred years by sacrificing his nine sons to Odin. One son for ten more years of life. He was terrified of everything, battle, death. By the end, he could no longer move, they had to feed him milk like a baby."
"When death finally took him, they buried him here with all the ceremony due a king. But the songs remember what he was, a coward who chose years over honor."
They passed the second mound, weapons thrust into the earth around its base like a steel garden.
"Egil the Fierce," Ragnar continued without slowing. "Now this one is a true warrior. He fought wars from Norway to Saxony (German tribes, not the English men) until a sacrificial bull gored him right here at Uppsala."
The largest mound loomed ahead, its peak glittering with gold ornaments.
"And Adils the Magnificent. Richest king who ever lived, clever enough to outwit Hrólfr Kraki of the Danes. He won the great battle on the ice of Lake Vänern against Áli of Upplands from Norway." Ragnar's horse stepped carefully around a frozen puddle. "They say his grave ring is worth more than most kingdoms."
"Three very different men," Athelstan observed.
"Three different paths to the same destination." Ragnar's expression grew thoughtful as the mounds fell behind them. "The coward who lived too long, the warrior who died gloriously, the clever one who understood power."
Bjorn added form the side, "Ironic, isn't it? A warrior who scorns cowards, a clever one who smile at them both… and yet...here they lie, sharing a bed even after death. I wonder what each of them would think of this."
The temple spires of Uppsala appeared ahead through the trees, and the conversation died as they reached their destination.
As they neared the temple grounds, the valley opened into a sprawl of life. Tents stretched in every direction, their colors were muted by smoke from hundreds of cooking fires. The air itself seemed to thicken, carrying the scent of roasting meat and burning wood.
Crowds churned, nobles in fine wool, traders hawking beads from distant lands, children darting through the chaos.
As they approached the temple, attendants waited with the patient expressions of men who had performed this duty many times before. They wore simple robes, but Bjorn noticed the quality of the cloth, the silver pins that held their cloaks. It seems the temple service paid well at Uppsala.
"Name?" The first attendant asked.
"Bjorn, son of Ragnar Lothbrok, And Earl of Kattegat."
The man's eyebrows rose slightly. Now that's a name he keeps hearing a lot lately. "Number in your retinue?"
"Fighting men, thralls, women, one seer, one..." Bjorn paused, glancing back at Athelstan. "One scholar. Less than fifty."
Another set question. "And your offerings to the gods?"
Bjorn had spent days considering what to bring, what statement to make. Too little and he would appear weak. Too much and he might seem desperate to prove himself.
"Silver and gold brought from the west. Iron weapons forged by the best smiths in Kategatt. Furs from the northern territories." He paused, then gestured toward his stallion. "And my personal horse. And the contribution of my people."
The attendant's nodded slowly now. The horse alone was worth more than most jarls brought to Uppsala. The silver from the west carried additional weight, evidence of successful raids on the new lands.
"The horse will be examined by the temple masters," the attendant said. "If found suitable, it will be accepted."
They passed through the gate and entered the sacred precinct proper. The noise of the outer camps faded, replaced by a different kind of tension. Here, conversations happened in whispers. Eyes watched and measured and remembered.
Banners marked out territories like claims on a battlefield. Bjorn recognized most of them, from the Norwegian lands, and the rest he heard about them, the raven of the Danes, the wolf of the Geats, the tree of the Swedes. Others were unfamiliar, probably from the far northern territories or the eastern settlements.
Small groups clustered around their leaders, their voices were low with the kind of talk that decided the fate of kingdoms. Bjorn caught fragments as he passed: "...the spring raids..." "...my daughter is of age..." "...if they move north again..."
Weathered elders sat on wooden benches that had been placed in a rough circle around the temple steps. Their faces tracked each new arrival with the calculating interest of men who had spent lifetimes reading the political currents of their world. Bjorn recognized some of them from his past life, King Horik's law speaker or advisor, as the show never really said who he was.
A jarl near one of the fire pits looked up as Bjorn passed. His gaze swept over Bjorn's men especially, counting their weapons, assessing them.
Bjorn's gaze also found Guthrom, from Vestfold, the one associated with Halfdan the black.
Guthrom also saw him, and he made a show of drinking from his goblet as Bjorn approached, then deliberately poured half the contents onto the ground.
Under normal circumstances, such disrespect would have demanded immediate satisfaction of steel drawn and blood spilled within moments.
But Uppsala was sacred ground. Violence here would bring the gods' wrath down on entire bloodlines. So Bjorn simply smiled, it was a really genuine smile, then nodded to the man as if he had offered a toast, and continued walking.
The temple itself loomed ahead, its wooden walls were dark with age. Carvings covered every surface, they were of gods and monsters, trees and serpents, all intertwined in patterns that hurt the eye to follow too closely.
It was also gilded with gold chains, topped by a roof resembling a ship's keel.
The great doors stood open, and they entered.
Inside was a massive space, Bjorn estimated that it could hold to a few hundred men inside.
The first of the priests appeared. They did not smile, nor call out in welcome.
They waited, bare-headed, white linen robes marked by streaks of dried blood. Each man carried a bowl.
The line shuffled forward. A priest dipped two fingers into the thick liquid, then flicked it across the face of the newcomer, the brow, the cheeks, sometimes the lips.
Bjorn stepped up when his turn came. The priest's fingers struck his brow; the drops were cool at first, then warm as they ran down the ridges of his face. The metallic scent filled his nose and settled in his chest.
One by one the men of Kattegat were marked, Rollo, Floki, then Ragnar, then the rest.
Behind them came Athelstan, who is now quiet and pale.
When the priest's eyes found Athelstan, his hand paused. The bowl tilted; the dark surface broke in a slow ripple.
For a beat the priest did not move, and the room seemed to tighten around that single motion. Then, finally he looked up and flicked his fingers on Athelstan and the blood ran down the ridges of his face.